Backscratcher Museum

Backscratcher Museum

Live from Elsewhere to PSU

Elsewhere

Hey kids, I am in North Carolina at the Elsewhere Artist Collaborative. Check out my blog, and then check again, because I update it frequently.

Joaquin Phoenix on Late Show w/ David Letterman Feb 11 2009

I have always disliked David Letterman.

The White Gallery

Group Show; Extraordinarily Ordinary; The White Gallery on
PSU campus in Portland, Oregon; Portland State University,
Smith Center, 1825 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon, 97207

e-flux mailing

NEW SCHOOL UNIVERSITY IS NOW OCCUPIED

New School in Exile

Pirates of the Amazon

Pirates of the Amazon - Documentation

Call for Support

presentation

I like this piece by Gordon Winiemko found here. It's a flickr photostream called "Do Relational Aesthetics With Me (2007)." Mostly I like it because it is an interesting model for presenting a final piece and relates to methods of presentation I have been thinking about or have utilized regarding free and easy to manipulate web real estate.

more cool stuff from google blog alerts

I particularly like David Horvitz's work THINGS FOR SALE THAT I WILL MAIL YOU. Apparently, he likes Matt Elliot or at least knows him. I like Matt Elliott's music. One time I told him so on his site, and he was very kind in his reply. His album Drinking Songs deeply moves me, I once listened to part of it as I drove across the bridge from Astoria, Oregon into Washington. On May 8, 2008, I had a blog post titled "i like this guy, matt elliott," but then later I made it private.

Listen to Matt Elliot on his myspace.

and

Andrea Zittel in conversation with Allan McCollum

Make Changes by Lee Walton, etc.

John Larsen posted this response on Walton's participatory Make Changes blog, neato, huh?

and

Coo Coo for CoCA Puffs: Elsewhere Artist Collaborative | arts production Residencies

blog alert

Stuff I like from digging around on here:

Iraq Veterans Against the War


Just Space(s)

Sunset in the Imperial City: How New York’s Public Spaces Presage the End of Empire by Greg Smithsimon

Feel Tank

Sea and Space

--

Coo Coo for CoCA Puffs: Andrew Hida: "Slow Healing" part 2

google blog alert: everybody #1

SHE SAID, 'JOHNNY YOU GOT BIG EYES' on zoilus.com.

Benefits of Laughter Yoga with John Cleese

I love this project in the PSU Social Practice undergrad class, there are a lot of interesting projects on their blog.

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Also of interest is damali's I Can Fix It! Speaker Corps:

damali is now training new speakers to give her signature talk on these10 practical solutions for how to create healthier, more productive racial interactions. The training will be in in Portland, Oregon. Participants get to enjoy damali's humor and style as they see her give the presentation in it's full glory, then use their own stories and sense of humor to build their own version of the presentation. Facilitation and presentation skills will be covered. PowerPoint slides and visuals will be given as part of the training. Participants will become card-carrying ICFI Speaker Corps Members and encouraged to bring the talk to schools and communities.

***

I see a link between some of Jason Zimmerman's work and Patrick Killoran, specifically Jason's lost and found lottery ticket forgery project.

<3

Spiffy Pocket Projector Love

Some stuff of interest found on the Internets

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Service Aesthetics: Individualized Experiences

Printable PDF of referenced Artforum article.

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Social Practice Development

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Tarot Readings and Gift Package Benefitting 2GQ

Interesting fundraiser for 2 Gyrlz Performative Arts. Finding this link is eerie timing and not exactly an occurrence of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, which I just found out is the term that applies to certain serendipitous happenings, but interesting because all day I have been thinking about doing an occult themed fundraiser for my presentation a week from this Monday.

I would be changing directions at this point, I have already started something else, but my friend is trying to make rent. I thought maybe people would be willing to throw down five bucks for a five minute astrological reading from said friend. He won't return my phone call, though, so not sure if he would like the idea or not. I would collect birth data in advance, and maybe a question, and then he would have a chance to look over stuff before the meeting. I want to match funds or maybe even double them, so say six people wanted a reading, that would be 90 bucks toward his rent.

2GQ is offering a Tarot Reading Gift Baske on etsy.com to raise money for a project and computer expenses.

Art Feeds the Homeless

Found on Mark Dombrosky's blog, a project by Harrell Fletcher
and Marc Dombrosky's in a show curated by Jennifer Gately.

more here.

Yes Men

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release - Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.


B-roll of fake New York Times Distribution, November 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.

Anonymous Snail: A Response to Molasses

Anonymous Snail visited my house three days after I tried to convince Molasses to keep a snail visitor as a pet.

Molasses' snail, Oatmeal, came from the farmers market piggybacking on a head of lettuce. Suffice to say, bringing Anonymous Snail inside was unthinkable. It's all context.

Location: my porch






Snail Anatomy
Proper Care of a Snail

EDIT and ADD 12/09/08:

Instant Grants

Instant Grant Program from Steve Lambert on Vimeo.

This is so wonderful. I hope the grant recipients put these on their resumes.

and 100 $1 Grant Proposals.

Neighborhood Projects

The Social Practice MFA cats are participating in PICA's Time Based Arts Festival's Neighborhood Projects. Here are the projects I am involved with: The Official Unofficial Goodwill Residency, Exploring Hood Lore, Public Speaking: Museum of the CIty, and Listen to My Dad, Charles Kurtz, Talk About Birds
.

Proflux Festival 2008

For Proflux Festival's 2008 Satellite Series organized by Jen Delos Reyes, Sandy Sampson and Laurel Kurtz collaborated in Public Speaking: Irving Park.

This Public Speaking project is the second in a series of on-going projects hosted by Parallel University’s May We Speak For You Public Inquiry Program. We reenacted Irving Park goers’ answer to the question “What do you care about?” We recorded our casual conversations with people, and transcribed the audio for a more formal presentation in order to amplify the importance of everyday people’s words.

The action of speech recreation in the locale where the speech was originally given has a long tradition. For example, Creative Time’s recreation of Angela Davis’ Vietnam era speech at deFremery Park in Oakland, and John Malapede’s Bobby Kennedy campaign speeches throughout Southeastern Kentucky (Apelshop.) These reenactments not only highlight the importance of these speeches, but the importance of speech. By interpretive reenactment of people's answers on August 9, 2008, we hope to emphasize the voice of the everyday person.

Sandy and Laurel are member of Toast Masters International Civil Tongues chapter in Portland, Oregon.

Evan Kirby Googling Evan Kirby

For Proflux Festival's 2008 Satellite Series organized by Jen Delos Reyes, I proposed doing a project, Evan Kirby Googling Evan Kirby in early August 2008. An old friend from years ago when I briefly lived in Boulder, CO was impossible to find through google searches. I made a recreation of an old photograph Evan gave me in the late 80's for a header in a blog that was to be dedicated to him. It would include people found through both youtube and google searches with the name Evan, Kirby, or Evan Kirby, compiled of search engine results of the folks who were not my friend Evan Kirby.

I hoped that the "real" Evan would someday google his own name, as I have done, and he would find the blog and thus find me. Contextually, the idea is similar to my Happy Birthday, Sara blog, and my Other People's Youtube Bird Videos blog.

Anyway, I wanted to make sure I was spelling Evan's last name correctly, and asked my mom without telling her why I wanted to know. She found him that day. I felt a little weird going forth with the project, so I decided to alter it and canceled the activity for Proflux. It still has the same name, Evan Kirby Googling Evan Kirby, and I asked him when we finally connected if he minded. It will instead be a vehicle to search for other long lost childhood friends that I am unable to locate under the same premise: Carol Hansen, Kyra parker, Beth Carpenter, Tammy and Rachel Olman, and Ann Marie Gisvald.

Goodwill Shopper Installations; Goodwill Industries of the Columbia-Willamette; Goodwill Store Portland; 1943 SE Sixth Avenue

Natalie
Worksound Gallery
Cover of book

There is an affinity between those who donate, shop, and work at the Goodwill (GW). The shelves are stocked with ever-changing, community-made installations. There is constant shifting, removing, and replacing of items. When portions of the displays are isolated and contextualized, interesting microcosms appear. The wish to emphasize these is partial impetus behind this project.

Laurel Kurtz, unofficially designated herself as Aritst in Residence at the Goodwill Super Store in Se Portland. Assisted by Amy Steele and Connie Hockaday, they asked shoppers at the GW on SE 6th to participate in Laurel's project by making art installations from items for sale at the GW. People seemed to have fun with it. Laurel took photo documentation, and made a picture book out of a photo album purchased from the GW. It was on display at Worksound atop a coffee table that was also purchased that day. The coffee table functions as a pedestal and a foot rest, and it was repaired and altered by Laurel. The existing couches that belong to the Worksound Gallery surrounded it, thus creating an affinity between these two venues.

Installations by:
Grant, Rita, Jeanie, Wolfgang, Jon, Amy, and Natalie

Four of the images Laurel took of found installations were made into filter art, signed and were then slipped into existing frames and were unofficially on display; they were for sale in the store and sold at Goodwill prices, about $1.99 each. Office of Inclusion business cards were placed in the back of the frames, and a cell phone was used to document in lieu of a busted camera.

four framed filter art pieces

City Hall

Mike Doney
For their project in the Social Practice group show Municipal Maneuvers at City Hall, Laurel and Avalon were interested in continuing their art and dowsing collaboration with professional dowser Mike Doney. They thought it would be nice to bring dowsing, which is commonly associated with finding water, into City Hall and the Water Bureau. They were surprised to find that Mike had already dowsed at City Hall many years before.

Mike has mentioned that in his dowsing work he has come across energy fields that contain the feelings of Hope and Joy. For their City Hall experiments Laurel, Avalon, and Mike decided to focus on these fields, as well as continue to experiment with dowsing the auras around public art sculptures.

Avalon and Laurel are working on a book which documents the story of that day.

Juicy II at the Ondine

detail of Juicy II
Oregon Art Commision Sculpture Project on Portland State University (PSU) Campus

Steven Beatty and Laurel Kurtz were commissioned through the Oregon Arts Commission’s Oregon's Percent for Art Program to create a large scale site-specific sculpture, Juicy II, made from reclaimed post-consumer plastic bottle caps and lids. The work is located in the ceiling alcove on the second floor of the PSU Ondine Student Housing building, 1912 SW 6th Ave.

B E Berger's photo stream of Juicy II

Please come to the unveiling on September 19th, 2008 at 6PM.

Office of Inclusion

The Office of Inclusion

Walking Map

I wish I had the skills to make an on-line interactive walking map of Portland. It would be similar to Trimet's trip planner and/or this interactive transit planner. Mostly I would like to know how much time it would take the average walker to get from point a to b given the quickest route. I searched around some and couldn't find anything like it for PDX, but saw similar stuff in play for the UK and Germany.

Voluteering

I'm a volunteer, and this summer I will be researching community volunteerism as a form of participatory art, and a way to broaden skills and opportunities for artists.

Participatory Art

One thing about participatory art is that when I try to get others involved in my projects it generally fails. It is just me and a couple of my friends doing the participating. At times, the occasional stranger will become involved. In all seriousness, "failure" is not the most appropriate word; one person, coerced and/or bribed family member or not, is an adequate show. However! My hope is always that hundreds of people will unite for any given event, project, etc..

SO! I propose to involve myself in several (like, lots and lots) of strangers' (non-strangers will be considered as well) participatory projects this summer. I made two Google Alerts--call for artists and call for art--this will be where I get the majority of the C4A notifications.

Actually, I made the Google Alert a while back to get material for one of the Livejournal communities that I created and co-moderate pdx_call_4_art on livejournal.com. I posted a couple calls today, both the second and third of the strangers' projects I will try and involve myself in, this is of course dependent on whether they accept me.

The first project I participated in this summer was created by this guy I met on the craigslist.com artsforum. His name is Tom Brown, and he is from Baltimore. He is passing around a wig to people that have primarily expressed interest in his project via the on-line discussion group format (I think). I made a blog about my participation: Tom Browns Wig PDX

So, if you want to simultaneously participate with me in these projects, check here or the pdx_call_for_art community, and I will post about the strangers projects. How about I use the "tag" or "label" strangers' projects. And like with all of these projects, the success of the project is not dependent on your participation, but as always, it would be great to have you on board!

Edit// Just added "participatory art" to Google alerts.

HB sara!

Happy Birthday Sara Blog <--Click the link

marbles

Mike had a pendulum in his pocket. he made it by sticking a short string with glue on the frayed ends to a marble, and the he game back and applied more glue after the first bit dried. I added an extra step by sanding the spot where the glue and string goes. We are giving them out at RAW. These ones are drying on a plate of uncooked rice.

sandwich board and tacks

This portable bulletin board is made from stuff we had floating around our basement. I went by the PSU recycling center one day seeking a discarded bulletin board and left empty handed. Later that day I was in a storage building and by the dumpster, lo and behold, there sat a large corkboard with an aluminum frame. It has been sitting on my porch for two months and is periodically blown over by the wind.

Earlier this week, I cut the thing up and mounted it to the face on each side of some particleboard that I cut out legs from and attached hinges to forming a V shape. I painted the whole thing purple by mixing together some old house paint that was lying around. This thing might work well for displaying the marquee letters at 5th Avenue Cinema where I have been guiltily sneaking letters onto the mini marquee by placing them over existing letters.


Here is an interactive thumbtack installation in Lincoln Hall on PSU campus. There are two of these in the main hallway, and I'm pretty sure it would be okay for people to help themselves to these tacks.

And I made programs! Mike was carrying around various reading material in his backpack along with his dowsing rods and markers. At one point he pulled out a journal published by the Candian Dowsing Assc., because it was was relevant to our decision to dowse musical notes. He let me borrow the journal after I told him I wanted to make copies to put in the program.

Avalon and I went to Reed on Saturday with, Mike, the dowser. We dowsed the aura of a sculpture, and a field that had a tree and many squirrels near by. Rather than dowsing water sources, we were dowsing the imprints of matter made by light in the fourth dimension. Each of these imprints has a corresponding musical note, and we were dowsing for b flat specifically. We marked them with pink flags that Avalon picked up from the hardware store. We asked, Ashley, a manager at New Seasons in Hillsdale, and who is trained in classical voice, to sing the the field for RAW. The people involved in the workshop led by, Mike, will dowse the notes.

After that, I was validated with a stamp at the Apple Store. A yellow ticket issued by a machine was my temporary proof, and luckily, I snapped a photo of it before returning it to the attendant. This is part of my positive public affirmation collection.

BIRDRAINBOWS

A COLLECTION OF OTHER PEOPLE'S YOUTUBE VIDEOS FEATURING BIRDS

see?

yes, and there will be a website soon, i am working on it, it's about the bird project i did with my pa.

Greetings from my four AM shift at the foundry where I'm aiding the kiln gods in baby-sitting a fire. Posie wanted to pour bronze for a project and a few of us made some pieces to be cast so that we could get a full load. Katy and Posie will pour on Sunday, I'm going to be sand person.

All are invited, it will happen at PSU in Neuberger on the second floor, room 229, Sunday, at 5 PM.

I am burning out water bottle lid pendulums for the dowsers. They are more for decortation than use. If they were not so heavy in bronze, I would suggest using them as tree decoration.

At the dowsing meeting a nice man, Steve, gave Avalon and I and others, pendulums that he made from stone. It's quite a process choosing a pendulum. The one that finally agreed to go home with me didn't immediately catch my eye.

When choosing a pendulum, a person is to ask it if it is the right one for them. A side to side, or back and forth sway, means no. They all said no, until the last one I asked moved in a strong circular motion signifying yes.

It was an emotional experience. I felt elated that one agreed, and was surprised by its beauty. It has been a long time since I was struck by the loveliness of an object that wasn't plastic or garbage, or of nature in the more obvious sense. Like, rocks without dangling gold chains.

My mother gave me a pendulum that I happen to have in my bag. She uses one in her work. We were given a project from Mo at the meeting, and and I wanted too see how my new pend. did in comparison to the one from my mom.

Avalon and I were going to participate in the project, but the pendulums kept saying we were not in the right conditions to do Mo's survey. We were to remote dowse an area of Oregon and see if we would come up with the same spots as the Geologists, and then Mo would write the news papers saying dowsing works as well if not better than more expensive and invasive methods. We didn't know before hand the spots that the Geos had found with their machines. I am always tempted to plod ahead, even if the pendulum says no, because in our case, the pendulum was contradicting earlier yeses, but it is probably a good thing Avalon thought we should wait.

9 of these are in the kiln, they will be bronze by Sunday:


The one my mother gave me, it is hard to keep my arm steady, and the unsteadiness aids in the motion:


happy birthday, danny devito.

Palm's Fort, Flap Storm, Pals Morphed

-some PEOPLE
The Elderly
Aging Liberals
Dr. Cheung
Dowsers
Astrologers
Ghost Hunters
Edgar Cayce
My Dad




-think about
Animal Clients Ala Jeremy Deller And Fritz Haeg
why think about it? because it's amusing, clients.
Same-Sex Marriage
First Aid CPR
Ageism
AM Radio
Coast To Coast AM
Alt Med


-PLATforms
Books
UnusedUrbanSpaceVsLivelyUrbanSpace
Truck Beds
Nursing Homes
Church/Cult in the Abstract or as a Physical Structure (like, let's start a church on paper and maybe we'll find a physical space, maybe the space is a floating innertube circle, the space under people's legs when they press their backs together with others, a mental space, or a space between a hedge and a fence.)
My Home
Your Home
Detroit
Car Trunks
Craigslist
Weddings
Posters
Classes
A Day
A Time Of Day
Customs/Ritual/Holiday/Need For New Ones/What Can That Look Like?

.*..:'*Cheer::,.*~..

...from the cheers I participated in every morning in Regina, this one line keeps bursting into all my other thoughts. I am trying to concentrate on so many other things, but it really wants my attention, so I should probably spend some time listening to it.

Art and the Everyday Experience!! Yeay!!!

activities

Searching for alternative viewing venues, one day a couple of weeks ago, I focused on public bulletin boards. I started from home at the top of the hill and made my way down SE Belmont, which eventually turns into Morrison. I compiled a list of the spaces that I entered and have them marked with an n or a y. I would like to organize a call 4 art in these spaces by posting a flier on the boards asking people to post their art on them.

That same day I arrived downtown and went to facilities on the PSU campus asking if they had any bulletin boards that I could have. They said, "no." But, it was really weird, because later, I was in the SE industrial area and a large bulletin board was leaning on a garbage pile. There is a split in the corkboard near a corner, but other than that it is fine. It has an aluminum frame.

Three page list with 18 places:




It's interesting, with these fliers I have been hanging up, if I put them on a surface that isn't designated as a proper flier surface, like a wall or a window, they get torn down right away. If I put them on a bulletin board, they remain up indefinitely but so far three weeks later, they are still up. Sometimes they get moved around, and actually, at Zupans, my flier seemed to invite other fliers, and then one day all the fliers were torn down. I'm guessing that they like a clean bulletin board.

I would like to offer the n's bulletin boards.

The Alibi Project

Last evening, while ascending six flights in a freight elevator, Sara B, Steve B, Mark J, and I made a pact consecrated by our hands in a pile-up. You know those sign-in sheets where you write your name in chronological order along with all the other names?

Like this?


Well, from here on out, whenever signing in in this fashion, we will leave the line above our name blank. We encourage others to do the same.

Like this:


The theory behind it is, if you need an alibi, you can go to one of these sign-in sheets, find an empty space, and put your name in it, therefore proving you were there. This will prove especially handy when the police state happens.

Space

The bike lockers on campus would make excellent alternative viewing spaces, and they are surprisingly vacant. They're left unlocked until someone claims them, I'm not exactly sure how it works, do you have to get a permit or just a lock in order to stick your bike in them? People have already discovered their potential as a shelter. I wonder if I could count on them being vacant long enough to organize a call for art where artists would claim one for a day and viewers could make their rounds. It would be tempting to do this covertly, sans permission, but a more organized attempt would temper possible chaos and draw more interest. Are there other places in the city where these exist? I'll keep my eye out.

POSTERS

Tomorrow is Monday, and I have to be somewhere by 2p. I will give myself plenty of time to walk from Mt Tabor to the PSU campus. I want to take my time so that I can hang a few of the posters. I will look indoors, these ones shouldn't get rained on.

Thumbtack Graffiti

The range of artwork currently on display at PNCA is impressive, and I must report, my favorite piece in the show is my own.


#5; Thumbtack Graffiti Series; PNCA

This piece is part of my Thumbtack Graffiti Series. I captured it upon climbing the stairs at PNCA as I viewed the current group show. Where there are public or private boards adorned with thumbtacks meant to hang communicative messages, it is likely that a human arranged thumbtacks, either abstractly or figuratively; I have seen examples of both. If you have not noticed this, look, and you will see the thumbtack graffiti. I document these encounters.

When I noticed the thumbtack pieces originally, I thought of cave drawings. In particular, I was reminded of the cave paintings of Lascaux, France where humans traced their hands. In this context, the thumbtacks signify some long-standing and innate urge to self-express by manipulating our surroundings using fairly simple methods. Amidst the more decorative and complex European cave paintings of Lascaux, which are speculated to have ceremonial purposes, the hand tracings are like graffiti. Likewise, in our modern humanmade dwellings, the thumbtack renderings are likened to graffiti.

My piece, #5, represents the beginning of a school year. There has not been time to clutter the board with messages, and people have not run off with the tacks, attaching them to other boards where supplies may be depleted, so they are plentiful. Whomever hung the tacks in #5 stuck in far more than needed for such a small plane. They arranged most of them off to the right, perhaps leaving room for the anticipated messages.

The thumbtack graffiti is mutable and likely temporary. If monitored, one could surmise, and probably accurately, that other graffiti would appear using the same material.

I've been thinking about thumbtacks since 2005 when Harrell Fletcher brought a hefty stack of books into his Advanced Sculpture Topics class. Tony Feher arranged less than ten tacks in a staggered line, it was in his book, calling attention to the minimal arrangement of consumer items. People were pissed off and calling Tony Feher a fraud. This couldn't be art, and then after that day, everything was potentially art.

And then on Art MoCo there's the thumbtack mural.

We Are Very Serious

This note was found on my friend's windshield, one block from his house in NW, 730AM, Sunday morning.



Want to keep your job jackoff! We live here and we saw the whole show. Leave us $50.00 under the BLUE Willamette Week under the stop sign. We have your liscene plate perv!! We are very serious.

You should have seen his expression when he imitated himself finding the note. He scrunched his shoulders together, while locking his knees and bending them. His hands clutched the note like a chipmunk hoarding a nut. He had a slight grit to his teeth, and his eyes darted around. His guilt and perplexity were hilarious. He said he actually wondered for a moment if he had performed some lewd behavior in his car and had just forgotten about it.

What should he put in an envelope and place under the blue Willamette Week box?