Thursday, July 24, 2008

HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME






When: Saturday, July 26, 2008, 9 pm – 2 am
Where: The Victory Grill, 1104 E 11 Street, Austin, TX 78702

Cost: $5 suggested donation at the door, $5 raffle tickets, $5 dance-off tickets

The Texas Biennial is excited to announce, ‘Hot Fun in the Summertime’, a dance party fundraiser event at the Victory Grill on SATURDAY, JULY 26TH from 9 pm to 2 am. As it is summertime and we know Austin loves a good dance party, we will be entertaining crowds with Austin bands, {{{SUNSET}}}, VC Chldkrft, and a long DJ set from MEN-R-G. In addition, the Texas Biennial has paired with the Austin Video Bee and will have the pleasure of showcasing their video work, as well as videos from artist, Ben Aqua. As the evening unfolds, a dance-off will commence encouraging participants to showcase their best dance moves in hopes that our guest judge, The Immortal Pansy, will award their talents with a prize.
In the past, the Texas Biennial has been fueled by the passion of its organizers and a small budget to construct a viable and valid commentary on the contemporary arts scene in Texas. Now in it’s third edition, we are gearing up for exponential growth and need all the funding we can raise. The purpose of our ‘Hot Fun in the Summertime’’ fundraiser is to both raise awareness and resources for our upcoming 2009 Biennial. These funds will contribute to fulfilling our educational responsibility to the community by providing a diversity of complementary programming to our exhibitions. We have thoughtfully put together prize packages from generous in-kind donations from both local businesses, as well as arts organizations, that will be raffled off throughout the evening helping to meet our goal of creating the best Texas Biennial to date.

The Texas Biennial would like to thank Bacardi, Sweet Leaf Tea, the Historic Victory Grill, the Austin Museum of Art, Arthouse at the Jones Center, the Blanton Museum of Art, Artlies!, the Rude Mechanicals, and Refraction Arts, as our major sponsors for the evening, as well as all the businesses that graciously donated gifts for our raffle and the artists that are donating their time.

Artists:


Austin Video Bee (you know us!)

Ben Aqua is the founder of OK! FRESH, as well as a photographer and new media artist based in Austin, Texas. He earned a BFA in Design from UT Austin in 2005 and is a founding member of the Austin, Texas-based Totally Wreck art collective. Ben's work has been published in NYLON Magazine, ARKITIP, XLR8R, and Fecal Face. His work has been exhibited throughout the world, including Arthouse at the Jones Center (Austin, Texas), The Future Gallery (Berlin, Germany), and Trece Lunas (Monterrey, Mexico). He has performed at the SXSW Music Festival in 2005, 2007, and 2008, Fusebox Media Festival 2007, and the Austin Museum of Digital Art in 2006.

Bands:

{{{Sunset}}} Local psych rockers Sunset having been playing their brand of jingle jangle rock for more than a year now. Initially formed as the solo project of Bill Baird from Sound Team, Sunset has since become a main stay of the Austin music scene with spontaneous, unguarded folk pop.

VC Chldkrft Local Electronic Artist

Men-R-G DJ group made up of Ben Aqua and Dylan Reece

And a DJ set from Anthony Romero

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Monday, July 21, 2008

AFS Avant Cinema 3

Join me this Wednesday July 23 at 7pm at Austin Studios Screening Room (map) for a screening of my work and some videos I love.
Here's the rub:



AFS Avant Cinema 3:
GHOSTS OF THE PAST, SPECTRES OF THE FUTURE

For this third in our series, Scott Stark has asked local video artist and former Cinematexas programming director Ivan Lozano to present selections from his body of work, contextualized by a few of his favorite videos.

21st Century Machines: A Technodrama for Future Generations, Ivan Lozano (2007, video, 6:00)
Using the technologies of the past (pen and paper, analog video) as filtered by the technologies of the present (Internet video, p2p networks) to comment on the technologies of the future (post-biological humanity, hive minds), 21st Century Machines chronicles a cyborg love affair soured by technological incompatibility.

Recall, Torsten Z. Burns and Darrin Martin (1999, video, 15:00)
Through the context of training tapes from the mid 70's, Recall mines the possibility of existing alternative therapies that have gone untapped and lie dormant within the body. Mediated memory exercises of reflective therapy sessions and staged fire prevention methods used in camping are coupled with the artists' own physio-dynamic interactions. The result opens up an arena of slippage that questions the very nature of human intimacy and distance through the framework of the controlled experience and its surveillance as a record of memory.

Sad Disco Fantasia, Steve Reinke (2001, video, 24:00)
“An episodic tour through the void of L.A., slips of pop culture, and Reinke's own astringent self-regard. Despite the blasts of dry wit and the hopeful embrace of gay porn, this is a lament. What grounds the tape like a bass line is Reinke's response to the death of his mother. What stops it cold is his tossed-off remark that this is ‘my last, my final video.'’” -Cameron Bailey

If I Had A Hammer
, Bobby Abate (2001, video, 8:00)
“Crafted from softly pixilated QuickTime, NetMeeting sessions, emotive vintage pop, airplane disaster footage, online porn, streaming Hollywood trailers, and the curious hypnotic qualities of taping off computer monitors, Bobby Abate's internet-sex-n-death video explores new anxieties made possible by technology, and the profoundly intimate places that tiny images and lonely piano chords burrow deep within the soul. If I Had A Hammer is like a tender and tumultuous visual virus, created to infect a world where humans live through movies, die through malfunctions and, in between, email their love.” - Ed Halter

FANTASY VISION MEDITATION (Megamix)
, Ivan Lozano (2007-8, video, 5:00)
Structured as a continuous mix of videos from a recent series investigating the parallel historical narratives of disco, gay liberation movements and AIDS. Lozano creates a phantasmagoric elegy for the fallen soldiers in the hidden cultural wars of the 70s and 80s by transforming two sources generally dismissed as vapid and disposable. The musical collaboration between disco singer Sylvester James (a victim of AIDS) and producer Patrick Cowley (who succumbed to AIDS less than three months after the disease was codified) and A Night At Halsted's by queer porn auteur Fred Halsted (who overdosed on sleeping pills after the death of his lover from AIDS) who helped in defining the culture of the era. Lozano imbues his materials with pathos by a careful and labor-intensive digital exegesis of the unconscious spiritual elements hidden in the originals.

Papillon D’Amour
, Nicolas Provost (2003, video, 4:00)
By subjecting fragments from the Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon to a mirror effect, Provost creates a hallucinatory scene of a woman's reverse chrysalis into an imploding butterfly. This physical audiovisual experience produces skewed reflections upon Love, its lyrical monstrosities, and a wounded act of disappearance.



xo
Ivan Lozano

Friday, July 18, 2008

UPDATE: THE PROGRAM

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about an awesome video festival happening in Dallas, and here are the updates & a schedule if you need to plan ahead!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The Empty BOX fundraiser and art event Saturday, July 19, 2008

BOX 13 ArtSpace is a nonprofit artist run innovative environment for the creation and advancement of experimental contemporary art in Houston. BOX 13 artists create this environment through the offering of affordable workspaces for emerging and established artists, dedicating three interior spaces to the exhibtion of artistic explorations, a window gallery for installations and an outdoor performance exhibition space. BOX 13 promotes dialogue among artists and the art community on current trends affecting the arts.

The founding members of BOX 13 are Elaine Bradford, Woody Golden, Michael Henderson, Young-Min Kang, Kathy Kelley, Teresa O'Connor, Whitney Riley and Mat Wolff.

Saturday 7-11:30 pm (check out the site for all the details)

Artists donating work for the raffle and silent auction include:
Amy Missorelli Sorrensen, Angela Maxwell, Ann Holloman, April Hernandez, Barry Stone, Christine West, Corkey Sinks, Cory Wagner, Cynthia Reed, David Brown, David Waddell, Debbie Riddle, Donna Perkins, Elaine Bradford, Eric Pierce, Erika Buentello, Garland Fielder, Geoffrey Aldridge, Graham Childs, Helen Altman, Ivan Lozano, Jesse Butcher, Rory Skagen, Dana Younger, JoAnn Park, Joyce Harlow, Kamila Szczesna, Katherine Veneman, Kathy Kelley, Katy Anderson, Katy Heinlein, Kelly Ulcak, Kia Niell, Lily Desaussure, Lisa Marie Godfrey, Lynne Rutzky, Mari Omari, Marie Weichman, Mark Schatz, Mat Wolff, Matthew Guest, Melissa Hanes, Meredith Cunningham, Michael Henderson, Michael Schliefke, Michael Moncus, Hector Hernandez, Mindy Kober, Paige Davidson, Patrick Palmer, Rebecca Finley, Renate Jones, Rene Cruz, Robin Germany, Ryan Geiger, Sean Carroll, Seth Mittag, Sondra Mullenax, Sterling Allen, Teresa O’connor, The Art Guys, Tim Brown, Whitney Riley, William Winkler, Woody Golden, Xochi Solis, Y.E. Torres, Nine Francois, Michael Anthony Garcia, Jaime Salvador Castillo, Sean Flournoy

Monday, July 14, 2008

AUGUST 2nd!

Two openings you don't want to miss...First, head over to Domy Books and check out "Stupid Answers to
Snappy Questions" new work by Justin Goldwater


Opening Reception from 7-9pm
Justin is on his way to CalArts to get an MFA in experimental animation! Austin will miss him.

After Domy, head over to MASS Gallery to see "WE'RE ALL IN LOVE WITH DYING AND WE'RE DOING IT IN TEXAS" new works by Jesse Butcher

Opening Reception from 8-10pm

Friday, July 11, 2008

Night Owl & Early Bird



From Big Medium's Website :
Big Medium presents a fundraising auction
“Night Owl and Early Bird"

Friday, July 11th from 7:00pm - 11:00pm “Night Owl” A Call to Artists,
Saturday, July 12th from 10 am- 1pm “Early Bird”- Art Auction

Free to the public, donations appreciated.

Big Medium (formerly Bolm Studios) is a grassroots, artist-run organization working towards becoming a nonprofit. For the past six years Big Medium has introduced and run programs such as the East Austin Studio Tour and the Texas Biennial. In addition to those programs, Big Medium operates an alternative gallery space, 20 artist studios, and has just recently introduced a project space that will be used for exhibitions, workshops and educational programs. Please join us at our first fundraising event: “Night Owl and Early Bird”. This two day event is both a call to artists and art supporters. Big Medium needs the financial and creative support from the community it has been serving and enriching since 2002.

Night Owl - A Call To Artists
Friday July 11th, 7:00 pm - 1:00 am

Artists, please join us for an evening of art making. Artists are encouraged to bring their preferred supplies and Big Medium will provide a selection of materials and surfaces. Create your own art and collaborate with others, all art created will be donations to Big Medium. Artists are welcome to bring finished pieces to donate to Big Medium’s auction as well. Food and drinks will be provided. Come back and join us in the morning for refreshments and the art auction.

Early Bird- Art Auction
Saturday July 12th, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm

Art lovers please join us for a morning of art. Place bids during the silent auction on artwork created the night before by local artists. Enjoy breakfast treats provided by Central Market, Coffee from CafĂ© Mundi, and Tito’s Bloody Mary’s. The silent auction begins at 10:00 am and promptly ends at 12:00 pm, followed by the live auction from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm with donated art and services from local businesses.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

I best not catch this flick on YouTube

I hear this song almost every day on my way to work. Now it's high art on YouTube.


Read more on Rhizome.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

The Fifth of July

Tonight at Okay Mountain...


The Fifth of July

Photographs by Anna Krachey & Barry Stone

Opening Reception: Saturday July 5th 7-10pm
Exhibition Dates: July 5th - August 9th
Gallery Hours: Wednesday 7-9pm and Saturday 12-5pm

+ more photographs in the Okay Mountain Project space including photos by Laura Turner!