Map of Truth + Deception

Give me the map.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671253/infographic-the-map-of-truth-and-deception

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CONVERGENCE / DIVERGENCE

HEY: “CONVERGENCE / DIVERGENCE” features my video, Experiment 2, below.
And I am honored. Do come visit:

The Women Environmental Artists Directory (WEAD), is pleased to announce a significant contemporary eco-art exhibition at the Los Medanos College Art Gallery in Pittsburg CA.  The exhibition will run from Tuesday November 6^th through December 13^th, 2012, with an Opening Reception on Thursday November 15 from 4 pm – 7 pm.  Gallery hours are daily from 12:30 - 2:30 pm and 4 - 6 pm Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

CONVERGENCE / DIVERGENCE features a broad perspective from environmental artists on the theme of water and its global and local roles.    The choice of Los Medanos College as a site for the exhibit is not accidental; the college is the only institute of higher education  in the delta area where the San Joachin and Sacramento rivers merge before entering San Pablo and San Francisco Bays.   The challenges and sensitivity of the eco-systems in the region is one reason for Los Medanos’ extensive Environmental Studies curriculum.  In addition to its Art Gallery, the campus features a native plant preserve and a centralized water re-use pond.

The exhibition, a collaboration between Los Medanos College Art Gallery and WEAD, is 

curated by noted intermedia artist Suzon Fuks, co-founder of WATERWHEEL, “a collaborative online venue for artists, scientist, activist, and all water lovers,”   brings together contributions of more than 30 artists from around the world, working in a variety of media--installation, video, and performance arts dealing with the theme.    A world-wide roundtable symposium via Skype and WATERWHEEL will feature many of the participants on December 8^th,  10 am – 1 pm, PST.

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Traditional Knowledge and Living Sustainably

Oowen sez: As different aggregations of the very elements making up our physical world, we are our environment, our environment is us. Just last night, I was talking with my friend Josh Short about a book, Tending The Wild, on the exact subject of the Convention of Biological Diversity's new report (below):

"The complex picture that emerges from this and other historical source material dispels the hunter-gatherer stereotype long perpetuated in anthropological and historical literature. We come to see California's indigenous people as active agents of environmental change and stewardship. Tending the Wild persuasively argues that this traditional ecological knowledge is essential if we are to successfully meet the challenge of living sustainably."  


Find out more:
CBD Technical Series 64: Recognizing and Supporting Territories and Areas Conserved by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Global overview and national case studies

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Who speaks to me with my own voice

So I've been conspiring with an old friend of mine, Daniel Coffeen, for the past several months on a little sumthin-sumthin: a companion guide of sorts to my diagrams from The Beginning Was The End, an adjustable lens on and joyful pain reliever from the complexity of its stuff. Daniel's constantly surprising cred includes years of teaching rhetoric at UC Berkeley, and critical theory at San Francisco Art Institute, and he's lent tangible support to the Oowen Adventure for nearly a decade. No matter how near or far, the good doctor always beats me to the bar; we both are the kind of human that can talk others sick sans mind altering substances, but in their company, the ongoing conversation has been a solid match and a pure pleasure. Some of his contributions to blogs like Thought Catalog bear traces, and I recently failed a friend-quiz when he let slip that he'd mused on my own work on his blog, An Emphatic Umph. That'll learn ya...

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Return to The Swing, In Fall

OOOOkay, it's been some time since my last post, as you can see. After my fundraising campaign for The Beginning Was The End closed in March, I immediately turned 40 and dove head first into business: residency at Kala Art Institute, project and website development, a visiting artist gig at UC Santa Barbara, studio visits, non-stop proposal writing for grants, residencies, and fellowships... Fyewf. Any other trust-fund-free artist will do the same thing given the chance, though; I'm just very lucky to have some extraordinary support out there to make mine possible. 

The highlights of what's been on my menu since then are right on the landing page of that new site, of which I'm so proud-- www.oillyoowen.com-- and on my Facebook group for The Beginning Was The End, so I'm going to jump back in here without much ado:

The piping hot news is that I recently returned from a meeting at the Getty Research Institute, and without jinxing anything I will say that it was a wonderful and extremely influential day that I will not forget. Among a few other sizable opportunities, aside from this, I'll be applying for fellowship there for their 2013-14 year. Any and all news will be posted here, to be sure. 

In the meantime, I've just finished a new diagram on Javanese time, Tatal Pawukon that features in Keeping Time, an exhibition on the marking, tracking, measuring and the keeping of time at Kala Art Institute Gallery in Berkeley, California: 

Tatal Pawukon, 2012

More to come, but that's all for now!

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Some questions on process...

A question that's been coming up frequently about my Hypercube series is,
Where are the videos you're using coming from?

A: These are strictly analog, single-channel videos from my Experiment series, shot with a super cheap, black-and-white surveillance camera; I threw on a potentiometer so that I could basically solarize the video manually. In 2008 at the Experimental Television Center in New York, I live-processed original footage from my first research trip to Indonesia (also 2008), from the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, my studio in Boston, and from Manhattan, incorporating several feedback loops using things like voltage control (aspects of the audio driving some video channels) and The Wobbulator, a device invented by Nam June Paik and Shuya Abe expressly for the ETC. (My second residency last Spring was one of the last in the ETC's 40-year history. I am LUCKY, and sad it's gone!)

Extended A: 

To make the videosculptures, I worked with my friend Iyok (a.k.a., Budi Prakosa), a super sweet, disturbingly smart garage-computer scientist at House Of Natural Fiber. We mapped the video by hand, projecting directly onto the objects, measuring with a ruler, and masking the different layers in Motion as we went along. Needless to say, I am pleased as punch that programs like Touch Designer and Modul8 are out there now, which are making projects like Amon Tobin's ISAM possible (I witnessed this at The Warfield last Fall here in San Francisco, and I remember bahaving like a genuine Beatlemaniac). I'm excited to use the open source version on THE BEGINNING WAS THE END that our Creative Strategist, Matt Howell, just found.

These multi-layered pieces were done in the same way as Palindrome, which I made in 2006 using AfterEffects. While I was working in Java, I had initially intended to create videosculptures in exactly like Palidrome, making more elaborate arrangements of scientific glass to express the ideas in my Diagrams.

My assistant Sita and I toured the glass labs at Univeritas Gaja Mada's chemistry and physics departments, where they produce and repair their own scientific glass by hand. I wanted to see if I could commission my own shapes but it was exorbitantly expensive; I solved the problem by having negative shapes cast in cubes of resin, a baby-step in the right direction.

 

While we were there, I took a stab at a potentially complicated conversation with the lab tech: I asked him how to metaphorically express the energy behavior in a ritual called ruwatan in terms of an actual chemistry experiment, what equipment could be used to represent its different aspects. Amazingly, THIS WORKED. It turned out the guy moonlights as the gatekeeper for the Sultan's tomb, a special cave-like place in the palace graveyard where one can go to pray, but must wear traditional costume to enter (if you're shy on gear, never fear: they will provide). He completely and effortlessly rolled with my idea, the perfect consultant. THIS is why I love Java.

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The Homestead, January fundraiser

The first fundraising event at The Homestead bar in SF, CA, 01.18. Thanks to the shocking crowd of genius who came for the killer discussion and left behind an ongoing stream of support. I look forward to the next: Chez Chien on 02.12. Please email me if you couldn't make it to The Homestead and would like to come...

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