Ethan Ham

Martin John Callanan's "A Planetary Order"

2009-06-30T10:45:00.002-04:00

This image shows 3D computer model and not the finished globe

Martin John Callanan has created A Planetary Order (Terrestrial Cloud Globe) as part of his residency at University College London's Environment Institute.

Callanan writes:

A Planetary Order is a terrestrial globe showing clouds from one single moment in time, thereby subtly highlighting the fragility and interdependence of the Earth’s environmental systems.

The launch party for A Planetary Order and Extraordinary Clouds (a book by Richard Hamblyn, the writer-in-residence at the Institute) is today (June 30th) in the University College London's main quadrangle at Gower Street at 6:30 pm.

Related posts:

Mike Patterson's "Commuter"

2009-06-29T09:00:00.004-04:00

Commuter (1981), Mike Patterson

Commuter is the Student Academy Award winning animation by Mike Patterson. Patterson is the animator behind Ah-Ha's groundbreaking Take On Me music video.

If you haven't already seen it, the "literal" version of Take On Me is worth a few chuckles: "Band Montage!"

[via BBV]

TPG: Stephanie Dean's "Still Life with Strawberries"

2009-06-25T09:09:00.003-04:00

Still Life with Strawberries (edition of 50) by Stephanie Dean is the latest offering by The Present Group.

The Present Group is an art subscription service--subscribers receive 4 contemporary artworks per year. Benjamin Rosenbaum and my Anthroptic was TPG's premiere issue.

Stephanie on the Modern Groceries Series:

I am creating a series of still life photographs focusing on the way our purchased food is packaged and consumed. By setting common foods in their packaging and labeling direct from the grocery store into traditional nature mort compositions, our most common and necessary items of life -- food -- are jolted into historical focus. The viewers’ various degrees of knowledge of Dutch still life paintings will be the measure by which the photographs will either found or further the perceived rift between ourselves and nature, and ourselves and our food sources.

DIY residencies in DIY stores

2009-06-24T09:20:00.002-04:00

splash

tout terrain

matin d'automne

Paul Souviron and Antoine Lejolivet's Encastrable series is guerrilla art "residencies"/interventions at Paris-area megastores--mainly Home Depot like places. The artists create amusing tableaus using the materials stocked by the store.

[via WWMNA]

Story that takes 1,000 years to read

2009-06-22T15:29:00.003-04:00

Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats responds to the hyper-fast media cycles by writing a story that will take a millennium to tell.

His story is printed on a the cover of Opium Magazine. When exposed to the sun's ultraviolet light, the words will become visible at the rate of one word per century. Of course, that rate is subject to variation based upon the eroding ozone layer (or taking an ultraviolet lamp to it).

[via Wired via Jason Kottke]

Jamie O'Shea's "3:2"

2009-06-18T08:20:00.002-04:00

9:40 am Jan 9 (2:30 am Jan 11) double exposure, actual time vs imagined time

Jamie O'Shea writes:

3:2 was an experiment in time travel. On Jan 01 2008 at 12:00 am central, I sealed myself in a room with a slow clock, artificial day and night, and delayed internet. I remained in this artificial time warp until January 19th your time, or January 13th my time. I am now living forever in the future.

last bit of sunlight as room is sealed off

Artificial Sun and Delayed Outside feed

The Small Glass (after Duchamp)

2009-06-16T15:06:00.003-04:00

It was an inadvertent intervention... but I like it (and it does still work).

Mars in Crayons

2009-06-15T09:25:00.001-04:00

Back from my honeymoon! Starting today I'll be blogging at my normal pace (e.g., about 3 posts per week). Here's an interesting story that I originally came across on Boing Boing Gadgets posting... but the real details were provided by a comment by Dan Goods in response to the BBG post.

Dan Goods wrote:

Howdy... I co-curated the "Data + Art" show that this was in and interviewed Richard Grumm who is the one who made the image (his initials "RLG" can be seen in the lower right hand corner). The original JPL description is a little outdated...The story is that mangers for the mission were unsure if the tape recorder on Mariner 4 was working correctly.

After the flyby of the planet it would take several hours for the computers to process a real image. There had been some anomalous errors pointing towards the tape recorder so everyone was a little freaked out that they were not going to get any images. So Mr. Grumm, who oversaw the tape recorder, and his crew decided to prove one way or the other. The engineers thought of different ways of taking the 1’s and 0's from the actual data to create an image and decided that printing out the digits and coloring over them was the most efficient.

So Mr. Grumm went to a local art store and was looking for a set of chalk in different grays. The art store replied that they "did not sell chalk" (as that was too low for them, only convenience stores sold "chalk"), but they did have colored pastels. Richard did not want to spend a lot of time arguing with them, so he just picked them up, printed out the 1's and 0's and his team colored them by their brightness level. Though he used a brown/red color scheme the thought that mars was red did not enter his mind. He really was looking for the colors that best represented a grey scale, since that was what they were going to get anway. It is uncanny how close to the actual colors of mars he was as they look like they came right out of current images of the planet. I've seen some of the other color schemes he tried and it could have been green or purple!

Continue reading on Dan Goods's blog.

Blog vacation ends in mid-June

2009-05-26T12:09:00.002-04:00

Any regular readers out there may have noticed I've been not updating my blog much lately. The habit fell off due to wedding preparations (I'm getting married this Saturday!). I'll pick the pace up again when I return from my honeymoon.

Thanks for reading!

CCNY Electronic Design BFA Thesis Show

2009-05-08T17:08:00.003-04:00

This is the post card for my students' thesis show... The opening reception is at the City College of New York, 1617 Amsterdam Ave (at W. 140th) on May 19th, 5-7 pm.

R. Luke DuBois's "More Perfect Union"

2009-05-06T09:40:00.000-04:00

R. Luke DuBois has an interesting Rhizome Commission proposal. His More Perfect Union creates averaged photos of online dating participants as categorized by congressional district.

DuBois writes:

According to a 2006 Pew Research Report, 20 million Americans make use of online dating services, and nearly a third of Americans know someone who has used one to find a partner. In the three years since this report was published, this number has surely only increased, and represents a significant trend in how people find romantic connection in the Internet age. As a specialized form of social networking, online dating is a well-established and well-studied phenomenon in the United States, dating back to computer dating services in the late 1970s. A significant part of the ritual of online dating consists of preparing a profile, in which you describe yourself, your personality, habits, hobbies, tastes, and, on most services, include an image of yourself. You also use the service's API to describe (either in narrative or using multiple-choice fields) what you feel your want in a romantic partner. Online dating forces us to engage in a vulnerable act of articulating our self-identity in a semi-public forum for the express purpose of being wanted, and to read a thoughtful dating profile is to read the precarious expression of someone else's desires.

A More Perfect Union consists of a large hybrid artwork based around the information found on online dating sites in the United States. I've already begun studying this data, downloading 16.7 million online dating profiles this summer and studying the information for artistic inspiration. The project takes the form of a census, where the profiles are sorted by zip code and placed into the appropriate U.S. Congressional District. The profiles from these districts are then analyzed for trends and will incorporate text, statistics, maps, and imagery drawing from the photos people include in their dating profiles, derived in inspiration from the gestalt image work current in computer graphics (image morphing), but dating all the way back to Francis Galton's composite portraits, made in the 19th Century.

Incidentally, you can see my own Rhizome Commission proposal here.

Edith Kollath's "disport."

2009-05-04T13:50:00.001-04:00

Edith Kollath has a series of works about breathing. Here's her disport. (2009, mixed media installation):

Kollath writes about disport.:

As you approach this room installation (diameter app. 14'2", height app. 10'6") you'll recognize an organic movement resembling a breath movement executed by free-flowing textiles. These textiles form a cell, which is based on the shape of a pentagon. Its walls consist of white transparent chiffons organized in layers within a trapezoid. Each trapezoid module continually slides away from the center and returns again in a regular rhythm. Opening - closing, inhale - exhale.... Simultaneously, the light inserted in the central pentagon shape shifts from a warmer darker tone to a brighter cooler white.

You are invited to enter the cell. How do you perceive the room, how do you perceive yourself? How does the cell affect the encounters with other people? By creating an immersive accessible room installation fully controlled by an Arduino Microcontroller I explore phenomenological questions.

David Horvitz’s "For 2009, Idea Subscription__"

2009-04-28T14:55:00.000-04:00

David Horvitz's For 2009, Idea Subscription__ is a nice participatory project. Horvitz writes:

For all of 2009 I will send out small texts of simple instructional ideas through the mailing list below. I will also post screenshots of them on this tumblr page. These will not be done everyday, only when i feel like it and have access to the internet. But the attempt will be to do them everyday. You can also receive these in the postal mail.

One such instruction is to take a photo of your head in a freezer and post it online and tag it with 241543903:

Image: 241543903 from flickr user .y.a.r.a.

Image: 241543903 from flickr user hugotsantos

Image: 241543903 from flickr user hubs

There certainly been work like this before (see my earlier post on Yono Oko, Erwin Wurm, and Miranda July & Harrell Fletcher), but there's certainly room for more.

Oddly, my graduate sculpture class's recreation of a recreation of an Erwin Wurm "Sculpture to Embarrass" looks strikingly like the image above (below left is from an Erwin Wurm monography, below right from my class):

[via Ceci Moss on Rhizome]

My Rhizome commission proposal

2009-04-20T20:07:00.003-04:00

Every year Rhizome selects several proposed networked artwork proposal to commission. This year, seven commissions will be selected by a jury and two commissions will be selected by Rhizome members.

Here is my proposal.

Peter Funch's "Babel Tales"

2009-04-14T08:27:00.004-04:00

I love these composited photographs by Peter Funch.

See the entire Babel Tales series.

[via BoingBoing]

Californian Solipsism

2009-04-13T10:13:00.004-04:00

This is an old Paramount Studios' map showing how California can be used for location shooting.

[via Lee Moyer]

Paddy Johnson on Jenny Holtzer

2009-04-09T09:15:00.000-04:00

Paddy Johnson has an interesting essay on Jenny Holtzer in L Magazine. The essay begins:

"Jenny Holzer is the patron saint of Twitter", at least according to the latest web meme. I assume we're all obliquely referencing Holzer's survey exhibition PROTECT PROTECT at the Whitney -- bloggers include the show’s link with the quip -- but in doing so, we lump four decades worth of work into the few Truisms that fit into Twitter's 140-character limit. Certainly, the artist fails to benefit from this description.

Read the rest of the essay

Read my earlier (very brief) post about Jenny Holzer's alleged (a commenter said that it isn't really Holzer) twittering.

Mungo Thomson: The Varieties Of Experience

2009-04-01T09:35:00.003-04:00

From the description at John Connelly Presents:

Thomson’s 16mm film, The Varieties Of Experience, was made by using Nam Jun Paik’s Zen For Film (1962-64) as a negative. Zen for Film consists of a length of clear 16mm film leader projecting a rectangle of pure white. Over time, the celluloid collects dust from the space of its exhibition; this dust is projected as brown and black smudges on the otherwise white image. Dust is largely composed of human cells, and in this way the audience of Paik's work has literally become embedded in it over several decades. Thomson worked with the NJP estate to procure a "dirty" copy of the film and to use it as a negative from which to make a new print. The new film is an inversion of the original: a black film with the dust printed as white specks and clouds--a moving starscape, where the stars are composed of dust (and people) instead of the other way around.

Visit my earlier posting to see Nam Jun Paik's Zen For Film

[via John Michael Boling at Rhizome]

Tumbarumba info sheet

2009-03-31T09:01:00.003-04:00

As mentioned in my previous post, Tumbarumba is being included in the Stranger Than Fiction show at Synthetic Zero this Saturday (April 4th, 2009).

Above is an info sheet about Tumbarumba that I created for as a flyer for the gallery. Click here to download it as an Adobe Acrobat file.

Stranger than Fiction event: April 4th

2009-03-27T08:12:00.003-04:00

I am giving a presentation about Tumbarumba as part of an exciting interdisciplinary, one-night (Saturday April 4th) event that Laura Napier is curating at the Synthetic Zero Art Space.

The event includes presentations and work by Yasmine Alwan, Sergio Bessa, Melissa A Calderón, Ethan Ham, Jane Hsu, Edwin Torres and Spanic Attack, and Angie Waller.

Laura Napier writes:

The movie Stranger than Fiction is about an author who is literally writing a real person's life as it happens. The event Stranger than Fiction features interdisciplinary art and literary work that fictionalizes: it follows the lives of strangers, disorients while browsing the internet, uses social networks in ways not originally intended, refers to new schools of thought, and is cryptically dispensed and dispersed. The installation of Stranger than Fiction is artifacts and archives related to the event: a networked computer, video, photographs, signage, a manuscript, clothing, supplemental books, and a comfy couch.

sneaky preview: Wednesday, April 1, 5-9pm (for the Bronx Culture Trolley)
presentations: Saturday, April 4, 5pm
viewing by appointment only through April 23. Please call 646.220.0716

synthetic zero art space
305 East 140th St #1a
Bronx, NY 10454
syntheticzero.com

from Manhattan: uptown 6 train to 138th St (first stop in the Bronx after 125). Exit front of train; turn left at the token booth. You are on Alexander Avenue! Walk past police precinct two blocks to 140th St. and turn left - 305 is on a paper sign in the glass door, buzz 1A.

Gender representation in this blog

2009-03-24T08:40:00.003-04:00

After writing my Ada Lovelace Day Post, I wondered how often I post about woman during the other 364 days. So I did a quick count of my posts going back to mid-October 2008.

Roughly, my posts broke down this way:

64 (54%) featured a man or artwork created by a man
24 (20%) featured a woman or artwork created by a woman
17 (14%) featured my own artwork or ideas
13 (11%) were gender neutral

Ada Lovelace Day: Sabrina Raaf

2009-03-24T08:03:00.004-04:00

"I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same."

Today is Ada Lovelace Day--the day to blog about a woman who works in technology. I'm one of 1,680 folks who pledged to do so. I chose Sabrina Raaf to write about. Raaf is a Chicago-based artist who works in experimental sculptural media and photography.

Raaf's Translator II: Grower 2004-6 (v2) is a robotic artwork that is activated by chance.

The robot navigates around the perimeter of a room, hugging the walls. A sensor near the ceiling detects the room’s CO2 level and transmits the information to the robot. Every few seconds the robot draws a vertical green line on the wall--the higher the level of carbon dioxide, the taller the line. The lines become both a representation of grass and a bar graph tracking the amount of carbon dioxide in the room over time. The act of observing the artwork literally changes it.

Raaf writes:

The height of the ‘grass’ directly reflects on the human activity or traffic in the space. The more people that visit that space, the more amenable that space is to my machine’s ability to create. This piece therefore makes visible how art institutions depend on their visitors to make them ‘healthy’ spaces for new art to evolve and flourish within.

Anthropomorph

2009-03-18T15:50:00.003-04:00

Occasionally the facial recognition software used in my Self-Portrait project will find a face in an inanimate object. This became the basis of Anthroptic, my collaboration with Benjamin Rosenbaum.

I noticed this one (the photo above) the other day and particularly liked it. Sometimes I cannot see what the facial recognition software is finding, but in this case it's pretty clear.

Sam Hseih

2009-03-18T09:45:00.000-04:00

For those who missed it, the NY Times has a nice write up on Tehching "Sam" Hseih earlier in the month. Don't miss the slide show.

Also, MIT Press just came out with Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh

Earlier posts on Hseih:

One Year Performances
MTAA's One Year Performance (aka samHsiehUpdate)
Tehching "Sam" Hsieh exhibition at MoMA

"Self-Portrait" at Root Division

2009-03-13T13:07:00.002-04:00

My Self-Portrait project (which was a 2006 Turbulence.org commission) is being included in the Algorithmia show at at the Root Division gallery in San Francisco. The show runs March 11-28th with the opening reception on Saturday March 14th.

From the show's statement:

This exhibition explores the relationship between math, science, programming, and the effect these have on our relationship to the changing world around us both. However, unlike many math oriented shows of the past, this exhibition does not draw the line at simply defining algorithm as only the use of mathematical equation, but rather opens up the door to a broad array of artistic interpretations to what this means, both literal and conceptually referential.