1. NastyNet’s contributor Joel Holmberg unearths pups & order – a revelation that the Law & Order theme song has a disturbing effect for housedogs around the globe. Could it be that there are high-pitched musical tones that  only dogs can hear? …or are they sick of their owners watching multiple episodes back-to-back? See the full collection here.

2. A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter - “A physical sculpture that is perpetually trying to auction itself on eBay.”  The black box is currently for auction. If you are the winner of the auction, you have to agree to the terms of the sculpture which entail plugging it into an ethernet network upon arrival. Once the object is plugged in, it will automatically initiate a new eBay auction so that it can be collected by someone else. The artist Caleb Larson was interviewed at On the Media, which you can listen to here.

3. Paris, 2007 by Tim Schwartz.
I can’t remember how I ended up on this site, but it features Tim Schwatrz’s interesting data visualization graphics and sculptures. I like the simplicity of the one above: an odometer that distinguishes if Paris the city or Paris the personality are receiving greater network traffic.  See more here.

Top: Architects Thierry W. Despont and Richard Meier discuss the pros and cons of carpet in art galleries. Clip taken from Concert of Wills–Making the Getty Center.

Bottom: Sacha Baron Cohen as Jean Gerrard in Talladega Nights.

As my boyfriend noted, Talladega Nights–The Ballad of Ricky Bobby has become my family’s It’s a Wonderful Life at the holidays. Over the past three Christmases, we have seen the Will Ferrell Nascar movie five times, and my parents own two copies. Our familiarity with the material had us cracking up during the recent MoMA screening of Concert of Wills. Perhaps you have to experience the tension of the movie to find the humor in the above comparison.

For anyone who has struggled with design-by-committee and/or control freaks, I highly recommend this documentary about the making of the Getty Center, which is available here: http://www.getty.edu/bookstore/titles/concert.html.

The crux of the matter is that Internet usage and television viewing are not mutually exclusive activities.  Below, we show an example of the equipment setup within a home.  On the right, there is a computer connected to the Internet.  On the left, the television is tuned to a Gloria Estefan music video on a cable television channel.  This is multi-tasking, or parallel processing.  Just because we don’t have the time to do everything we want to doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to give something up.  We can try to do everything at the same time.  In fact, if we spend a long time on the Internet, the television set on the side may be left on longer than ever.

(…)the Internet and traditional television may converge into a single medium.  If you look at the photo above, there are two video screens that look rather similar.  There are no compelling reasons, either technological or economical, for keeping them apart.  The prospects for convergence are in fact good.

I only stumbled on Zona Latina while writing this post. But it definitely foreshadowed this “water-cooler” effect.

I have recently started an online index called “Unknown Unknowns” in which I keep a daily log of all of the google trends from the previous day. After entering these terms, I write definitions for them from the top of my head based on my personal experience, things I’ve heard or my own ignorance to the subject. Frustrated with the cultural implications of information being chained to pre-determined relevance, my inspiration is Gustave Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas where he aimed to create an encylopedia that satirized clichés endemic to French Society.

In undertaking the project, I had assumed that I would have some familiarity with the things showing up in Google trends. But this is not the case. I feel like I did when my school had a few of us in 6th grade take the SAT just for kicks. My eyes glaze over in a similar way to when I stared at the bubble patterns on the scantron form. But this time, instead of it being Calculus formulas that I don’t understand, I am out in the cold because I don’t watch much television.

When I do know what the term means, I am perplexed as to why it became a popular search query. An example: The term “Shakespeare trilogy” became a popular topic of interest around 4pm, making it a top search query for February 22. My guess: Were student’s cheating on a test? – a standardized test that all middle school students had to take at the same time and they all had access to iphones and were cheating.

My hypothesis proved to be incorrect. Through a non-native English speaking web site titled “Global News,” I found this juicy bit of information posted by “smith” :

Sony Pictures United States arranged a Jeopardy Quiz Show which is a famous show through out the world. It is also termed as the top most quiz demonstrate of the United States.

This show got a big media buzz. The famous daily newspaper of United States – New York Times and The Jeopardy had joined hands for the last four years and the New York Times gave Clue of the Day. The answer to the question in Shakespeare Trilogy has been shown in the Jeopardy Show. This all was shown in the electronic as well as print media, as the TV channels as well as most of the newspapers gave stories in their next day issues.

If internet searches are skewed based on what people are looking for, perhaps we need a new search engine for people who don’t watch television.

Referenced articles:
Water-Cooler Effect: Internet Can be TV’s Friend, The New York Times
Shakespeare Trilogy, Global News
Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web, Wired
The Impact of Internet on Television Viewing, Zona Latina

Yesterday’s “On the Media” featured Chris Suellentrop whose article in this month’s Wired describes how virtual football games like Madden NFL are emulated in real games instead of the reverse.

Well, the Broncos are on the 13-yard line, their own 13-yard line.

[GAME HUBBUB]

The quarterback drops back to pass. He heaves this somewhat desperation toss downfield. It gets deflected into the air –

[CHEERS]

- lands into the outstretched arms of a Bronco’s wide receiver, Brandon Stokley, who streaks toward the end zone for the winning touchdown.

[LOUD CHEERS]

And that was an amazing play, known as the “immaculate deflection.” But more remarkable than the funny bounce is that Stokley cuts right across the field horizontally and lets about six seconds drain off the clock before meandering into the end zone, because no one was near him to tackle him. And, at that moment, for a certain brand of football fan, the video game-playing football fan, you were, like, holy cow, did he just pull off a video game move?

When I asked Stokley that question directly, he said, yeah, of course that was a video game move.

Background to Joselit lecture:
Information is networked, the hierarchical system consists of nodes that are interconnected. Removal of one node will lead to regeneration of connections in other parts of the network. (ex: Al-Qaeda terrorist network, MasterCard database, google database). The networks are enmeshed to such an extent  that recent cyberattacks on Google allegedly conducted from China pose a National Security threat to the U.S.

Joselit began the lecture with the ways value is attributed to art.

Value=scarcity

Joselit used the example of a Picasso painting, the one of a kind, the object.
In his exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Jeffrey Valance created latrines for kitsch objects such as Tiki Soap-an-a-rope, pasties from a Las Vegas dancer, boxer briefs, etc. Each object is accompanied by a two paragraph narrative description of the artist’s relationship to the object. Unlike Duchamp’s readymades, Valance uses the sculptural container and text to apply sentimental value to the mass produced object.

Jeffrey Vallance Coral in the Shape of Tiki 2007 Mixed media 9 1/2 x 6 3/8 x 3 3/4 inches 24.1 x 16.2 x 9.5 cm

Installed throughout the gallery’s main space, Vallance’s ‘Relics and Reliquaries,’ are sculptures that irreverently sanctify seemingly banal objects of personal significance to the artist in small intricately crafted cabinets that recall traditional Catholic reliquaries. A single broken Christmas light is lovingly enshrined in a small box crowned with a cross; a ’soap-on-a-rope’ in the shape of the Polynesian God Tiki reclines in an intricately carved vessel lined with velvet. Each reliquary is installed with a corresponding plaque that gives the reason and context for its importance to Vallance.

However, art is not scarce. (i.e. the size and number of international art fairs, artists who use mass production such as Warhol and Sherrie Levine)

The artist is scarce –
When the art object is easily mass produced, the artist “process” becomes the scarcity. The artist is valued as a service worker. This occurs when the artist is invited to make “site-specific” work.

(This is not a real HSBC advertisement, but refers to an inside joke between a friend and me explained below.)

I attended the Gelitin show at Greene Naftali. The Austrian installation artists were blind-folded and building a sculpture in the space. Audiences were invited to watch the artists throughout the process and witness the construction. The blind-folding element was brilliant. Not because it raises the audience’s suspense for their personal safety like many of Gelitin’s haphazard constructions (normally insurance waivers must to be signed before entering). Instead, the blindfolds objectify the artists as service providers, or site-specific art-workers. The blindfolds prevent the artists from interacting directly with the audience, they can not see what they are doing nor anyone in the room. In addition, they are dressed in lingerie and stilettos, a facet that insures the gaze of the audience is directed to them as objects and not the art object they are creating.

The inside HSBC ad joke being that my friend thought the actual sculpture they were making was “old fashioned.” An apt point.

Information=Information

Dan Graham, Figurative, 1965

Value=Meaning
David Joselit  introduced the concept of data in conceptual art with the slide above of Dan Graham’s magazine advertisement entitled “Figurative” from 1965. The numbers represent a found receipt and the placement was determined by the editorial. The data on the page is only data, but in its juxtaposition between a Warner bra ad and a Tampax ad suggests many other readings (masculine vs. feminine.) The title leaves this open as well.

From this work, Joselit went to the idea that information changes from state to state and meaning moves with the object. Examples in contemporary art:

• Appropriation (LHOOQ, Duchamp’s appropriation of Mona Lisa)
• Reenactment (Marina Aabramovic’s  reenactments “Seven Easy Pieces”)
• Avatar (Pierre Huyghe’s No ghost just a shell)
• Platform (Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Pavilions, relational aesthetics)
• Workshops
• Form defined by the program, profile, silhouette (Rem Koolhaas, OMA)

To be continued after next Joselit installment Feb. 16.

Influenced by my medium, my source materials and subject matter became historical, “dead” things- quite literally. I chose to research séances at the White House, which happens to be a subject matter rich with material.

I discovered a New York Times archive where Harry Houdini was the key “prosecutor” in a hearing to regulate clairvoyants. Houdini’s assistant testified in court that a spiritualist by the name of Mrs. Jane Coates had told her privately that she held séances with President Coolidge’s family as well as four senators on Capitol Hill.

I decided to letterpress the headline in a style as close to the original format as my beginner stages would take me.

I have found many more leads to the séance subject matter including the Lincolns, the Reagans, the Clintons. Ironically, after he proclaimed in court that all séances were gimmicks, Houdini’s wife held séances at his grave, confirming my suspicions he was jealous of their market share.

50 cent

Hipster wearing Bullet-proof T-shirt from Dynomighty

Related:
Protect Yourself From Ballistic Attacks
Also, see my article in the current issue of The Baffler, “Keep Your Executive Bonus and Avoid Ballistic Attacks”

Basic Training. 1971. USA. Directed by Frederick Wiseman. Image courtesy of Zipporah Films

Today I went to MoMA to see Frederick Wiseman’s “Basic Training.” The film is a 90 minute edit from about 90 hours of footage shot during summer training at Fort Knox at the height of the Vietnam War.

Wiseman was present to answer questions. The biggest secret revealed – how did he get access to the Army and permission to shoot the film? Answer: He asked.

An eager student sitting in the back asked Wiseman what he thought about reality shows. Wiseman responded that he watched one once for a couple of minutes. The question was dismissed. (Clearly Wiseman didn’t get the update from the New Yorker review of the MTV reality show “Jersey Shore” by Nancy Franklin this week.)

Witnessing the intimacy of the scenes and situations he captures in Fort Knox,  you can not help but think about how reality is manipulated in all documentation. It made me wonder how difficult it must be for Wiseman to capture the same courtesy and starkness in scenes from his recent work considering his new “non-actors”  have been exposed to years of reality television. I feel that if “Basic Training” were made today, the privates would be more inclined to act out in front of the camera (in 1970 they seem a bit camera shy).

The documentation of non-actors or “real” people came up in a later question when Wiseman was asked how he was able to capture the personal conversations without the subjects being distracted by the film camera. His response was that people like being photographed and it is true that they act differently in front of he camera. For him, this is an aspect that he desires, because often people think they are acting the way you want them to. But in the end, they are acting in a way that is more revealing about their ideas of themselves and what other people think they should be. His example was a cop he was filming in St. Louis who strangled a prostitute for 30 seconds to “teach her a lesson” about pushing a cop down two flights of stairs (which she had done moments earlier to evade arrest). In Wiseman’s view, the officer was doing this to appear tough, because he then explained that the legal penalties for prostitution in St. Louis  were rather light – $50 fine. Rather than being on better behavior the way the “Basic Training” sergeants appear (little cursing, little yelling), the cops were on worse behavior so as to appear powerful and in control.

In reference to this point and all of the questions directed at his seamless editing, it is a shame, yet understandable, that Wiseman did not humor the questioner by citing the similarities his work shares with reality television. In Reality TV the subjects think they are real, in Wiseman’s films, the over-educated MoMA film audience and PBS watcher think the films are real.

“Basic Training” plays again at MoMA on January 30.

When you’re done at Fred Segel, grab a latte, get on a bus, and go look at the slums.

Until recently we had to travel to other countries to relate to the poor as a tourist destination. Now thanks to clever entrepreneurs on our home soil, we too can offer these titillating tours. An interesting article about a new venture in slum tourism in the U.S. in today’s New York Times: On Los Angeles Bus Tour, an Insider View of Gang Life.

To object to slum tourism is to have hope that social programs will receive more investment to better these communities and inhabitants. Clearly that has not been the case, resulting in a wide open business opportunity for local entrepreneurs. Most people offended by the specificity in marketing  ”Slum Tourism” seem to be in denial of the fact that most tourism is an act of voyeurism and exploitation on the less fortunate. see NYT: The 31 Places to Go in 2010 – Sri Lanka rates #1:

For a quarter century, Sri Lanka seems to have been plagued by misfortune, including a brutal civil war between the Sinhalese-dominated government and a separatist Tamil group. But the conflict finally ended last May, ushering in a more peaceful era for this teardrop-shaped island off India’s coast, rich in natural beauty and cultural splendors

…or perhaps you prefer Mumbai:

On the one-year anniversary of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, citizens painted a one-kilometer stretch of wall in South Mumbai with murals to show their love and hope for the city.

In a city like Los Angeles that has endured two major riots and where the erasure of public space and lack of public transit between the west and east has “protected” the affluent from the poor (see City of Quartz by Mike Davis), it is ironic that there appears to be a lucrative market for gazing at the extreme poverty exacerbated by this isolation. If we criticize the act of gazing at the poor, it seems in this example at least, it is the poor gazing back at the tour (quite literally):

The few people who were outside that project when the bus passed paid it no mind, except for one woman who stared, mouth agape.

Previous example in U.S.:

Hurricaine Katrina tours:

from Gray Line Hurricane Katrina Tour web site: We’ll drive past an actual levee that “breached” and see the resulting devastation that displaced hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents.

Last night I attended the Rhizome Commissions presentations at New Museum. I was greatly amused by Kristin Lucas’s presentation of her project Versionhood where she is exploring copies, re-births, refreshes, and emulations. (Personal bias note: recently I dreamt I was in New Mexico with another Angie Waller who was a cop.) Lucas’s work inspires me in her inexhaustible experiments in applying terms of our digital lives to our interpersonal relationships and anxieties. I look forward to the release of her book journaling the complete project.

Speaking of versions and body doubles, one of the groups presenting screened a video of their project with voiceovers describing their work while they, the sources of the voices, sat in silence. Creepy.

Last night I also attended the opening for Iannis Xenakis at the Drawing Center. The scores are visually quite stunning. Perhaps there is an equation to decipher the relationship between visual and aural beauty.