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current mood:
awakecurrent music: ectomorph, first ep; morton subotnick, touch; plaid, "chirpy"; sun ra, it's after the end of the world ("don't you know that yet?"); schlammpeitziger spacerokkmountainrutschquartier; ebe, "the drifting"; antonelli electr, "anti-establishment"; aux 88, electroboogie; nitzer ebb," join in the chant"; paul mccartney ram (don't laugh, there's some great brian wilsonian songs here, and besides, i'm studying multitracking). more as i remember what i've been playing.
more on mccartney: forget the pretentious john, sir paul is the best beatle. a melody machine, and so understated and intuitive in his intellect compared to mr. i'm a sodding artist. "mother nature's child"--brilliant and banal, hemingwayesque in its denial of crisis, proto-jeff koons; it's pure songstery joy with all those do do doos and wa wa waas but how could it possibly be on the level? according to mccartney's autobiography a few years back, he was the one experimenting with tape loops, introducing them on "tomorrow never knows" and pushing forward with sonic experimentation in "revolution 9." i believe it! there's a long passage in the book where he describes watching richard hamilton assemble the photos for the white album poster, the curiosity about and reverence for visual art there is palpable. and the brian wilson friendship/rivalry is fascinating--talent knows talent. sir paul, yeah! enough with the john john john all the time.
Granola, 1996-7, photocopies collaged on unfolded granola boxes, approx. 60" x 40". Scan of polaroid. Stuff keeps turning up that I never showed, but still get all nostalgic about. Whether I actually consumed this cereal will remain a mystery. Also tagged with (mostly) molecular imagery and unshown are a saltine box, packaging for Folger's "coffee teabags" (a brilliant idea), and a cardboard sleeve for shower curtain rings.
Future rant: a walk through this selection of Net art at the Whitney from a couple of Biennials back, which was just impossible to interact with, or to want to interact with, in a museum environment, versus this great page Olia Lialina alerted me to a short while ago, which would have been tons of fun in a museum if properly presented and would have given Net Art a good name, as opposed to an invitation not to come back for future Biennials. Olia explains about the piece: "in 2003 my students were celebrating 10 years of the WWW. One of the objects was made of found bullets." Bullets, yes! Just f*cking bullets. No page-long back story, no navigation nightmares, no frozen screens (well, maybe the last). Student work or no, it's a bang-on elegant piece, continuing the Schwitters tradition of making art out of pop trash, in contrast to the Mondrianic mien of hermetically sealed art perfection. One could envision this projected really large, and with something other than a mouse, say a foot switch or button on a podium, that could steer you around the web ring of bullet patterns. People would be standing around ooh-ing and aah-ing as each new magnificent phalanx of back buttons loomed before their eyes, instead of disgustedly walking away from the workstation ghetto with a terminal case of knotted up shoulder muscles.