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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

Google Bono in El Pais

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

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.

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

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.

Memorius at Birr Arts Festival

Paul Murnaghan is restaging his project Memorious (mentioned previously) at the Birr Arts Festival in Co. Offaly this Saturday and Sunday (12th & 13th August) using advertising space to offer for sale, part of his memory capacity. The time and place of meeting is decided by the 'activator'and the chosen memory is then monumentalised' in the artist's brain, sealed in wax and returned to the individual.

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

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.”

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.

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..

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

NCAD Graduate Show

K Bear Koss's robot and friends at the NCAD Graduate exhibition opening last night. The exhibition continues until the 18th, post grads are at the Digital Hub 10-13 Thomas Street and under graduates at NCAD 100 Thomas St.
Opening Hours
Saturday 10.00am to 5.00pm
Sunday 2.00pm - 5.00pm
Monday to Friday 10.00am to 8.00pm

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!

The Photography of Richard Mosse

From Beiruit to Pakistan, Srebrenica to Iran Richard Mosse shows the aftermath of war and natural disasters through it's effects on the architecture in his extraordinarily powerful photographic series.

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

Stunned is pleased to announce the Bono Probability Positioning System version 2 : Google Bono

We know that for a visitor to Dublin an important attraction is the possibility that they may see U2 frontman and international celebrity Bono.

The Bono Probability Positioning System version 2 Google Bono (beta) is a mashup utilising Dublin's extensive surveillance camera network in conjunction with facial recognition software, Google Maps and advanced probabilty techniques to allow visitors to determine the probability of seeing Bono in any of the most probable locations in Dublin's city centre in real time.

Seoul Net Festival

The 2006 Seoul Net Festival kicked off yesterday with lots of good work including my own project Cyclops which is a finalist in international competition in the webwork category

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.

Beckett Centenary

On the centenary of Beckett's birth, his grave in Montparnasse Cemetry, Paris.

Beckett centenary

Now that the Beckett Centenary Festival has kicked off a few things around town that caught my eye. Start with I not I, Samuel Beckett, Philip Guston and Bruce Nauman at the RHA gallery which includes the Bruce Naumann's great Clown Torture installation

and the Neil Jordan directed Not I. The exhibition was having a few teething problems at the opening with monitors on the blink and the sound from Not I being drowned out by another piece but I loved the rooms constructed in the main gallery to show the shorts.
Also check out John Minahan's iconic Beckett photographs at the National Photgraphic Archive and I see that Dublin is going to get a Beckett themed series of projections by Jenny Holzer

The Net Art Open

I haven't posted in a while as I've been busy with the Net Art Open among other things. There has been a huge response to the call for entries (in no small part thanks to Rhizome who including it on their front page and in the Digest), from the quality of the work submitted so far this is going to be a really exciting exhibition.
The deadline for the first call is April 20th so there's still plenty of time to get your entry in.

Dublin Art openings

Get your art shoes on for this week's crop of Dublin openings

PALLAS HEIGHTS
Pallas Heights have four exhibitions opening this Friday 24th 6.00 - 7.30pm which'll also be the last exhibition there before the building is demolished.

Fergus Byrne, Fiction, flat 25
Clodagh Emoe, Metaphysical Longings, flat 28
Vanessa O'Reilly, SWARM, flat 29
Via, flat 30

Pallas Heights, 29 Sean Tracey House, Buckingham St, Dublin 1.
Exhibition continues March 28th - 15th May.

LUMENS
Lumens a light based public art work by Seamus Kennedy based at Newtownsmith in DunLaoghaire is being launched today at 6.30 in the County Hall Marine Rd, Dun Laoghaire.

SAMUEL BECKETT, PHILIP GUSTON & BRUCE NAUMAN AT RHA
To celebrate the centenary of Samuel Beckett the RHA exhibition combines two of America¹s most outstanding artists of the twentieth century together with three recent films of Beckett¹s shorter plays. The three Beckett plays chosen are from the recent productions by Blue Angel Films/ Tyrone Productions. The British artist Damien Hirst directs Breath, Neil Jordan directs I Not I and Karel Reisz directs Act Without Words 1. These plays will be shown as continuous video projections in three separate rooms in the Academy¹s main gallery.

They will be punctuated by six of the late paintings of Philip Guston
(1913-1980). Bruce Nauman (1941) shows Clown Torture, 1987 and Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk). Nauman will also be represented by a major sculpture South America Triangle, 1981, where the lexicon of Nauman¹s and Beckett¹s props overlap.

Opening Thursday 23rd 6-8pm at the RHA Ely Place

MARIE FALKSTEN AT THE LAB
An exhibition of photographs by Swedish artist Marie Falksten opens at the LAB Foley Street, Dublin 1 on Friday 24 March to 22 Apri at 6pm

RAYMOND WATSON AT THE JAMES JOYCE HOUSE OF THE DEAD
Hands of History opens Thursday 23 March 2006 at 6.30.
Exhibition continues until the 23 April. James Joyce House of the Dead, 15 Usher¹s Island, Dublin 8.

The Net Art Open 2006 call for entries

I have just launched the 2006 call for entries for the Net Art Open. The Net Art Open is an open submission exhibition for internet based artwork which accepts all valid entries. I first created it with Artie Doyle in 2002 as part of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.com intervention subsequent editions took place in 2003 and 2004-5

Click here for more information on how to participate

Beckett on Ubu Web

From Ubuweb winter 2006 MP3s of 8 Beckett radio plays including the novels Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable read by Cyril Cusack from a 1958 RTE production.

Brian Duggan @ Pallas Heights

More often than most an exhibition by Brian Duggan opens this Friday 6-7pm at Pallas Heights, More information about the exhibition and Pallas Heights here. If you haven't been to Pallas Heights yet go now, it's easily the most interesting alternative exhibition space in Dublin, the block of flats housing it is scheduled to be demolished in the new year and it's very unlikely you'll see it's like again.

Cyclops at FILE São Paulo

My project Cyclops is part of File 2005 (International Festival of Electronic Language) which opens today in São Paulo, Brazil. Unfortunately yours truly is still in rainy Dublin but lots of good work included much of it available through their website.

Peripheral Visions

Peripheral Visions is an ongoing video art exhibition which started in April and ends with a major symposium in November at the Cork Film Centre Curated by Nigel Rolfe and Cliodhna Shaffrey it features the cream of emerging European video art with the work of one artist being screened each week over 38 weeks.
The project features 28 artists from Britain, Western Europe, Scandinavia, the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. A further 11 Irish artists have been selected to participate in the project, creating new works mentored by Nigel Rolfe. Participants in the Irish component have access to shooting and editing facilities at Cork Film Centre.
The climax of the project will be a high profile symposium to be held on 18th – 20th November 2005 in the Granary Theatre, Cork.
More information from Cork 2005 and from Cork Film Centre

Dublin Art College Graduate Shows

It's that time of year again with graduate exhibitions at NCAD, Dun Laoghaire IADT and DIT

A Minima Interview

An interview I did with Pau Waelder while at the Metanarratives conference at Fundacio La Caixa in Barcelona has been published in Spanish art magazine A Minima. In the interview I talk about my work in progress and the advantages and difficulties of working in series and in particular of creating work based on Ulysses, a shortened version of the interview is available online at Furtherfield.

The image of Che

This image of Che Guevara is one of the iconic images of the 20th century, it was taken by Alberto Korda in 1960, he claimed no copyright on the image until 2000 when he was so appalled when Smirnoff used it in a advert that he sued for copyright infringement. One of the beneficiaries of his enlightened view on copyright was our own Jim Fitzpatrick here in conversation about his famous poster made from Korda's photo and his attitude to the copyright of the image.
On a related note Alberto Granado on his friendship with Che Guevara - you may remember him as Che's travelling companion in The Motorcycle Diaries.

In the name of God and the dead generations...

An original copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic went for €390,000
at auction in Dublin yesterday. Apparently it went for twice it's estimate which I found a bit surprising as there are only 20 copies and the state owns three of them. I guess all the millionaires who pay no tax are lacking in patriotism.
Alternatively you could can buy your own for €3.75