Man with a Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov's classic Chelovek Kinoapparatom (Man With A Movie Camera 1929) available for free download from the Internet Archive

Doug Aitken's Sleepwalkers

Doug Aitken's Sleepwalkers an eight screen video installation on the facade of MOMA following the journeys of five New York city inhabitants.

Open Skies 2.0

Installation view of Hachiya Kazuhiko's Open Skies 2.0 exhibition at the NTT Intercommunication Centre, Tokyo. Hachiya is best known for his Air Board series of jet engine powered hoverboards based on the hoverboard from the Back To The Future.

This exhibition itself was a gallery based presentation of the process of planning, building and flying self built aircraft, but unlike the AirBoard you can't fly in a gallery so instead visitors were offered the chance to win a simulated ride by completing various tasks. I'm interested at the moment (as my MA show approaches) in approaches to presenting work which happens outside of the gallery in a gallery context and this impresses me wioth it's effective balancing of sculptural objects natural to a gallery space with process documentation which can come across sometimes as tedious and a bit overly precious if not handled properly. The obvious comparison (flying machines) is of course with Belgian artist Panamarenko except with the (not only) conceptual difference that these flying machines actually left the ground. Of course, me being me, I wondered did they actually fly, would it be better work if they didn't but the artist went to elaborate lengths to convince us that they did, or does it matter?
More images at my flickr page.

Tokyo

I'm back from Tokyo which was a fantastic experience in an amazing city which is exactly as cool as you'd imagine it to be. More in the next few days or so and I'm slowly uploading some pictures to my Flickr page. The above picture was taken from the Tokyo city view on the 52nd floor of the Mori building.

The plot against Christmas

Jon Ronson in the Guardian reports on the high school shooting plot in North Pole Alaska the most Christmassy (not to mention scariest)town in the world where 13 year old kids answer letters to Santa.

The Velvet Underground's first recording

For sale on ebay (current bid $25,100) one of only two surviving copies (the other copy said to be owned by David Bowie) of the acetate of the first velvet Underground recording (with alternate versions of what was later to be released as The Velvet Undergroung & Nico) The auction listing has a good history of the recording which was bought for 75cents in 2002

Christmas Sucks?

You know Christmas is coming when all the Christmas Sucks searches start coming in so here it is again Tom Waits and Peter Murphy Christmas Sucks (direct MP3 link up until my bandwidth goes)

Lets not forget the Christmas cheer of "childrens'" letters to Christopher Walken

Bowie & Bing

Now kids drugs are all fun and games but sooner or later you'll end up on the Bing Crosby Christmas special singing the little drummer boy...

Garrett Lynch's Quote Me

Every good artist has at least one quote, aphorism or soundbite attributed to them, yet the new media artist barely has time to keep up with the rapid change of technology let alone spend time thinking of witty aphorisms.
Garrett Lynch's Quote Me is a work, triggered by users to its web page, that reuses quotes and the date they were expressed from various online sources for the busy new media artist who hasn't time. Quotes are relevant comments to current political and social events, both nationally and internationally, taken from the current headlines of a handful of global newspapers via their respective rss / xml feeds, yet placed without context or explanation.
more about the work here

Andy's on sale again

I've been thinking about Warhol a lot recently and really seeing his influence on a lot of current 'media art' so I was amused when I discovered (via Kottke) that Barneys department store in New York are selling

limited edition soup cans with authentic reproductions of Andy Warhol designed labels. Printed on special quality paper and with Andy's signature (reproduced). Campbell's soup with Warhol labels

Keeping with that theme I also discovered recently the BMW art car project which Andy did in 1979 painting, unlike other artists, directly on the car with a paintbrush and seemingly unlike other artists the only one who had a bit of fun with such a naff idea.
via hanne mugaas artblog

Chinese Crackers and Irish art

Art Forum has a fascinating account of the burgeoning Chinese contemporary art market (image from Chinese Crackers, 2006 film based on Ed Ruscha's 1969 Crackers) booming with new money and I can't help but compare it to the Irish contemporary art scene. Throughout art history important periods of development in contemporary art have tended to coincide with economic booms as new money got into new art, think of the Renaissance, the Impressionists, abstract impressionism etc.. It's obviously happening in China right now so it would make sense that with all the new money in Ireland that there would be an almost Frieze-like unseemly scramble for the latest cutting-edge art, right? Well... not exactly. Have a look at the results from the latest record breaking Adams Irish art auction and it becomes obvious that there is a boom in the Irish art market alright but it's not contemporary art that's selling. I wonder what is about the Irish that sets us apart from this particular historical trend?

Make Magazine in Dublin

An interesting event next Tuesday 12th, 7pm at the Odessa Club in Dublin Dale Dougherty and Sherry Huss of MAKE magazine will give an informal presentation followed by a conversation about their work in creating Maker Faire, an event bringing together art, science and home-made technology.

via the excellent Blackletter Irish Arts portal.

Lights out in Reykjavik

Street lights are to be turned off this Thursday in Reykjavik so that people can see the stars without any light pollution. The event, which is part of a film festival, takes place at 22.00 for half an hour and will be accompanied by an astronomer describing the night sky over national radio. What a great idea, can you even imagine something like that in Dublin?

Nobody does it better

Download a Radiohead cover version of the cheesy Nobody does it better Bond song from the golden age of Roger Moore.
via Superb Live

Lou Reed Interview album

From 1982 a radioplay interview album for the release of Lou Reed's Blue Mask album complete with scripted intros for the DJs including this gem

via WFMU

Art Stars vs local artists virtual soccer challenge

As part of the all hawaii eNtrées / luNar reGGae exhibition opening tomorrow at IMMA Pallas studios in the spirit of global and local exchange and by way of introduction to the artists of Dublin City, has invited the international artists from All Hawaii Entrées / Lunar Reggae, to select a Best XI of artists, for a Virtual football challenge, off-site in the Pallas studios. Participants include from the local side Brian Duggan, Mark Cullen, Gavin Murphy, Gillian Lawlor, Vanessa O'Riely, David Beattie, Mark Cullen, Niamh McCann, Seodin O'Sullivan, David Beattie, Vanessa O'Reilly, Conor McGarrigle,Tim Redfern, John Buckley and LIVE commentary from Nevan Lehart and on the art star side Anri Sala, Carsten Höller, Jorge Pardo, Dominique Gonzalez Forester, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Doug Aitken, Douglas Gordon, Liam Gillick, Sarah Lucas, Alighiero e Boetti, Sarah Morris, Cerith Wyn Evans and Michel Majerus. Kick off is 3pm Thursday 30th at Pallas Studios 17 Foley St Dublin 1.

GoogleBono back online

You may or may not have noticed that GoogleBono has been offline for the last few days, this was due to the Google Maps switchover to version 2 of the API which I had neglected to upgrade to. As the coding of the first version was such a terrible hack it was also an opportunity to do it properly but now I'm glad to say that the new and improved Bono Probability Positioning System V. 2.01 is now back online.

William S. Burrough's Thanksgiving Prayer

Celebrities as Star Wars characters

Worth 1000 competition, celebrities as Star Wars characters.
via linkbunnies

I give up you're on your own

Minister of Justice Michael "rottweiller" McDowell backs a report which recommends giving people more power to defend themselves from intruders in their own home, presumably on the ground that given his inability to maintain law and order the only solution is the indivualisation of law enforcement aka taking the law into your own hands. What's next, arming the law abiding people of Moyross so they can defend themselves against the drug gangs?

Why are German Euros disintegrating?

The Guardian reports that German euro notes are literally falling apart with over 1500 cases reported recently. One theory is that German clubbers are using euros to snort crystal meth which can contain sulphates which when combined with human sweat produce an acid which eats away the notes. Back to the drawing board for a drug resistance currency.

Claude Closky Net Artist

Net art by Claude Closky, I liked Pedagogy, U and his free wallpapers aren't bad either. And he's blogging too.

John Gerrard at the RHA Dublin

John Gerrard's new exhibition Dark Portraits opens at the RHA Dublin this Thursday and includes the sublime (pictured)Smoke Tree III. Highly recommended.

Second Life artist in residence

The Ars Virtua Gallery and New Media Center in Second Life has a call for proposals for their artist in residence (AVAIR)programme

Ars Virtua Artist-in-Residence (AVAIR) is an extended performance that examines what it means to reside in a place that has no physical location.

Ars Virtua presents artists with a radical alternative to “real life” galleries: 1) Since it does not physically exist artists are not limited by physics, material budgets, building codes or landlords. Their only constraints are social conventions and (malleable-extensible) software. 2) The gallery is accessible 24 hours a day to a potentially infinite number of people in every part of the world simultaneously. 3) Because of the ever evolving, flexible nature of Second Life the “audience” is a far less predictable variable than one might find a Real Life gallery. Residents will be encouraged to explore, experiment with and challenge traditional conventions of art making and distribution, value and the art market, artist and audience, space and place.

deadline is 21st of November and there is a stipend in real money.
via Rhizome

Conor McGarrigle @ Reno Interdisciplinary Festival of New Media

I'm exhibiting in the 1st Reno Interdisciplinary Festival of New Media at the University of Nevada, Reno until December 15th. RIFNM 06 highlights an international selection of work by graduate and Phd students working with new digital technologies for the creation of art. Artists working in and across disciplines were invited to submit works to be considered for five interrelated events/venues: exhibit, netart, perform, project(full-dome) and present. The resulting festival schedule of events presents a unique opportunity to directly experience innovative work being created by a diversity of emerging artists exploring digital systems for visual and experiential production.

Participating Artists/Affiliations:
-Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha, Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom
-Gudmundur S. Gunnarsson, Mills College
-Sabrina Berryman, University of Utah
-Margaret Noble and Edyta Stepien, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
-Jolanta A Lapiak, NSCAD, Nova Scotia, Canada
-Martin Machado, San Francisco Art Institute
-Suzanne Yo Martinsen, University of Central Florida
-Pete Froslie, Massachusetts College of Art
-Alejandro Duque, European Graduate School, Switzerland
-Jamie Timms, University of California, Santa Barbara
-Mike Godwin, University of California, Santa Barabara
-Conor McGarrigle, National College of Art & Design Dublin, Ireland
-Stephanie Jeanjean, Graduate Center of CUNY (City University of New York)
-Melissa Grey and Robert Kirkbride, The New School, New York City
-Pamela Kray, The New School, New York City
-So Jung Kwon, Otis School of Art and Design, Los Angeles
-Si Jae Byun, School of Visual Arts, New York City
-Walter Nelson, Griffith University, Australia
-Stephen Cady, University of Illinois, Chicago, School of Art and Design
-Jeanne Jo, Rhode Island School of Art and Design
-Jake Lee High, Massachusetts College of Art

Spider vs fire ants

Looks like the war on terror has moved on to insects with this video of american soldiers in Iraq pitting a big spider against fire ants, it's probably vital field research vital to the building of a giant robo-spider which will win the war on foreigners terror for ever.

Paper Rad

Installation view of the Paper Rad exhibition at the Green on Red gallery, Dublin. The exhibition continues until the 19th of November.
More images here

Limit Telephotography

Trevor Paglen's photographs of 'secret' US military bases and CIA 'black Sites' using high power telephoto lenses in the 1300 - 7000mm range at distances of up to 40 miles.

via Rhizome

Every Death in the Friday the 13th Series

From Rhizome every death in the Friday the 13th series, 7 minutes worth back to back in chronological order
Similar is Jamie Shovlin's print Every Victim and Manner of Death in the Friday the 13th film Series

and of course the McCoys sublime Every Anvil which does a similar thing with Looney Tunes.

Via Rhizome

Pinchneck & Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square

From the autumn update at the great UbuWeb Bruce Nauman's Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square available to download. I saw this during the summer at the excellent Mouvement des Images exhibition at the Pompideau in Paris and it really is worth the download.

The Culchie Control Platform

I wonder what's on TV now

From a nice new batch of graffiti on Moss St in Dublin

Invisibility Cloak

New Scientist reports that researchers have unveiled a working invisibility cloak that works in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum
The cloak works by steering microwave light around an object, making it appear to an observer as if it were not there at all. Materials that bend light in this way do not exist naturally, so have to be engineered with the necessary optical properties.

Life is like Lost in Translation

In a real-life life is just like Lost in Translation moment Bill Murray turns up at student party in Scotland and does the washing up. Of course the students were all blonde, Swedish and persumably looked like Scarlett Johansson
via linkbunnies

Denis McNulty wants to perform in your apartment

As part of his Anti Tour 2 - the Nineties for DEAF06 festival musician/artist Denis McNulty is touring apartments (preferably built in the 90's) in Dublin city centre (i.e. the part of the city between the North and South circular roads). Interested in hosting a performance check out the details here.

Do-Ho Suh installation

Detail of the floor of Do-Ho Suh's installation at Frieze. He really is one of the most interesting artists around today.
More images of the installation in my Flickr Frieze Set

The more I work the poorer I am

Estonian artist Kai Kaljo documents a week of work in 25 photos with text and discovers The More I work the Poorer I Am. I know that feeling.
More images at my Flickr Frieze Set

Frieze Art Fair

Kicking off an idiosyncratic series of reports of what caught my eye at the Frieze Art Fair in London which I caught on Saturday. The image is of Alexei Shulgin (of easylife, 386dx fame) & Aristarkh Chernyshov's Medamirror an interactive work with a camera pointing at the viewer and software which then scrambles the image in a variety of ways. It wasn't clear if the software was contained within the frame or whether there was an external computer - though the only visible external cable was for power- all contained in a very slick acrylic/plexiglass type frame. I counted 15 red dots.
More images at my Flickr Frieze Set

Sparklehorse

I saw a back-on-form Sparklehorse last night at Whelans, a great crowd, great venue and a quite emotional Mark Linkous glad to be back.
More at my Flickr

Top 100 most powerful in art

Art Review's annual list of the most important people in art, topped by François Pinault owner of Gucci and Christies, biggest movers the Frieze founders up to 8 from 33 and Google in at 100. Interstingly Jerry Saltz, art critic for the Village Voice (who is actually a good critic) is at 57, Thomas Hirschhorn at 42 and Andreas Gursky at 22. Bruce Naumann is the highest placed artist at 9 followed by Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst at 10 and 11 respectively.

More celebrities then ever before : Frieze opens

The Art Newspaper (PDF) reports on the Frieze art fair preview in London yesterday with more celebrities, more collectors and Tracey Emin's breasts all the important topics are tackled.

I'll be heading over to London on Saturday to check it out.

Night of Bush Capturing

An interesting article from the Washington Post about the propaganda war being waged in gaming as Islamogaming companies respond in kind to the inherent propaganda of American war games. From the ridiculous Night of Bush Capturing (aka Quest for Bush modded from Quest for Saddam) to the more substantial Afkar Media's Under Ash.

On a related note a Salon article on Joseph deLappe's Dead in Iraq intervention in America's Army online game

Via From Sun Tzu to XBox

A crowd is not a proper condition for the reception of a work of art

From Art Forum a report that curators Eric Troncy and Stéphanie Moisdon turned down an invitation to curate this year's Parisien Nuit Blanche citing technical and structural reasons with Troncy adding the immortal words

A crowd is not a proper condition for the reception of a work of art.

The Nuit Blanche was run by former Palais de Tokyo co-directors Nicolas Bourriaud and Jérôme Sans and had 1.5m visitors up from last years 1.3m

Carsten Holler at the Tate

Carsten Holler's installation at the Tate Engine Hall which open tomorrow. The installation consists of five slides including one which falls five stories, and yes you can slide on them.

more photos here

Space Blog

The blog of space tourist Anousheh Ansari

Judging the Turner Prize

Celebrity interviewer Lynn Barber on her year as a Turner Prize Jurist, the big question is why was she on the jury in the first place?

Oh yeah and the short list is out too.

Real Time Rome

Real Time Rome is an MIT SENSEable City project which uses aggregated data from mobile phones, buses and taxis in Rome to give real visualisations of the dynamics of the city. Curently on show at the Venice Biennale of Architecture.
via emprye list

The return of Sparklehorse

After a five year gap Sparklehorse are back with a new album Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain and they're touring with dates in Dublin on the 14th & 15th of October. It's great to see to him back and healthy the last time I saw him in 2002 I wondered if I'd ever see him again.

Never heard of Sparklehorse? Download the live Radio France Black Session from September 25th 2006
via Kwaya Na Kisser

The slimming camera

I see from signal vs noise that HP are offering a slimming effect (ie they stretch the image)in their latest digital cameras, weird but hardly surprising.Most photo processors here add a tanning effect colour adjustment during the summer months to keep the punters happy, I wonder will they now take it on themselves to slim the nation as well?

Culture Night

Tonight is Culture Night in Dublin where museums and galleries and cultural institutions stay open until 9pm (some 'till 10).It's a great idea and I welcome it as such but the execution is so disappointing. 9pm is late night shopping, the Tate opens till 10pm every Friday and Saturday so it's hard to get excited about opening an extra 3 hours once a year. Culture Night is based on La Nuit Blanche in Paris which is a 7pm - 7am night of inspired mayhem which takes over the city. While I accept that you've got to start small it would seem to me to that midnight should be the starting point. Still go out and support it, maybe next year...

La Science des rêves

I saw Michel Gondry's brilliant (his best yet and Gael García Bernal's best role) new film La Science des rêves / The Science of Sleep in Paris during the summer. Watching it I thought that the sets belonged in a gallery - turns out I was right and Deitch Projects in New York have an exhibition of the sets. Interestingly Sophie Coppola's Marie Antoinette was also released in France this summer and like The Science of Sleep has still to hit the cinemas here yet.

Hellfire

I was at the launch of newest Irish literary sensation Mia Gallagher's first novel Hellfire last evening. Hellfire is the big autumn Irish book from Penguin Ireland, the weekend papers were full of reviews and interviews, and you can't miss it in all the bookshops. It's great to see books of this calibre get the attention they deserve. IMO this is a major new Irish literary voice and Hellfire is an important novel about where Dublin is now that everyone should read. Recommended.

Fold Together Nuclear Shelter Model

Make your own fallout shelter.
via The Fat Channel

Conflux

Conflux is the annual New York festival for contemporary psychogeography, the investigation of everyday urban life through emerging artistic, technological and social practice. It also has lots of very cool projects and is well worth checking out.

John Maeda's advice to students

When you're younger: Do More. Think Less.
When you're older: Do Less. Think More.

via Maeda's simplicity

Google Bono in El Pais

Google Bono was featured in Spanish daily El Pais yesterday in an article about artists working with surveillance cameras.

C'était un Rendez-Vous 2006

30 years later Claude Lelouch retraces his route from C'était un Rendez-Vous in the original car and reveals that he was the driver, that the Ferrari sound was added later and that he was meeting his wife.

Vending Machine art

The art vending machine at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin. I attended the opening at Crawdaddy last night where it was an almost complete sell out but there should be still work left in the Project and Connolly Station.
More pictures at my Flickr

The Vending Machine Project

The Fringefest Vending Machine Project launches tomorrow at Crawdaddy 6pm, all are imnvited. The machines will be in the Project Arts Centre, Crawdaddy and Connolly Station and there's a full list of all the works available. Some pretty good stuff there and all for a fiver! Methinks you'll have to move fast to get your hands on some of those. I must mention that my work whereismyart.com - a limited edition of 12 - will be for sale in the Project Arts Centre machine.

Paris Tunnels

Some fantastic galleries of unauthorised journeys through the underground tunnels of Paris.
via trendbeheer

Skating at the Eiffel Tower

more at my Flickr page

Capoeira at Dun Laoghaire festival of world cultures

A dazzling display by Oficina da Capoeira at the Festival of World Cultures, more at my Flickr page

Dun Laoghaire Festival of World cultures

Ferris wheel going up for the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures which is on this weekend . There's so much going on it's practically impossible to give recommendations but check out the schedule here. That said Trans-Global Underground & Trio Bulgarka on Sunday look particularly good.

A portrait in Google Earth

A collection of over 100 placemarks for Google Earth showing locations mentioned in Joyce's A portrait of the Artist
via Google Earth community

Broken Forest

Henrik Håkansson's Broken Forest at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris

Henrik Håkansson's After Forever (ever after) at the same exhibition. More at my Flickr account
.

Turn me on dead man

Turn me on dead man an exhibition by Paul Murnaghan at the Basement Gallery Dundalk open this Friday the 18th 7.30 pm
The title of Paul Murnaghan’s latest exhibition refers to a reversed message embedded in a 1960’s vinyl album, it could also be read as an elastic mantra applicable to varied factions through the ages. This new body of work comprises of drawing, installation, video and sound. The drawing is a necessary device, used only to reference places and people from a past life accessed through hypnotic regression.

Murnaghan acts as documenter, illustrator and guinea-pig whilst exploring elements of cultural phenomena such as glossolalia 1 and reverie. By aligning diverse psychologies, he leads us to a place of obsessive yet common conviction, that allows the seemingly neurotic to be declassified and returned to the norm.

His practice is process-based, it often involves the construction of mnemonic devices and immersive research within disparate environments. The results when gathered, documented and positioned, display an intricate and potent sense of inquiry into the mechanics of memory and belief.

Basement Gallery Town Hall
Crowe St. Dundalk 042 9396437
basementgallery-at-dundalktown.ie
Opening Hours: Monday - Friday 10 - 4:30 Saturday 10 - 1

The Man on the Street

A great quote from composer Morton Feldman

My teacher Stefan Wolpe was a Marxist and he felt my music was too esoteric at the time. And he had his studio on a proletarian street, on Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue. . . . He was on the second floor and we were looking out the window, and he said, “What about the man on the street?” At that moment . . . Jackson Pollock was crossing the street..

Via Alex Ross's New Yorker profile

GoogleBono at FILE 2006, São Paulo, Brazil

Thge 2006 edition of FILE Electronic Language International Festival opens today in Galeria de Arte do SESI São Paulo, Brazil. I'll be showing the Bono Probability Positioning System version 2 AKA Google Bono. The exhibition continues until September 3rd.

Fidel & Me

The connection is that we share a birthday, happy birthday Fidel.

Graffiti

Graffiti project at the Palais deTokyo in Paris, a few minutes later I saw this guy get what looked like a crit which kinda sucks the fun out of it all.

Robots Playing football

via New Scientist Technology Blog

Art Vending Machines

The locations for the Vending Machine Project which is taking place this September as part of The Dublin Fringe Festival 2006 have been announced. The machines will be selling art in Connolly train station, the Project Arts Centre and Crawdaddy (Harcourt St) and the participating artists will be:
Mark Beatty (IRL), Clare Louise Bligh (IRL), Cyril Briscoe (IRL), Alan Burns (IRL), Robert Christian (IRL), Declan Clarke (IRL/UK), Brian Coldrick (IRL), Roisín Cunningham (IRL), Niall de Buitlear (IRL), Nuisance Bears (IRL), Neva Elliott(IRL/UK), Tristan Fennell (IRL), Dermot Finn (IRL), Grainne Finn (IRL), Niall Flaherty (IRL), Damien Flood (IRL), Stephen Gaughan (IRL), Cliona Harmey (IRL), Joan Healy (IRL), Leah Hilliard (IRL), Barry Jacques (IRL), Annika Johansson (IRL/Finland), Frankenstyles (IRL/USA), Anthony Kelly (IRL), Tara Kennedy (IRL), Dogmedia Productions (IRL), Marina Kessopersadh (IRL), James Kirwan (IRL), K Bear Koss (IRL/USA), Lee Sang Hong (Korea), Hazel Lim (Singapore), Sarah Lincoln (IRL), Paul McCann (IRL), Conor McGarrigle (IRL), Caroline McNulty (IRL), Mark Garry/Nina Hynes/Karl Burke (IRL), Caitriona Moore (IRL), Eli Normal (IRL), Padraic E. Moore (IRL), Ben Mullen (IRL), Charlotte Murray (IRL), Paula Naughton (IRL), Barbara Nealon (IRL), Fergus Niland (IRL), Seamus Nolan (IRL), Jane O'Sullivan (IRL), Alex Pearl (UK), Christian Reeves (IRL), Sheila Rennick (IRL/UK), Emma Robertson (UK), David Roche (IRL), Ben Roosevelt (IRL/USA), Nina Tanis (IRL/USA), David Stalling (GER), Jason Taylor (UK), Keith Walsh(IRL), Robin Watkins (IRL/Sweden), Conor Wickham (IRL), John Younge (IRL).
via Blackletter.ie

Grey Gardens

The Maysles brothers cult documentary Grey Gardens is showing tonight on BBC4 for those of you who get the channel. The film tell the story of Big Edie and Little Edie, mother and daughter, lived with a menagerie of cats and racoons in their derelict mansion in the posh Long Island seaside resort of East Hampton. Their genteel squalor became a cause célèbre when Jackie Onassis, Big Edie's niece and Little Eadie's first cousin, tried to help them clean up the house.

James Coleman at IMMA

Don't miss James Coleman's slide-tape installationI N I T I A L S (which I'm glad to say is beautifully installed) at IMMA until the 3rd September. James Coleman is probably the most important and certainly the most influential contemporary living Irish artist whose work is bizarrely rarely seen in the country.

I N I T I A L S Coleman uses a slide-tape format (multiple transparencies projected with synchronised audio tape) in his continuing investigation of the psychological, social and historic conditioning of perception. We see an unusual assortment of people in what could be a hospital setting, but might, with equal relevance, refer to a TV drama studio, with the attendant preparatory rituals for both settings. As the piece progresses, the voice of what appears to be a child spells out words or utters disparate statements, diverging more and more from the sequence of events depicted visually, calling into question photography’s traditional claim to documentary authenticity.

A further element of uncertainty is introduced through the variety of different genres in which the artist chooses to present the images, from popular television soap opera style to the serenity of a 17th-century Dutch portrait. Cocooned in a darkened and carpeted space, the work challenges the viewer to move through the space and find their own vantage point, thereby becoming part of the core experience of deconstruction and reconstruction. Lynne Cooke in a recent essay on Coleman’s work describes the process whereby “weaving references drawn from film, from drama and from painting, Coleman situates his trilogy in a hybrid realm, one that allows him to comment obliquely on these canonical art forms and their traditions without, however, fully subscribing to any.”

dEUS Live

I saw dEUS not once but twice while in Paris, first at the Solidays festival where the picture was taken (there's more if you're interested on my flickr page)I saw them last November in Dublin when this tour kicked off and they rocked then but have since turned it up a few more notches and that in front of a French audience determined to confirm the national stereotype that they can't rock. I also caught another inspired performance on the opening night of the Paris Plage where they where joined by Stef Kamil Carlens (co-founder now in Zita Swoon)which just added to my belief that they're the best live band on the road today. They'll be at the Electric Picnic in September, don't miss them.

Blackletter.ie Irish art portal launched

Blackletter.ie is a new collaborative workspace for Irish contemporary art created by Alan Butler, Cliona Harmey and Niall Flaherty the site features news, articles, an art calender with a self publishing feature but their opening project a google maps mashup showing ephermal, temporary and location based artworks around Dublin shows that this is going to be a lot more clued in then art.ie for example. Of course the success of projects like this rely on users so go sign up now!

Interview in the Sunday Tribune

While I was gone Eimear McKeith interviewed me about the Net Art Open for The Sunday Tribune and the article (which was excellent) appeared last Sunday (23rd July. I'll scan it and put on the site shortly. The Net Art Open also featured in Italian paper L'Unita and on two of my daily reads Rhizome and Random Magazine. Needless to say traffic to the Net Art Open has been pretty crazy since.

Summer Plans

I'm going to be taking a break from blogging until August.

I won't be completely offline though as I'm participating as a guest in the - empyre - soft-skinned space discussion on 'Bare Life' as part of the Document 12 magazine project, maybe you can join me there. Full details below

July 2006 on -empyre- soft-skinned space: "Bare Life"
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

Subscribe at http://www.subtle.net/empyre

Net Art Open 2006 launched

I'm pleased to announce that the Stunned Net Art Open 2006 launched today. Now in it's fourth edition the Net Art Open takes a different approach to the curation of Net Art online. Rather then present a single event based exhibition selected by a curator or panel of selectors the Net Art Open is an ongoing blog based process which will unfold over the next six months. Curatorial bias has been removed by accepting all work which meets the criteria. The result is a true reflection of the state of Net Art now.

The emphasis in this edition will be bringing the exhibition to the audience, taking account of the changing way people access the net. With so much new work being produced all the time even with the best will in the world it's difficult to keep up so the Net Art Open will be blogged one work at a time with RSS feeds for newsfeed readers and blog aggregators, each entry will be tagged for technorati and del.icio.us and a flickr pool will be created. In addition each entry will feature on the front page of Stunned.

The net art open was started in 2002 by Conor McGarrigle and Arthur X. Doyle as part of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.com intervention, subsequent editions were in 2003 and 2004-5..

Watching France in Paris

With France's magnificent victory over Brazil my prediction is that they're going to win the world cup. Which is very convienient as I head off to Paris tomorrow and get to watch the rest of the world cup there.

World Cup goal visualisation

Excellent 3D world cup goal visualisation tool which lets you replay all goals from multiple points of views.
via information aesthetics

Drawing Restraint

The opening of Matthew Barney & Bjork's Drawing Restraint in San Francisco gets, appropriately enough, the Artforum social diary treatment. Check out the ad at the end of the page, the hottest new space for the arts community, classy.

Darklight Events

The Darklight Film Festival kicks off this Thursday at Filmbase in Temple Bar starting at 6.30. Two events that caught my eye on Saturday a public interview with John Thompson of Electronic Arts Intermix conducted by John Gerrard 2.30-4.45 and Straylight Curator Mark Cullen presents an Al and Al artist talk at Filmbase 5pm

The Power of Nightmares

Adam Curtis's powerful three part BBC series The Power of Nightmares which tells the story of the American neo-conservatives and the radical Islamists and explores how the idea that we are threatened by a hidden and organised terrorist network is an illusion available for free download from the Internet archive. Essential viewing.

Happy Bloomsday

Barry McGovern reads from Ulysses on top of the Joyce Tower in Sandycove.

Bloomsday cancelled

Bloomsday events at the James Joyce centre in Dublin have been cancelled because of the state funeral of former Taoiseach Charlie Haughey. There will be still events at the Joyce Tower in Sandycove where Barry McGovern will be reading the Oxen of the Sun chapter from 9am and at the James Joyce House on Ushers Island, more information here And of course there will be a State funeral making it's way through the city.

Gay means rubbish say BBC

The BBC board of governers have officially ruled that gay now means rubbish.

Chomsky vs Foucault

Torrent file (direct download) for the famous 1971 debate Human Nature: Justice versus Power between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, full transcript of the debate here
via secret cinema

Google Profanity

Google maps notices (or causes?) a new breed of crop circles, giant profanities only visible from space.
via The Register

What you myspace will be held against you

The New Scientist reveals that the Pentagon's NSA in the form of ARDA (Advanced Research Development Activity) are interested in the information people post about themselves on social networking sites like myspace and are funding research into it's mass harvesting. A paper entitled Semantic Analytics on Social Networks presented at the W3C's WWW2006 conference revealing how data from online social networks and other databases can be combined to uncover facts about people was part-funded by ARDA. ARDA according to New Scientist is an organisation whose role is to spend NSA money on research that can solve some of the most critical problems facing the US intelligence community principally the problem of how to make sense of the massive amounts of data they collect.

David Bowie's teeth

How Bowie made it out of the Great British Book of Smiles. Fascinating as this is it also helps explain his fall from greatness. Obviously the quality of his music is inversely proportional to the quality of his teeth which leads me to believe that his talent was in his teeth. However, my wife believes that his ex wife Angie is the catalyst for all his good music - his early albums sucked, he married Angie around Hunky Dory his first good album and split with her around scary monsters his last good album - another pretty convincing theory but one weakened I think by the strong teeth evidence and don't even get me started on the hair... Yes, the collapse in Bowie's talent is a not infrequent topic of conversation in our home.

via bifurcated rivets

My 666 post

A new Christian (as in born again) video game where you get to kill unbelievers ie satanists, catholics, jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians - you know, the usual crew. Alternatively you could play the antichrist's side.
While you're waiting for that game to be released you can play Rod Flander's Bible Blaster (click on rod's file)

via (the appropriately named) Cory Arcangel

Lordi-gate

Finnish magazine Seiska is in big trouble after they unmasked Lordi lead singer Mr Lordi, the backlash was so great that they were forced to apologise and to promise that they wouldn't do it again. Eurovision, the spectacle that just keeps on giving.
via linkbunnies

NCAD MA show

Fine Art Postgraduate Exhibition opening Friday June 9, 6 to 8pm at the Digital Hub, 10 to 13 Thomas St. This years exhibtion features a diverse range of artpractices that are socially and politically engaged with aspects of contemporary life. Many of this years graduates have employed participatory and collaborative strategies in their work. There will be three performance taking place on the opening night Friday the 9th June 6 to 8 pm Digital Hub Warehouse Thomas street, Barbara Knezevic, K Bear Koss, and Augustine O’Donoghue. Exhibition runs 10 to 18 June. The exhibition runs 10 to 18 June. The undergraduate show takes place at NCAD at the same time.
As a 1st year MA student at NCAD I'd like to add that it'll be great and that all the cool kids will be there!

CO2 getting a bad rap

They call it pollution we call it life, the byline for American TV ads in favour of ...emm carbon dioxide produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Well I think I'm all turned around on the issue, if it's good enough for plants it's good enough for me!

via Z blog

Bye Bye Bebo

My 14 year old daughter - an early adopter and trend barometer - has deleted her Bebo account, they are so over.

TV in Japan

You know those TV programs that laugh at whacky Japanese TV shows, this is the Japanese version.

via TV in Japan

Better then the real thing

Opening tomorrow 6pm at Four Gallery Dublin Better Than the Real Thing? is an exhibition-in-progress featuring Saoirse Higgins & Simon Schiessl, Enda O’Donoghue, Martin Shannon and Jürgen Simpson that enables endless reinterpretation of ideas by sidestepping the creative limitations of copyright, each of four original artworks by the artists explores separate aspects of reproduction and re-telling of a story and each work discloses different information about the mark of authenticity in art of the present day.

The opening clashes with the Dun Laoghaire IADT School of Creative Arts Graduate exhibition opening also at 6pm, the DLIADT exhibition continues 'til the 8th June and the Four Gallery until 22 July both are worth checking out.

Google Bono

Google Bono has been getting a spectacular amount of visitors since it was launched here last Tuesday thanks in no small part to all the sites that have carried it including (but not limited to) u2.com, u2star.com, U2twilight, rhizome.org, googlemapsmania, nitenichiryu.org, random-magazine, turbulence, pajamasmedia and updaters. A big thank you to all these and everyone else who helped spread the word.

Borat at Cannes

Borat at Cannes
via Bedazzled

Zagreb apologises to Tesla

Zagreb city council has issued an official posthumous apology for not recognising his genius to Nikola Tesla exactly 114 years after he presented Zagreb's then mayor with the idea of introducing electric street lightning to the city. The city rejected the idea which contributed to Tesla's leaving for the US where he felt his talents would be more appreciated.

via robotwisdom

The Challenges of Curating Net Art

An International web conference on the challenges of curating Net Art tomorrow the 26th 10-12pm (Dublin +2hours) streaming live from Mobile Studios, Sofia

via networked performance

Silvia Night on not winning Eurovision

The funniest thing I've seen all year, what a star!
via the eurotastic TCAL

Lordi and that loser Brian Kennedy

An afterword on Lordi's win in the Eurovision -check out TCAL(my favourite Irish blog) with their new Lordi masthead for all the details. I watched the Eurovision (semis not the final) for the first time in years because of Finland, Lithuania and Iceland's realising that the Eurovision is a joke and treating it accordingly. Meanwhile Ireland keeps trying to win it with total crap that brings shame on the nation, why? Dave Fanning has a great rant on crap Irish eurovision entries and the people who promote them on Marian Finucanes's radio show here (real audio link skip to 1.49) and comes up with the great idea that RTE fund the alternative eurovision people to come up with an appropriate eurovision entry. Either that or the Warlords of Pez as suggested on TCAL sounds good to me

Cannes film festival

It's Cannes time again, watch the goings on with the live web cam and blogging the festival the IFC blog, Cinematical, the Guardian , Greencine and Indiewire

The best art is the most expensive

The best art is the most expensive, because the market is so smart.
Tobias Meyer, Sotheby's wunderkind, in Art Forum's art social diary.

Separated at birth?

Stephen Gerrard and Ryan from the OC.

In the future you will watch the ads

Plans afoot to disable ad zapping in TV and digital recorders to force you to watch the ads.

Urban Fiction

Xing Danwen's Urban Fiction series in which the artist creates narrative by inserting herself into photographs of architectural maquettes of real estate projects in China

John Mac Bride

Spotted posted around Dublin city centre, the text reads John Mac Bride murdered by British imperialists May 5th 1916. When I see something like that quite frankly I'm impressed by the dedication that goes into printing posters and pasting them up. Their choice of patriot, not for them the popular choices like Connolly or Pearse no they went for the more obscure McBride, is also intriguing as is the fact that the posters have no other information on them, they're not an ad for a political party or any other group. You've got to feel that there's a really interesting story behind it all.

Crowd control Slime

Coming soon to a riot near you? A US patent for Systems and methods for dispensing an anti-traction, mobility denial material or to the layperson slime to make you all fall over, has the added advantage of being hilarious and let's not forget the many clubbing applications and it could revolutionise the mud wrestling industry. How could it fail?
via New Scientist

Eat your TV

CORRUPT™

CORRUPT™ by Recyclism, upload an image to get it corrupted.

They Fight Crime

He's a war-weary Republican cyborg in a wheelchair. She's a supernatural cigar-chomping doctor fleeing from a Satanic cult. They fight crime!
via Linkbunnies

The Virgin Prunes on the Late Late 1979

Here's a bit of Irish music history the Virgin Prunes on the the Late Late Show in 1979, a curiosity piece. Check out this if you want to see the legend in action.

Fun with CCTV

This is an oldish gem from Tuppenceworth from the Data Protection Commissioner's report. He received a complaint from people whose back garden was overlooked by LUAS CCTV cameras rather then remove the cameras

Connex (LUAS operators)then modified the system so that the camera /monitor was now showing a black screen when moving over the private property in its range. They also said that these settings cannot be changed by the personnel who are using the cameras and monitors in the Central Control Room of Connex.

Dead in Iraq

Joseph DeLappe's (who I've mentioned before) new work Dead in Iraq in which he enters the online US Army recruiting game America's Army using the login "dead-in-iraq" takes no part in the action and proceeds to type the names of dead US soldiers using the game's text messaging system until he is killed. Since he started in March he's entered 250 just another 2200 odd to go.

The Only Ones

The Only Ones perform Another Girl, Another Planet. This used to be the theme tune to Dave Fanning's rock show way back in the days when he used to be cool.
via Bedazzled

Scott Crossfield

Spare a thought for Scott Crossfield the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound, taking his Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket to 1,291mph (Mach 2.005) and the first man to fly the X-15 rocket plane who died recently aged 84 after his Cessna light plane crashed during a thunderstorm.

Even more Eurovision

Thanks to Darren for pointing me to Silvia Night, Iceland's Eurovision entry, now that's Eurotastic!
More YouTube of Lordi,so bad it's good and Brian Kennedy so bad it's embarrassing.

Kathleen McNulty

Irish born pioneering computer programmer Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli who programmed the ENIAC and the first UNIVAC died recently. A fact that got strangely little coverage in the Irish media and blogosphere. Dún-na-nGall.com have a very nice tribute page.
via boing boing

Finland RWROCKS

Lordi Finland's entry to the Eurovision, now why can't Ireland do something cool like that?

Exhibition Opening Wednesday

I am taking part in an exhibition of work in progress by MA students at the NCAD which opens this Wednesday 6pm at the Backloft Gallery. Augustine St(off Thomas St).. It should be a really interesting show and I'll be showing something quite a bit different from my usual so I hope you'll all make it along. Full details below and please note that it's a short run exhibition ending Sunday the 30th.

You are invited to the opening of
MAPLESS
Backloft Gallery,
7 - 11 Augustine St.
Dublin 8

Wednesday April 26th, 6-8pm
to be opened by
Mick Wilson

Samantha Corcoran,Ed Cunniffe,Shea Dalton,Francis Fay,Barry Foley,John Graham,Rory Greenan,Sarah Kenny,Barbara Knezevic,Katharine Lamb,Aissa Lopez,Jonathan Mayhew,Conor McGarrigle,Grainne Nolan,Aiseling Noone,Emer O Boyle,Sarah O’Brien,Michael O’Hara,Magnhild Opdoel,Dominic Thorpe,Lorraine Walsh

Weds 26th to Sun 30th April 2006
Continues through to 5.00 p.m. Sunday April 30th.
Opening times 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. daily.

Mapless is independently organised by M.A. students from the National College of Art and Design

Art vending Machines

Here's an interesting call for submissions for art content to be sold via art vending machines during the Dublin Fringe festival, how can you resist?

DUBLIN FRINGE FESTIVAL 2006 VISUAL ART EVENT

'THE VENDING MACHINE PROJECT' (curated by Alan Butler and Lola Rayne Booth) are seeking submissions from artists/designers/musicians to create small works to be sold in vending machines around Dublin for the duration of the Dublin Fringe Festival 2006. As part of the Dublin
Fringe Festival, The Vending Machine Project will offer an alternative space for artists to exhibit, engage with the public and promote their work. Selected artists will be required to make 10 small works under the dimensions of 15cm x 15cm. Proposed artworks can be multiples, editions, originals, photos, CD, DVD, etc.

E-mail submissions:
thevendingmachine -at- gmail.com .

- 3-6 images of previous work (.jpg only)
- current C.V .
- short proposal (no more than 300 words)3-6 images of previous work (on CD or prints – NO SLIDES & DO NOT
SEND ORIGINAL WORKS AS SUBMISSIONS WILL BE KEPT ON FILE FOR FUTURE
REFERENCE)
- current C.V.
- short proposal (no more than 300 words) THE VENDING MACHINE PROJECT c/o Studio 5, Temple Bar Galleries & Studios, 5-9 Temple Bar, Dublin 2, Ireland.
DEADLINE: 31st May 2006.

The 1916 Military Parade

Some images from the first 1916 military parade the first since 1969. While as a once off