DINCA

Changing Education Paradigms

Louis Doulas — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:46:29 +0000

The severely repressed and censored information flow structures of the Egyptian autocracy were–amongst other factors–a large contributor to the intense swelling and eventual organization of its citizens [to protest in disgust, its country's misuse of power]. Today, we have learned that public isn’t simply defined by what one knows, but rather that it is a meta-concept (Zeynep Tufekci) consisting of knowing what others know, one knows and so on. Overcoming pluralistic ignorance, or in other words, overcoming thinking that one is perpetually in the minority, seems to start with distribution and the rearrangement of receiving networks. Yet, this claim some how comes off vague largely because of its specificities. At what weight of severity do such distributive techniques become powerful and actually effective? Is it with time and thus accumulation that allow for collective empowerment, criticality and awareness?

I would like to think, perhaps naively, that the organization of information and its subsequent dispersal–this only effective alongside leaking/intervening/subverting this information into specific channels and outlets–is enough to shift individual perception and henceforth introduce potentiality. We need propaganda and ideology, but a kind that is undeclared from the premise, a formation without an immediate graspable structure.

The, Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, was a large, voluminous, series of French encyclopedia’s edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert published between 1751 and 1772. The Encyclopédie was made up of hundreds of contributors, including scientists, philosophers, scholars, craftsman, etc. and as one can only imagine, its contents were disparate and its contributors largely politically un-unified. Regardless, in an attempt to encompass and archive the world’s knowledge, the Encyclopédie was meant to be dispersed and read in order to educate the individual (in the process freeing her logic from the church). Yet, while many of its contributors remained disinterested in reforming France and a great deal never actually read the immense volumes, the Encyclopédie played an integral precursory role in the French Revolution: its symbolic value represented changing paradigms.

–

Hand Motions is a blog column on DINCA continually featuring writing from Louis Doulas, Wyatt Niehaus and Ria Roberts.

Higher Education

Notes on “Here Comes Nobody”

Wyatt Niehaus — Mon, 14 May 2012 19:48:24 +0000

“…But such acts of lulzmaking are magnetic on two levels, producing spectacular, shocking, and humorous events and images that attract media attention while simultaneously binding together the collective and rejuvenating its spirit. This runs counter to the reductive arguments about whether or not online organizing can breed the conditions necessary for serious, effective activism (see Clay Shirky in the affirmative, Malcolm Gladwell in the negative); the pursuit of lulz, and the shared technology used to do so, are means of creating a common, participatory culture. (Of course, the pursuit of lulz is also an end in and of itself.) ”
-from Here Comes Nobody by David Auerbach and Gabriella Coleman

If there is one explicit role of the internet in relation to activism, it is to cultivate a broader accessibility to political and social issues. Without question, Anonymous does this. However, there have been a rash of viral political agendas that have seen light through videos, online petitions, and twitter campaigns. Do these attempts at broadening the accessibility of activist agendas fulfill their greatest function or do they reduce human rights issues and campaigns for social change to a novel 21st century spectacle?

Since its rise in popularity, there has been no shortage of critiques regarding the Kony 2012 campaign in which young, well-to-do, white American men do their best to disarm and dismantle the militant, child-soldiered regime of warlord Joseph Kony by way of viral video. The video moved swiftly through social media circles, accumulating likes, notes, and retweets at an unheard of rate. Invisible Children, the organization responsible for the video, was able to gin up a tremendous amount of online support for their cause. But outside of a whole host of ethically dubious issues surrounding the content of the video itself – did the Kony 2012 campaign transfer into a meaningful movement that yielded real-world results? The Invisible Children campaign demonstrates one end of a spectrum of political activism on the web.

On a separate end of this spectrum are the protests of SOPA and CISPA, as well as more divisive gestures of direct action like the Anonymous attack on major credit card companies, dubbed Operation Payback. It seems that one factor behind the effectiveness of these campaigns is their relation to the internet. They toe a line between virtual and physical consequences. The swift backlash against SOPA and CISPA existed so prominently on the internet, quite obviously, because it concerned the internet. It concerned the freedom of its users, and the sovereignty of its institutions. The same might be said for Operation Payback. This coordinated effort by Anonymous to attack major credit card providers that denied service to those who sought to donate money to Wikileaks produced such strong feelings within the organization simply because the issue at hand related directly to the agency of a website. Understanding the link between earnestness and effectiveness is not an issue unique to the internet, but as web-culture expands its gaze, it is important to assess the internet’s ability to bring about meaningful change in circumstances far removed from the web.
-
Hand Motions is a blog column on DINCA continually featuring writing from Louis Doulas, Wyatt Niehaus and Ria Roberts.

Local Law 11

Ria Roberts — Fri, 11 May 2012 14:19:31 +0000

Last Monday marked the one month anniversary of New York’s Local Law 11, which states that all public data must be published online. Of equal interest, a wiki is being used to create standards for how that data presented.

For the next few months, NYC Open Data is allowing anyone, both city agency officials and the public, to edit the wiki– with all revisions saved under a “history” tab– and to leave comments. At the end of this test period the information will be reviewed by Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) staff, who will release final data standards in September.

A wiki presents a provocative model for government– the idea of a completely transparent, participatory forum for civic lawmaking is enticingly anarchic (see Loren Carpenter’s Pong experiment)

NYC Open Data’s project is an effort towards technological utopia, reaching towards the dream that computers and networks will allow us to exist as free, self-governing bodies. The site links to a video explaining how wikis work via the charming metaphor of a group camping trip in which the enthusiastic campers use a wiki to make a list of what they need to pack. It begs the image of New York City as one big campground in which its citizens cheerfully band together, taking turns defining “Voluntary Consensus Standards Body.” Granted, that which is added or deleted from the wiki by both the public and city agencies is not carved in stone, only privy to the review of DoITT staff, who will make final decisions, the chaperone on said camping trip.

In practice, participation in this project is sparse. Most of the revisions have been made by two users, Rickyrab, a public policy student who aptly describes himself as “a user of wikis” in his profile, and ReinventAlbany, a transparency advocacy group.

Though this project is off to a rather feeble start, it engenders some interesting thought about fantastical possible futures. While the Internet was born partially out of the U.S. government application of browser based platforms for civic use has lagged far behind corporate. Certainly, the lack of incentive via revenue explains why usa.gov reeks of 2003 in both aesthetic and function. But, in a post-Wikileaks state, what if the government could utilize this model? Chances are slim to none but speculation is imperative.

-
Hand Motions is a blog column on DINCA continually featuring writing from Louis Doulas, Wyatt Niehaus and Ria Roberts.

No related posts.

Innate Disposition by Katja Novitskova, 2012

Andrew Rosinski — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:07:29 +0000

Katja Novitskova
Innate Disposition
Digital print plastic cutout displays.
2012

Currently on view at the Center for Curatorial Studies: Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, April 29 – May 27, 2012.

Katja Novitskova and Timur Si-Qin

Katja Novitskova’s website

The European Design of Katja Gretzinger

Projects from Petros Moris and KERNEL: Part One

Louis Doulas — Wed, 09 May 2012 20:59:59 +0000

Engine

In Engine, a Google search engine is quietly modified so that whenever one types in a keyword of interest, what results are instructions for ‘action’ or potential for action. What is meant by this? Typing in, let’s say, the word ‘computers’, one will receive not historical or general information concerning computers per say, but results such as ‘How to Build a Computer’, ‘How to Keep Your Computer Safe’, ‘How to Fix Your Relatives’ Terrible Computer’, so on and so forth. This small modification demonstrates a type of edit; the search is not directed to open up all and everything on a particular topic but to narrow down its results to specified articles, blog posts, websites, etc. that provide one with tools, or ‘instructions’ (The Instructional Capital) on executing things. Such an edit arguably directs the user to approach the internet not merely as a network of pure consumption, but a powerful tool with a particular user directed function. Engine provides one with informational means to fulfillment, something perhaps one forgets over time when hours and days are spent exhaustively surfing through the infinite websites consolidated within our Google Readers.

KERNEL SFD

What’s first interesting in KERNEL’s Software Freedom Day project, is that physical forms become functional platforms for public congregation in [public] physical space for non-physical, ‘virtual’, networked congregations. Context and purpose are created through the declaration of a space (the use of multi-purpose shelving furniture set up in various environments such as the university campus, the side street, etc.) dedicated, in this case, to celebrating Software Freedom Day. Constructions become relational devices that allow for social interfacing, for trading peer deemed important information, etc. while also demonstrating that events, settings and gatherings like these can be initiated by nearly anyone and everyone impromptu.

Like most of KERNEL’s and Moris’ projects, space—be it online or off—is used and emphasized as a hub for distribution, organization and potential political action. This is probably what one can appreciate and take most of out of their projects.

Hand Motions is a blog column on DINCA continually featuring writing from Louis Doulas, Wyatt Niehaus and Ria Roberts.

Computer Visions: Headquarters by Nicolas Sassoon & Sara Ludy

Walt Disney’s Taxi Driver (2011) by Bryan Boyce

Andrew Rosinski — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:47:32 +0000

Walt Disney’s Taxi Driver, Bryan Boyce, 2011, 4 min, color, sound

Clever appropriation and frame manipulation results in a droll amalgamation of disney motifs within the bounds of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), a short found-footage film that follows a “Mickey Mouse-obsessed Travis Bickle as he looks for love in a rapidly transforming New York City.”

Walt Disney’s Taxi Driver played at the 50th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival and won the Prix DeVarti award for Funniest Film. The film will also play at the upcoming Chicago Underground Film Festival.

Election Collectibles by Bryan Boyce

Bryan Boyce’s YouTube Channel

50 AAFF

Support the 2012 Chicago Underground Film Festival Kickstarter Campaign

Andrew Rosinski — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:27:41 +0000

There’s only three days left to help the Chicago Underground Film Festival reach it’s Kickstarter goal. Please consider donating to this worthy cause. The CUFF crew does some truly amazing things in Chicago — year-round — and the festival fosters a fecund environment for underground filmmakers, freaks, patrons, and curious movie watchers every year.

The CUFF just released its 2012 official lineup and it looks promising. View the 2012 lineup via Bad Lit.

Support the arts. Help CUFF.

The CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL (CUFF), a showcase of defiant and offbeat cinema that confronts the tired, the market-driven, and the predictable. Through its eight-day program of adventurous, experimental works, CUFF celebrates the artistic, aesthetic, and just plain old fun side of independent filmmaking while challenging and transcending commercial and audience expectations.

Much more than a film festival, CUFF has gained a reputation as one of Chicago’s most anticipated cross-cultural summer events. Daily screenings at the Gene Siskel Film Center are followed by parties and live music events.

Exhibiting filmmakers receive travel stipends and lodging to attend the Festival, plus full accreditation that includes access to all public screenings, parties, concerts, and other events. With support from the Independent Feature Project (IFP)/Chicago, the Festival also provides filmmakers with prime exposure and networking opportunities with engaged programmers and producers. What’s more, CUFF presents hand-crafted trophies to the films that are deemed best or most interesting in a wide variety of categories, along with “Made in Chicago” and Audience Choice Awards.

Your contribution will help CUFF bring out-of-town artists to Chicago for this year’s festival, providing funds for travel and lodging. CUFF aims not simply to screen film and video, but also to provide a forum for discourse between filmmakers and audience members. As external funding sources for the arts continue to disappear, it has become increasingly difficult for festivals to provide travel stipends, or for artists to finance their own plane tickets and hotel rooms. Each artist that CUFF is able to bring to Chicago enriches the festival experience for both the audience and the other filmmakers, and your donation will have a direct effect in sustaining CUFF’s role as a dynamic, challenging, and fun part of Chicago’s cultural calendar and summer film festival circuit.

Check out our pledge levels…we want to thank you for your efforts…but feel free to pledge any amount you wish! No rules! — Bryan Wendorf, CUFF

2012 CUFF kickstarter page

CUFF website

2012 CUFF Official Lineup via Bad Lit

“Post-Figurative” Legitimacy in Internet Culture

Wyatt Niehaus — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:27:07 +0000

AIDS 3D, Free Internet

“If a group is aiming to eliminate class distinctions, pre-figurative politics demands that there be no class distinctions within that group, nor should that group’s actions reinforce classism. The same principle applies to hierarchy: if a group is fighting to abolish some or all forms of hierarchy in larger society, prefigurative politics demands they individually and as a group adhere as closely to that goal as possible.” — “Prefigurative politics,” Wikipedia article

Through much of the first half of the aughts, focus was placed on how business might monetize the internet. Up until this point, websites allowed users to read about, discuss, collaborate, and stay connected with one another without any real way to effectively capitalize on these structures. Attempts to solve this problem came in waves of transformation, like the dot-com bubble and later, the ushering in of the ‘web 2.0’ concepts of user-profiles and social media. Eliminating the prismatic nature of our online selves, and attaching dedicated usernames and information to our web-personas helps businesses pinpoint what we consume, when we consume it, and how often. These are quite obviously the goals of business and we should suspect nothing less. But does this migration of business to the web mirror a shift in the ideology of web-nativists?

As cultural production on the web gains the legitimacy of outside sources, the internet begins to reflect the power-structures of those outside sources. This is a kind of “post-figurative” politic, in conflict with an assumed common goal to “build a new world in the shell of the old” as defined above. The current circumstance of art and the internet is that we hear less about the Beige Programming Ensemble and more about Cory Arcangel. We hear less about AIDS-3D and more about Keller/Kosmas. These shrouds of anonymous collaboration are either an obsolete garb, donned during the infancy of internet-aware art, or we have outgrown them due to prospects of greater cultural validation.

There seems to be a binary of legitimacy in internet cultural production; as internet nativists, we seek non-hierarchical structures in hopes of adjusting norms outside of the web to reflect norms within the web while still desiring the validating force of established media. Though, at this point I will claim that there is in fact a unique politic to the web, this politic is often discarded for a moment of legitimization in traditional hierarchical structures.
-

Hand Motions is a blog column on DINCA continually featuring writing from Louis Doulas, Wyatt Niehaus and Ria Roberts.

|-| /\ |\| |) |\/| () ~|~ | () |\| _\~

Louis Doulas — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:31:41 +0000

The Infinite Scroll

We can observe the way content is aggregated online, that being in an up to down, down to up fashion, a reference to a type of acceleration or flow, a stream, or a river. However, these particularities seem to be largely informed by the motion of the human hand, more specifically a gesture of the finger. The mouse and scroll button are designed to intuitively and comfortably consolidate these up to down navigations, while horizontal movement of the finger proves to be naturally awkward and inefficient and thus the endless vertical scroll becomes what is most ergonomically productive, and quintessential of online surfing.

Process/Endurance Reflection

The blog, in all its forms, exists in a preparatory state: always in progress, always in research and always continuing. It gestures and proceeds rather than lingers.

24/7 Sweat

Hand Motions references and contextualizes both what is contained within and outside of the screen.

—

Hand Motions is a blog column on DINCA continually featuring writing from Louis Doulas, Wyatt Niehaus and Ria Roberts.

No related posts.

1mage by Sarah Weis

Andrew Rosinski — Wed, 02 May 2012 06:42:03 +0000

1mage
by Sarah Weis

“Gif made from a screen recording of an online sex game called Ami and Her Worms.”

1mage is a DINCuratorial series wherein guest participants curate one image.

Hyper Geography (video, 2011) by Joe Hamilton

Andrew Rosinski — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:17:01 +0000

Hyper Geography, Joe Hamilton, Australia, 2011, video, 1 min, color, sound

As we wend our way through Hyper Geography (2011), we see a floating iPhone o’er an icy landscape; a USB storage stick hovers in a valley; it’s an amalgamation of the digital experience, the material experience, and the natural experience — the daily experience — a certain ode to our inundation of technology and the speed at which things are moving.

At a one minute duration, the video seems a little too brief, but perhaps it serves as a snippet of a larger, shared experience, especially considering its abrupt start and end points. It’s a video component to Joe Hamilton’s “Hyper Geography” internet art project, a project hosted on the tumblr platform featuring “100 looping posts that link together horizontally and vertically.” See the result at http://hypergeography.com.

Joe Hamilton’s website

http://hypergeography.com

Rhizome: Reframing Tumblr: Hyper Geography (interview)

Hollis Frampton on the Super Market

Andrew Rosinski — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:37:01 +0000

“One such artless place is the supermarket, an ocean of modularized substance where everything in sight is meant only to be consumed, destroyed, wasted, returned as quickly as possible to the domains of amorphy or thermodynamic affinity. Where everything goes down the drain, anything goes. A certain appetite of mind can, then, find more nourishment in the label on the can than in its contents, a poetic, if wayward, feast. That appetite began in photography, and grew with film. It has not found its limit. Rather, it seeks it, in a METAPRAXIS of observation, analysis, and production.”

— Hollis Frampton, ‘False Impressions’ series, 1979

No related posts.

Cross Section by Bea Fremderman, 2012

Andrew Rosinski — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:17:27 +0000

Cross Section
by Bea Fremderman
2012, 42″x28″
Ceiling tile, cork, commercial grade carpet, wood, masonite

“ ‘Cross Section’ can be understood as a register of information, composed of outmoded materials archetypal to American corporate office design. The recuperation of such standard materials subverts use value in a form of resistance. These fragments are culminated together, and much like the bureaucratic condition of office environments, the valid structural organization of things remains enigmatic and unknown. The reassmblage of artifacts constitutes a monumentalized ruin as materials sink into formal shapes and create a new sublime. ”

— Bea Fremderman

brother birth

Trailer: LIMBO (2012) by Eliot Rausch

Andrew Rosinski — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:01:04 +0000

LIMBO / Trailer from Eliot Rausch + Phos Pictures on Vimeo.

After winning the 25k Grant from the Vimeo Awards, director Eliot Rausch partnered with Producer Mark Schwartz and the Dreamers of Los Angeles to create LIMBO. This 19 minute film exposes the lives of three undocumented students, living in the US without legal status. Never having touched a camera, the three students were gifted with a small handycam and trained for half a day by Lukas Korver and Matt B. Taylor. They were asked to film everyday for three months. Through their lens, this is their story.

Click here for three moments from the film.

Premiering at the 2012 VIMEO Festival + Awards.

CREDITS

camera one / undocumented
camera two / undocumented
camera three / undocumented

directed / Eliot Rausch
produced / Mark Schwartz
original score / Adam Taylor
intro and credit footage / Lukas Korver, Matt B. Taylor, David Carstens
edited / Mark Schwartz, Eliot Rausch
assistant editor / Edgar Andres
special thanks / dreamteamla.org, vimeo.com, ubercontent.com, the gargage board shop

Eliot Raush’s website

Eliot Rausch + Phos Pictures

Acid Graphics by Travess Smalley, 2011

Andrew Rosinski — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:17:35 +0000

Acid Graphics
by Travess Smalley

“Acid Graphics is a running series of digital images/digital prints/transparent image-prints that have taken various physical forms — decals, posters, flyers, c-prints, and lasermono prints. For E-Vapor-8 at 319 Scholes, I will be showing two of the Acid Graphic images as a stretched vinyl print roughly 8 and half feet by 11 feet tall each.”

— Travess Smalley

319 Scholes presents E-Vapor-8 curated by Francesca Gavin • 5/5–5/18

Andrew Rosinski — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:44:14 +0000

Acid Graphic by Travess Smalley

“I would only believe in a God that knows how to dance.” — Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche, 1885

E-VAPOR-8
curated by Francesca Gavin

May 5 – 18, 2012
Opening: Saturday May 5, 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Gallery hours: Thursday – Sunday, 2:00pm – 6:00pm and by appointment

319 Scholes Street
Brooklyn, NY 11206 (map)
319scholes.org

“E-Vapor-8″, titled after a 1992 track by the rave band Altern 8, explores the influence and relationship between contemporary art and rave and electronic music culture. Here everything can be taken from ‘the archive’ and reworked – the surface glare of squeaky voice, the speed of imagery and sound, infantalist fashion, smiley faces, pirate radio, fractal imagery, hyper color fluorescents, sample-style editing processes, found footage of dancing and parties, Spiral Tribe’s politicization, and kiddie-rave pop songs. There are more serious ideas behind the visual and aural melting pot. Ideas around community, technology, intellectual and physical freedom, rebellion and myth-making all play into this wave of contemporary work.

Rave is now positioned, aesthetically and aurally, as a proto universe for contemporary, technology-infused art. House and rave provided some of the first examples of defunct technologies being co-opted and reused by a younger generation for creative purposes. Computer-made graphics once used as rave visuals are now considered precursors to online experimentation. The processes of cut and paste, sampling and looping that were the basis of DIY electronic music are echoed in video editing techniques and online footage amalgams. Early house and rave culture provided a model of democratization of culture, just as contemporary visual artists consider their use of the internet now. The hedonistic drug references of the period are gone. The moment of mass cultural upheaval has passed. We are left with a sense of DIY utopia and the desire to create work that is immediate, sensorial, and at times simply fun.

EVapor8 poster by Christian Petersen

Participating artists include: Fatima Al Qadiri, Cory Arcangel and Frankie Martin, Rhys Coren, Petra Cortright, Jeremy Deller, Aleksandra Domanovic, Cecile B Evans, Jeffrey Gibson, Alexandra Gorczynski, Leslie Kulesh, Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski, Marisa Olson, Hannah Perry, Christian J. Petersen (Dumb Eyes), Travess Smalley, Lucy Stokton, and Daniel Swan.

Francesca Gavin is a writer, editor and curator based in London. She is the Visual Arts Editor of Dazed & Confused, the art editor of Twin and a Contributing Editor at AnOther and Sleek Magazine. Her books ‘100 New Artists’, ‘Creative Space’, ‘Hell Bound: New Gothic Art’ and ‘Street Renegades’ are all published by Laurence King. She has curated international exhibitions including ‘Responsive Eyes’ (Jacob’s Island, London 2012) ‘The New Psychdelica’ (MU, Eindhoven 2011) and ‘Syncopation’ (Grimmuseum, Berlin 2010). She has written for publications including Vogue, Wallpaper*, It’s Nice That, Nylon, Bon, icon, Oyster, Blueprint, Art Review and Sunday Times Style and is the curator of the Soho House group.

http://319scholes.org/exhibition/e-vapor-8

Top5: Andrew Norman Wilson

Andrew Rosinski — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:25:41 +0000

On this day, 25 years ago, the first weekend of spring break turned into a spring bust … but the adventure continues.

April means one thing: spring break, so put on your suits and ride to the the nearest party beach — and party — don’t stop. Scottie is back, he’s ready to shred, and you can find him hangin’ at CW Post. Girls, you can put on your swimsuits to dance, or your slingshot bikinis to dance.

Don’t worry, there will be live music, dancing, squirt guns, party boats, Jellyfish, Neighbours, events, AM/FM radio caps, kayaking vikings, home stage diving, people will be setting their asses on fire, people will be juggling rocks, you name it, spring break’s got Dragons.

Some of the PIONEERS OF VLOGGING will be there — you might find them on paradise beach — on a mission.

This is the seventh installment of top5: a DINCuratorial series featuring guest participants that curate five embeddable internet videos. There are no guidelines for their selections, other than participants are encouraged to reflect upon their choices in however many words they deem necessary.

This installment is DINCurated by Andrew Norman Wilson, a Chicago-based artist.

Below are his selections.

(1)
Jungle 2 Jungle

(2)
The Air Up There

(3)
Ace Ventura When Nature Calls

(4)
Ernest Goes to Africa

(5)
Krippendorf’s Tribe

Andrew Norman Wilson’s website

Andrew Norman Wilson on Vimeo

FlowSpot by Andrew Norman Wilson

Bed (2009) by Toshi Takeuchi

Andrew Rosinski — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:50:03 +0000

Bed (2009) by Toshi Takeuchi

by Toshi Takeuchi.

[STREET_TEAM]

Andrew Rosinski — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:53:52 +0000

FRANCOISE GAMMA ON JEAN TANGUEY, TATE MODERN, LONDON, UK, 2012

[STREET_TEAM] is a curatorial project by Alfredo Salazar-Caro in which animated .gifs and short video loops were guerrilla installed in museums and art institutions in five different countries. These institutions included the Tate Modern in London; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam; BOZAR in Belgium; and the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City; among others.

Featuring the works of:

A Bill Miller
Jon Cates
Jeremiah Johnson
Francoise Gamma
Eric Fleischauer
Lori Felker
Brian Khek
Till Wittwer
David Cox
Theodore Darst
Andrew Rosinski
Rosa Menkman
Patrick Quinn
Alfredo Salazar-Caro

http://www.str33t.net/

Undergrowth (2011) by Robert Todd

Andrew Rosinski — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:54:41 +0000

Undergrowth
by Robert Todd
2011, 12 min, 16mm, color & b/w, sound

Feathers, foliage, flowers, tree bark. Through the eyes of a blind owl, Robert Todd’s Undergrowth (2011) saunters through the woods, craws under brush, climbs trees and branches, and channels the Great sentient Spirit of the woods.

Undergrowth played in one of the best programs at the 50th AAFF: Films in Competition 4. Undergrowth won the Kodak/Colorlab Award for Best Cinematography at the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival.

Robert Todd’s website

Robert Todd on vimeo

Photos from the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival

Andrew Rosinski — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:07:57 +0000

People in the Michigan Theater Lobby

Program Director David Dinnell with filmmakers Robert Todd & Jodie Mack

Michigan Theater Marquee

Michael Robinson speaks

Candles

Sunny at the merch booth

35mm Clear Leader

Jesse Malmad (Bad At Sports) & Tom Colley (Video Data Bank) chillin'

American Falls signage

Phil Solomon's American Falls

Leighton Pierce Threshold Of Peripheral Induction signage

Leighton Pierce's Threshold Of Peripheral Induction

Leighton Pierce artist talk at the Threshold Of Peripheral Induction installation

Some photographed moments from the 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival. Feel free to share and use.

There are plenty more photos by Abby Rose here.

Ann Arbor Film Festival

Phil Solomon’s website

Leighton Pierce’s website

Michael Robinson’s website

Jodie Mack’s website

Robert Todd’s website

Video Data Bank

Bad At Sports

(Photos by Theodore Darst)

2012 (50th) Ann Arbor Film Festival Award Winners

Andrew Rosinski — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:23:00 +0000

Ann Arbor Film Festival
50th Festival Award Winners

“The 50th Ann Arbor Film Festival is proud to announce this year’s award winning films as chosen by our esteemed jury: Michael Robinson, Kathy Geritz and Peter Rose.”

Ken Burns Award for Best of the Festival
Lack of Evidence (Manque de Preuves) (Hayoun KWON)

The Stan Brakhage Film at Wit’s End Award
Voluptuous Sleep (Betzy Bromberg)

Lawrence Kasdan Award for Best Narrative Film
Palaces of Pity (Daniel Schmidt, Gabriel Abrantes)

Michael Moore Award for Best Documentary Film
Guañape Sur (János Richter)

Award for Best International Film
Untitled (Neil Beloufa)

Peter Wilde Award for Most Technically Innovative Film
Vexed (Telcosystems)

\aut\FILM Award for Best LGBT Film
The Evil Eyes (Bobby Abate)

Award for Best Sound Design
Remote (Jesse McLean)

Kodak/Colorlab Award for Best Cinematography
Undergrowth (Robert Todd)
Within (Robert Todd)

The No Violence Award
If the War Continues (Jonathan Schwartz)

Gus Van Sant Award for Best Experimental Film
Sounding Glass (Sylvia Schedelbauer)

Chris Frayne Award for Best Animated Film
It’s such a beautiful day (Don Hertzfeldt)
Traces (Scott Stark)

The Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award for Emerging
Experimental Video Artist
Ceibas: The Epilogue – The Well of Representation
(Evan Meaney)

Prix DeVarti for Funniest Film
Walt Disney’s “Taxi Driver” (Bryan Boyce)
Shadow Cuts (Martin Arnold)
Pluto Declaration (Travis Wilkerson)

Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker
The Strawberry Tree (Simone Rapisarda Casanova)

George Manupelli Founder’s Spirit Award
By Foot-Candle Light (Mary Helena Clark)

Art & Science Award
20Hz (Semiconductor)

The Eileen Maitland Award
Irma (Charles Fairbanks)

Award for Best Music Video
Go Outside by Cults (Isaiah Seret)

JURY AWARDS:

As Above, So Below (Sarah J. Christman)

Tin Pressed (Dani Leventhal)

Curious Light (Charlotte Pryce)

Landfill 16 (Jennifer Reeves)

August Song (Jodie Mack, Emily Kuehn)

A Lax Riddle Unit (Laida Lertxundi)

Quest (Cautare) (Ionuţ Piturescu)

The House (Das Haus) (David Buob)

Envelop by Julianna Barwick (Cam Archer)