Month: June 2010
Air Out The Moat
The card on the wall says “2 channel video, miniature model, mirrors, glass, black light, ghost video, cut-out projection, audio, false walls”. Makes you instantly dig for the price of admission, doesn’t it? Hoffos has said in interviews that he feels artists should give themselves a second childhood. Entering a carnivalesque installation like Scenes From The House Dream feels like joining him there. Learning the grownup thinking behind this atmospheric trip (Jung, bla bla, house as self, bla bla) does not break the spell – it only adds the sensation of the top of the head raising like a drawbridge, giving your moat some air. The work is currently touring out of the National Gallery of Canada.
Time Out of Place
From 2007, Semiconductor’s hypnotic portrait of Kings Cross. Blieve we make money not art pointed me to this either directly or indirectly.
Granofsky vs Engman
Top: Rachel Granofsky. Bottom: Charlie Engman.
Clicked to Rachel Granofsky‘s site from Wooster’s post of her fun perspective tricks. There I discovered a different series, some of which reminded me of some of Charlie Engman‘s work. What do you think?
Esoteric Investigations
Still Not Robots.
We are uptight about our regular online destinations. With limited time and limitless destinations, decisions on whether to view something even once are made hastily and with enormous anti-click bias. Decisions on whether to subscribe or follow or bookmark or otherwise invest repeated time in a site are made with less haste but even more reticence.
The Os Gêmeos blog reassures me that we have not gone too far with the filter. It’s not in English and includes something that prevents Google translate from working. It’s not part of any of our existing “follow factories” like Tumblr or Posterous or Flickr. (There is a link to Flickr but it returns a locked or possibly empty account). It appears not to be designed, not even mediated by the designs of a blogging platform. Yet we visit regularly, using that clunky old school system of memory and bookmark.
The contents range from the expected (documentation of their work), to the classic (“watch this music video we love”), to the whimsical (snapshots of their travels, some with Portugese commentary that would have to be clipped offsite for translation). Scrolling the page, the overall feeling is – surprise – Os Gêmeos: colourful, human, joyful.
And perhaps the absence of bells, whistles, or even helpful features is part of the experience that keeps us coming back. It’s not a gallery with perfect light and soft seating. It’s a wall viewed from inside a speeding train.
Even More Legendary 
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