Blogger be gone

As of January 2010, Andrea Grover's site can be found here:

www.andreagrover.com

Bye bye, blogger. I hardly knew ye.

You’re A Winner: Fashionable Art Prizes

What to make of The First Annual Rob Pruitt Art Awards which took place on October 29, 2009 at The Guggenheim Museum in association with White Columns and Calvin Klein Collection? Art prizes with designer names attached have been around since the 1990s, but this was the first “awards show” styled event that mimicked the celebrity-watching antics of the Academy Awards. Part performance art, part Guggenheim benefit, and part droll commentary on awards ceremonies, the event was produced by conceptual artist Rob Pruitt, who doubled as the evening's MC. Attendance was by invitation only (likely relative to patron size and/or art world status), and the process for selecting awardees was left largely to the imagination. As Rhonda Lieberman points out in her ArtForum diary, “it was the cool lunch table of the art world celebrating itself.” Read the rest of this post on my blog We Have The Technology, on glasstire.com.

Where the Avant Garde Things Are

Cinema Arts Festival Houston, "the only U.S. festival devoted to films by and about artists," launches November 11-15, 2009.

When two New York real estate promoters, commonly known as “The Allen Brothers,” founded the city of Houston in 1836, their intention was to make the township a center of commerce and government. Houston’s bid to be the capital of the Republic of Texas was short-lived, but its status as a center of commerce has stuck like the very first ships that ran aground in what the Allen Brothers dubbed Houston’s first “port”– the shallow and silty intersection of Buffalo and White Oak Bayous. Houston’s forefathers in a long line of hucksters, Augustus and John Allen sold Houston to potential settlers, at $1 per acre, using advertisements that promoted this subtropical marsh as “an elevated land” replete with “waterfalls.”

Now 173 years later, Houston is concretely known as a place to do business – home to the largest petrochemical manufacturing area in the world, and an international hub for biomedical research and the aerospace industry. With no great range of topography, and a nose-to-nose race (on and off since 1999) with Los Angeles for smoggiest city, Houston is no high-ranking vacation destination.

So in 2008, when Houston Mayor Bill White (who has moved mountains so-to-speak to improve Houston’s aforementioned image) tapped his friend Franci Crane to spearhead a new film festival, there was no chance of luring travelers with ski slopes or sandy beaches– the likes of those at Sundance or Cannes. But what Houston did have on a monumental scale was art. Around 7 million visitors per year come to Houston for the Museum District alone; Houston’s Theater District is exceeded only by New York in its number of seats in one geographic area; not to mention the plethora of non-profit arts organizations, folk art environments, art galleries, art chapels, art parades, art festivals, and so on. Read the rest of this post on my blog, We Have The Technology on glasstire.org.

Pictured: H Box, designed by Portuguese/French architect, Didier Fiúza Faustino

I am for art we do for each other as friends

This Jonas Mekas quote speaks to the reason I started Aurora Picture Show, and everything I believe about art.

"In the times of bigness, spectaculars, one hundred million dollar movie productions, I want to speak for the small, invisible acts of human spirit: so subtle, so small, that they die when brought out under the clean lights. I want to celebrate the small forms of cinema: the lyrical form, the poem, the watercolor, etude, sketch, portrait, arabesque, and bagatelle, and little 8mm songs. In the times when everybody wants to succeed and sell, I want to celebrate those who embrace social and daily failure to pursue the invisible, the personal things that bring no money and no bread and make no contemporary history, art history or any other history. I am for art which we do for each other, as friends." –From Anti-100 Years of Cinema Manifesto, Jonas Mekas, 1996

Read the full manifesto on INCITE!

Pictured: Jonas Mekas receiving a fruit basket from Andrea Grover and the 2009 Artist Award from NAMAC

Art Activism's Greatest Hits

On October 19, 2009, performance artists, The Yes Men, held a fake US Chamber of Commerce press conference at The National Press Club. A small assembly of journalists listened attentively as "Hingo Sembra," posing as a Chamber official, announced that the behemoth business federation had revised its stance on Climate Change, and would discontinue lobbying against the Kerry-Boxer bill (which calls for significant reductions in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions). Moments later the real Chamber Spokesperson, Eric Wohlschlegel, burst through the doors of the conference room, breathlessly proclaiming the speaker to be a fraud! After a few dramatic seconds of Will the Real Chamber of Commerce Official Please Stand Up Game, Mr. Wohlschlegel made a strategic error by suggesting that the press direct questions to him, not the imposter. "Is the position of The Chamber of Commerce that Climate Change does not exist?" one journalist demanded. Mr. Wohlschlegel opted to ignore the question. He realized too late that any reaction would draw even more attention to the ne'er-do-well policies being exposed, and therein lies the brilliant quandary, which has become a winning tactic of The Yes Men. Read the rest of my top ten list on Glasstire.org.

Image: The Yes Men, Chamber of Commerce Press Conference Hoax

User’s Guide to Temporary, Itinerant, Non-Accredited Art Schools

In the September 13, 2009 edition of The New York Times, art critic Roberta Smith lamented the “academicization of the art world” (see Artists Without Mortarboards) and, went as far as to write that the growing interest among art schools in offering Ph.D.s in art “makes the blood run cold.” However, what warmed Smith’s cockles was the Bruce High Quality Foundation University, a newly launched insurgent, artist-run school that “is being made up as it goes along.” Read the rest of this post on my new blog, We Have The Technology on Glasstire.org.

Image: The Independent School of Art, Courtesy Jon Rubin

Menil Movies

It turns out that I’ve been stalking The Menil Collection for so long that they’ve gotten used to me, and even invited me to host a semi-annual screening series of works from The Menil Archives. I have earned my official “media archeologist” badge, and get to work about 20’ below ground in the engine room of the museum – the archives. My underground partners are archivists Geri Aramanda (incidentally, Geri has worked with the Menils since 1968) and Lisa Barkley, who both help me unearth works on audio, video and film. The archive was begun by media studies pioneer, Gerald O’Grady in 1968. The new screening series is called “Menil Movies.”

Image: Ed Keinholz by Robert Bucknam, © Nancy Reddin Kienholz

Schedule
Friday, September 25, 2009, 7:30pm
Menil Collection, 1515 Sul Ross, Houston TX 77006
Menil Movies: Body in Fragments
Films and videos related to the exhibition Body in Fragments. Included is work by or about Ed Kienholz, David McManaway, René Magritte, Georges Méliès, James Rosenquist, and Roy Fridge. Highlights include an outrageous 1962 made-for-television documentary on Ed Kienholz, home movies of René Magritte, and a Georges Méliès silent film from 1898.

About Menil Movies
"Menil Movies" is a semi-annual educational screening series that highlights rarely seen film and videos from the Menil Archives. The series was created to introduce audiences to the range and abundance of the museum’s moving image holdings, including filmic art, documentaries, informational videos, avant-garde film, animation, Soviet cinema, Surrealist and DADA films, and documentary footage of artists and curators affiliated with the museum. For the series, films and videos are grouped by subject and presented to the public as one-hour curated compilations with overview and commentary. The educational component is an essential part of this series. Each movie is introduced with an explanation of its significance to contemporary art and film history, biographical information on the filmmaker or artist, and a summary of the larger film or art movement to which his or her work is attributed. Many of these movies are rarely shown, and in some cases represent one of just a few film prints of a title available anywhere. Some of the historically critical filmmakers represented in the archive include George Méliès, the Lumière brothers, Dziga Vertov (considered to be among the earliest auteur filmmakers); silent film error director F.W. Murnau (Director of the celebrated film Nosferatu); and acclaimed Surrealist filmmakers René Clair, Joseph Cornell, and Man Ray. Videotaped interviews, lectures, and exhibition installations that took place at the Menil Collection make up another rich section of the movie archive. These tapes encapsulate important information about the artists’ ideas and processes, and are valuable documents for research and scholarship. Artists in this section of the archive include 20th century masters Max Ernst, Yves Klein, John Chamberlain, Robert Motherwell, Robert Rauschenberg, and Larry Rivers, to name a few. This screening series makes these works accessible to a broad audience, and raise awareness about the significant resource that the Menil’s movie archive represents. Comparable movie archives do not exist in Houston.

Podcast Interview for 29 Chains to the Moon (Andrea Grover & Astria Suparak)

Listen to me! Podcast interview of Andrea Grover (curator of 29 Chains to the Moon) and Astria Suparak (director of Miller Gallery) conducted by Eric Sloss (LabA6, College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon University). Find out more about the artists currently on view and their visionary schemes for the future.

Podcast Link

Snapshots from Opening Reception for 29 Chains to the Moon

Miller Gallery has posted some nice photos from the mega opening reception of 29 Chains to the Moon, and the "flavor tripping" reception, 2009: A Taste Odyssey.

I also have some très casual photos from our weekend in Pittsburgh on my flickr site. Big thanks to Astria Suparak, Brett Kashmere, Hiromi Ozaki, Cesar Harada, Jon Rubin, Carol, Lilah, Margaret Cox, Erin Pische, Michael Johnson, Greg Pierce, Alisa Dix, Lowry Burgess, Bill Daniel, Mark O'Connor, and all those who tasted the Kool Aid with us.

Houston Lyceum Lectures (1800s) Revisited at Contemporary Arts Museum

Houston, TX—The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston hosts a two-part lecture series based on one of Houston’s earliest cultural institutions, The Houston Lyceum. Organized by artist/curator Andrea Grover for No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston, this program invites contemporary experts to lecture on identical topics to those of the early Lyceum, but from a contemporary vantage point. Dr. Mike Fain, Director of Forensics, University of Houston Forensic Society will present Eloquence on September 10, 6:30 p.m. The Cause and Laws of Storms is presented by Lew Fincher, President of the Houston Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, and Lance Wood, the Science and Operations Officer at the National Weather Service (NWS) League City, TX office, on October 1, 6:30 p.m.

“I wanted to create a series of public programs for No Zoning that would give insight into the development and character of Houstonians. By exploring these topics from a contemporary perspective, we can ask ourselves how these interests informed Houston's first citizens, and continue to be visible in today's culture,” says organizer Andrea Grover.

“The objects of this association shall be to diffuse knowledge among its members, intelligence, and information, by a library, lectures on various subjects, and by discussion of such questions as may elicit useful information and produce improvement in the art of public speaking.”
—The Houston Lyceum constitution, 1854

The Houston Lyceum was a cultural organization founded in 1854 (when the city had a population of about 2000) as a precursor to the first public library, and a means to centralize educational resources. The Lyceum (which was inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia based debating society, “Junto”) had several shorter-lived precursors including the Philosophical Society of Texas, and The Houston Mechanics’ Institute. Major activities of the Houston Lyceum took place between 1854-1886, and ceased after the first free public library was opened in 1904. During its heyday, the Lyceum held weekly evening debates at the Harris County Courthouse and later Market House (City Hall), structured as two teams of three that would be assigned opposing viewpoints to argue on topics such as “Is wealth more to be desired than mental culture?”; “Has the credit system been more beneficial than injurious to society?”; “Does the individual form his own character?”; “Are works of art more pleasing to the eye than works of nature?”; and “Is free trade the best policy of nations?”. At the end of each meeting, a decision was made (affirmative or negative) on the given topic and recorded in the minutes.

Houston Lyceum Schedule

All events are free and take place at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston located at 5216 Montrose Blvd. Houston, Texas 77006-6547. tel: (713) 284-8250, www.camh.org.

September 10, 6:30pm: “Eloquence” Presented by Dr. Mike Fain (Original lecture given W.T. Bond, date unknown) The New Oxford American Dictionary defines eloquence as “fluent or persuasive speaking.” Find out more about the art of public speaking from one of Houston’s leading orators.

Dr. Mike Fain has won more than 150 national speech awards. The former coach of the Rice University speech and debate team, he currently is Director of Forensics for the University of Houston. Mr. Fain holds a JD and an MBA from the University of Houston.

October 1, 6:30pm: “The Cause and Laws of Storms” Presented by Lew Fincher and Lance Wood (Original lecture given by C.G. Forshey in 1855) Weather is more than small talk in Houston, and its science has long been critical to residents of the Gulf Coast region. Join Lew Fincher and Lance Woods, two regional experts on hurricanes and forecasting to learn more about the science behind storms.

Lew Fincher is the President of the Houston Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, and co-founder of Hurricane Consulting, Inc. Lew is a hurricane specialist, and hurricane historian, who has assisted the Hurricane Research Division of the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA), with a focus on Texas Hurricane History. One of the most honored assignments he was asked to be part of was the 2005 National Weather Service Hurricane Katrina Assessment Team, as the lone non-government member of the 8-person team. Later that year, he also assisted the Houston/Galveston Area Council’s Hurricane Rita Evacuation Taskforce as its hurricane information resource, as it looked into the problem areas that occurred. He has taught workshops and been a Keynote Speaker at many conferences, including the Texas, Florida, and the National Hurricane Conferences, where he also serves as a member of the Planning Committee. Mr. Fincher also is a member of the Galveston County Historical Commission and a Life Member, and former Board Member of the Galveston Historical Foundation. He has served both as an information source and on camera spokesman on the subject of tropical cyclones and the history of hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin for many different media outlets in print, and television.

Lance Wood is the Science and Operations Officer at the National Weather Service (NWS) office in League City, TX. Prior to this position, he was a senior forecaster at the League City office. He began his career with the NWS in El Paso, TX, in 1994. Lance became a forecaster at the NWS Lake Charles, LA, office in 1995, before coming to the Houston/Galveston area in 1998. In addition to his NWS experience, he worked for Duke Energy in Houston as a trade floor meteorologist, where he provided weather forecasts to support energy trading. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University; receiving both a Bachelors and Masters Degree in Meteorology. He is married and has three children.

Image: Market House (1885) hosted regular meetings of the Houston Lyceum (courtesy City of Houston)

Curator's Statement: 29 Chains to the Moon @ Miller Gallery at CMU 8/28-12/6/09

In 1938, the visionary designer R. Buckminster Fuller wrote Nine Chains to the Moon, his radical proposal for improving the quality of life for all humankind via progressive design and maximization [1] of the world’s finite resources. The title was a metaphor for cooperation – if all of humankind stood on each other’s shoulders we could complete nine chains to the moon. Today, the population of the planet has increased more than three times to 6.7 billion (we could now complete 29 chains to the moon), and the successful distribution of energy, food, and shelter to over 9 billion humans by 2050 requires some fantastic schemes. Like Fuller’s revelation from five decades earlier, 29 Chains to the Moon features artists who put forth radical proposals, from seasteads and tree habitats to gift-based cultures, to make the world work for everyone.

Nostalgia for our alternate future is in the ether on this convergence of anniversaries: 2009 marks the 40^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the centennial of Futurism, and the quadricentennial of the Newtonian telescope. Over the last year, major art museums have presented exhibitions of visionary design and architecture [2] , meant to reignite that spark of collective imagination that the 20^th century saw via world fairs [3] , the formation of international space agencies, and the promise of better living through technology.

Among the surveys was the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2008 exhibition, Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe. Viewers familiar with Fuller’s pragmatic geodesic domes and octet truss structures were introduced to his lesser-known concepts for tomorrow’s cities, like Dome over Manhattan (Midtown Manhattan acclimatized by a 2-mile diameter glass dome); Cloud Nine (a spherical cloud city that could levitate an entire community), and Triton City (a modular seastead for 100,000 inhabitants). Despite having a hallucinatory, science fiction veneer, these proposals were serious enough to be examined by agencies like the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development, which commissioned the study for Triton City, and, along with the U.S. Navy, approved the design.

If one of Fuller’s futuristic communities had been realized, it would not have been the first time that science fiction became science fact. In 1945, author, inventor and futurist Arthur C. Clarke predicted geostationary communications satellites, some 15 years ahead of NASA’s launch of Echo, the agency’s first experimental communications satellite project [4]. In 1941, Isaac Asimov popularized the term “robotics” in his short story, Liar, over three decades before Carnegie Mellon University founded The Robotics Institute in 1979. Aldous Huxley foresaw cloning decades before Dolly the sheep was made incarnate (again), and countless other authors and artists envisioned technological milestones – from the creation of the atomic bomb to nanotechnology – and their social implications in advance of their manifestation.

It’s not so easy to instill in the public the same brand of wonder and nationalist pride that the Space Race evoked from 1958 to 1975. One seismic shift of late has been the redirection of major scientific exploration from countries to private corporations and citizens [5]. Unbridled individual potential is one outcome of the information age, but so is ambient fear of the future. A 2002 Time Magazine poll revealed that 30 percent of its respondents believed that the world would end within their lifetimes. The work in this exhibition corresponds to the other 70 percent of the population that is optimistic despite the massive challenges faced by civilization [6]. These artists seize technologies that provide unprecedented platforms for collaboration, and new ways of visualizing and representing reality. Theirs is a moment of fluid exchanges between artistic and scientific disciplines, and cooperation among private and public institutions, toward the realization of a possible future.

– Andrea Grover, Curator, 29 Chains to the Moon

Footnotes

[1] Fuller called this ephemeralization, or doing more with less. It refers to the tendency for current technologies to be replaced by ones smaller, lighter, and more efficient.

[2] Design and the Elastic Mind was another important survey of anticipatory design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2008.

[3] The next registered “world exposition” will be Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China with the theme of “Better City, Better Life.”

[4] According to the Buckminster Fuller Institute, Fuller and Clarke were lifelong friends, who “shared a common fascination with the concept of a "space elevator" (the subject of Clarke's book The Fountains of Paradise) and Clarke wrote in his introduction to Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for a New Millennium, "when the space elevator is built, sometime in the twenty-first century, it will be his greatest memorial."

[5] Private corporations like Virgin Galactica and SpaceX are entering what was once exclusively the domain of government science agencies. Prizes like X Prize (which promotes “revolution through competition”), with initiatives in space travel, automotive design, and genomics, requires registered teams to be 90 percent privately funded.

[6] In September 2000, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to end poverty and hunger, provide universal education, gender equality, child and maternal healthcare, combat HIV/AIDS, and create environmental sustainability, via global partnership. With a deadline of 2015, these have become known as the Millennium Development Goals.

Open_Sailing is a multi-disciplinary international team led by Cesar Harada and Hiromi Ozaki that is revolutionizing the concept of seasteading and social production of ideas and technologies. The Open_Sailing prototype is a “living architecture” at sea, composed of multiple dwellings, ocean farming modules, and an amoeba-like design that can expand and contract, based on the existence of calculated risks. “Open_Sailing acts like a superorganism, a cluster of intelligent units that can react to their environment, change shape and reconfigure themselves. They talk to each other. They’re modular, re-pluggable, pre-broken, post-industrial.” The concept for Open_Sailing came from creating a geography of fear – a world “potential threat map” that highlighted the centers of greatest risk (pandemics, high-human density, recent violent conflicts, hypothetical nuclear fall-outs, tsunami risk, potential exposure to rising sea level, and so on), to determine the safest areas on Earth, which happened to be at sea. Open_Sailing was awarded the 2009 Prix Ars Electronica in “THE NEXT IDEA” category, and is underway with construction of an advanced prototype for their floating laboratory. www.opensailing.net

Stephanie Smith’s projects span the worlds of architecture, art, technology, and culture. Her research into the social practices of fringe and nomadic societies yielded a movement she calls Wanna Start a Commune?, and include diagrams for creating modern Cul-de-Sac Communes, portable kiosks for non-monetary exchange and meet-ups, and most recently an online platform for creating as many communes as your life demands, (www.wecommune.com). Smith says that the impetus for these projects was to counter the assumption that being green means consuming green products; instead she wanted to revive the best parts of the commune concept (a community where resources are shared) and “bring collective attitude to places where it doesn't yet exist.” Smith is also the founder of Ecoshack, a design experiment that began in Joshua Tree, CA and is now an LA-based design studio inspired by the ad hoc, indigenous and archetypal typologies typically found at the fringes of society and culture. In 2008, the Whitney Museum identified Smith as the designer/entrepreneur most actively taking the ideas of Buckminster Fuller into the 21st century. www.stephaniesmithsofar.wordpress.com

Mitchell Joachim [jo-ak-um] is a Co-Founder at Terreform ONE and Terrefuge. He earned a Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MAUD at Harvard University, M.Arch. at Columbia University, and BPS at SUNY Buffalo with Honors. He currently serves on the faculty at Columbia University and Parsons and formerly worked as an architect at Gehry Partners and Pei Cobb Freed. He has been awarded the Moshe Safdie Research Fellowship and the Martin Family Society Fellow for Sustainability at MIT. He won the History Channel and Infiniti Design Excellence Award for the City of the Future and Time Magazine’s “Best Invention of the Year 2007” for Compacted Car with MIT Smart Cities. His project on view at the Miller Gallery, Fab Tree Hab, has been exhibited at MoMA and widely published. He was selected by Wired magazine for "The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To." www.archinode.com

Terreform ONE is a non-profit philanthropic design collaborative that integrates ecological principles in the urban environment. The group views ecology in design as not only a philosophy that inspires visions of sustainability and social justice but also a focused scientific endeavor. The mission is to ascertain the consequences of fitting a project within our natural world setting. Solutions range from green master planning, urban self-sufficiency infrastructures, community development activities, climatic tall buildings, performative material technologies, and smart mobility vehicles for cities. These design iterations seek an activated ecology both as a progressive symbol and an evolved artifact. www.terreform.org

SPECIAL READING ROOM WITH MATERIALS FEATURING

The Buckminster Fuller Institute
Lowry Burgess, Space Artist and CMU Professor
International Space University
The Seasteading Institute

~~~~~~

Andrea Grover is an independent curator, artist and writer. In 1998, she founded Aurora Picture Show, a now recognized center for filmic art that began in her living room as “the world’s most public home theater.” She curated the first exhibition exploring the phenomenon of crowdsourcing in art (Phantom Captain, apexart, New York, 2006), and, with artist Jon Rubin, organized an exhibit in which worldwide participants created a photo-sharing album of their imaginings on Tehran (Never Been to Tehran, Parkinggallery, Tehran, Iran, 2008) She recently curated screenings for both Dia Art Foundation, New York, and The Menil Collection, Houston. 29 Chains to the Moon continues her research into cooperation and distributed thinking across disciplines. www.andreagrover.com

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Images, top to bottom:

Open_Sailing Model, Open_Sailing (model made by Martin Gautron, Hiromi Ozaki, Adrien Lecuru, and Cesar Harada)

The Cul-de-sac Commune Project, Stephanie Smith

Fab Tree Hab, Terreform ONE, (contributors: Mitchell Joachim, Maria Aiolova, Landon Young, Javier Arbona, Lara Greden)

29 Chains to the Moon

29 Chains to the Moon: Artists' Schemes for a Fantastic Future

Guest curated by Andrea Grover

Organized by Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University

Aug. 28 - Dec. 6, 2009

Sept. 11, Fri. 6-8pm: Reception



Artists include: Terreform ONE (Mitchell Joachim, Maria Aiolova, Landon Young, Javier Arbona, Lara Greden), Open_Sailing, Stephanie Smith, more

About the Exhibition

In 1938, the visionary designer R.Buckminster Fuller wrote Nine Chains to the Moon, his radical proposal for improving the quality of life for all humankind via progressive design and maximization of the world’s finite resources. The title was a metaphor for cooperation–if all of humankind stood on each others’ shoulders we could complete nine chains to the moon. Today, the population of the planet has increased more than three times (we could now complete 29 chains to the moon), and the successful distribution of energy, food, and shelter to over 9 billion humans by 2050 requires some fantastic schemes. Like Fuller’s revelation from five decades earlier, 29 Chains to the Moon features artists who put forth radical proposals, from seasteads and micronations to floating cities, to make the world work for everyone.

IMAGES:
Fab Tree Hab, Terreform ONE
Open_Sailing model, Open_Sailing
Cul-de-sac Commune Project, Stephanie Smith

Dear Buckminster Fuller

This letter was sent to Buckminster Fuller on November 19, 1982, nine months before his death (from the book Buckminster Fuller: Anthology for the New Millennium edited by Thomas T.K. Zung). The letter and Fuller's response choke me up every time.

Dear Buckminster Fuller:

My last grandmother died recently, as expected, but I didn't expect to remember so much I forgot to talk with her about, and I'm a bit blue when I think of her. She was born about the time when you were, and since your death soon could not be called unexpected, I want to send you a note of appreciation.

Insofar as I represent the generation twice removed from yours (younger in human terms, older in Universe time), I want to thank you on behalf of all of us, for a life well done. There's no question that you will be better known in fifty years than you are now, because every year your ideas, language, and general optimism appear to become more saturated in the collective consciousness.

You have know the stagecoach, yet remain on the cutting edge of the electronic age. You are so wonderfully arranged that I can be assured that you will read this letter. How you come to God, I don't understand, but God bless you.

Love,

Joe [Joseph Wheelwright]

Buckminster Fuller responded on December 13, 1982

Dear Joe,

There have been two generations of Wheelwright friends in the first half of my life. They were all admirable individuals. I interpret your spontaneous writing to me in so daringly tender a way as a message of comprehension and accord from all those whom I love who have died and in my youth were so often dismayed and alarmed by all the mistakes I had to make to become shocked into discovering what I had to learn. This was to thoughtfully discover on my own, in both the biggest and most exquisite ways, what needed to be done, and could now be done for the first time in history to make the world work for everybody. It was a task that required a special-case individual to initiate, and individual who had come to the point of suicide and was inspired to commit his total experience inventory only to the advantage of all others but self.

There's lots more to be done, which it seems to me I have to do before I die, as a follow-through in accomplishing all that with which I committed myself to cope. I never pray God to do anything, because God would not be God if the eternal, absolute intellectual competence needed my suggestions.

I  feel sure that God holds you in grace and will continue to do so. I thank God for an additional Wheelwright friend.

Faithfully yours,

Buckminster Fuller

6/11/2009: Jacuzzi Movies at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

Read the Preview in Houston Press

Screening of Tamás Wormser’s Touched by Water

A free screening of Tamás Wormser's Touched by Water, a documentary about bathing rituals around the world, will take place on the back lawn of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston on Thursday, June 11, 2009 (with additional screenings on June 25 and August 6). A functioning hot tub will be setup on the lawn with open dipping and snacks available from 6:30pm-8:30pm. Screening starts at 8:30pm. Viewers are invited to watch the film from the lawn (bring a lawn chair or blanket) or request reservations for hot tub seating by calling (713) 284-8257 (limited space). Event postponed in the event of rain.

Presented and hosted by artist/curator Andrea Grover, this screening is part of a series of public programs produced by Grover for the current CAMH exhibition No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston, on view through October 4, 2009. This program follows the tradition of thematic, collage-style, site-specific, and social screenings that Grover created for Aurora Picture Show, the microcinema she founded in 1998.

Film to be screened:

Touched by Water, 2006, Tamás Wormser, 46:00, color, video From the holiest rituals to fashionable leisure, from ancient Roman baths and elite European spas, via Turkish hammams and ritual dips in the Ganges, to high-tech, multi-media pools, this film looks at bathing cultures around the world and explores our essential bond with water-—the sensual pleasure we derive from it as well as the spiritual renewal. Touched by Water is both an ode to the social ritual of public bathing and a thought-provoking look at water’s spiritual significance.

About Tamás Wormser Tamás Wormser was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary, and has lived in Montreal, Canada since 1986. Touched by Water was inspired by Wormser’s native experience of public bathing in Hungary, as well as his interest in the social rituals of bathing. He shot this film single-handedly over ten years in 13 countries, with a small video camera that allowed him to unobtrusively capture rarely documented locales, including a Turkish hammam, and a mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath. Wormser is the founder of Artesian Films through which he has directed eleven films, including Traveling Light, a film about nomadic artists.

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is located at 5216 Montrose Blvd. Houston, Texas 77006-6547. tel: (713) 284-8250, www.camh.org.

Press Previews & Excerpt from Geoff Winningham's "The Pleasures of this Stately Dome"

Astrodome Cinema screens tonight, May 28, 2009, 6:30pm at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston!

CAMH exhibition puts iconic Astrodome on silver screen
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/arts/theater/6444037.html#

Astrodome Cinema- CAMH exhibit takes a look at the former "Eighth Wonder of the World"
http://www.houstonpress.com/2009-05-28/calendar/astrodome-cinema

Astrodome Cinema at Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston

On May 28, 6:30pm I'll be screening two Astrodome-related films as part of my projects for No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston at CAMH.

Nicknamed the "Eighth Wonder of the World," "Can Do Cathedral," and "Taj Mahal of Sports," the Astrodome opened in 1965 as the first domed sports stadium in the world. During its height, the Astrodome hosted historical gatherings such as the “Battle of the Sexes” (a theatrical tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billy Jean King); “Millenium ’73 (a convening of followers of Divine Light Mission and the Guru Maharaj Ji); an Elvis Presley concert that broke all previous attendance records; and a 13-car motorcycle jump by Evil Knievel. According to the Astrodome's mastermind, Judge Roy Hofheinz (former Mayor of Houston), its design was inspired by a visit to the Circus Maxiumus in Rome, and indeed it reigned as one of the largest stages in the world until it closed in 2000. A mere 35 years after its spectacular unveiling, the Astrodome had become a relic. In 2001 on the same complex, Reliant Stadium was built-- the first retractable roof football stadium, with 20,000 more seats than the Astrodome. Today, the Astrodome is vacant and its fate is unknown.

Films to be screened:

The Pleasures of this Stately Dome, 1975, Geoff Winningham, 54:00, 16mm on video, color, sound
A study of the Houston Astrodome as a folk theater, created on the 10th anniversary of the opening of the dome. Winner of the Documentary prize at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1976, and funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The film includes vintage footage from the construction and grand opening of the Astrodome in 1965, plus footage from ten years of diverse and memorable shows, including destruction derbies, Evil Knievel, Billy Graham, chariot races, rodeos, calf scrambles, and various professional sports. The film is punctuated by an extended interview with Judge Roy Hofheinz, who conceived and built the Astrodome.

The Lord of the Universe, 58:00, 1974, TVTV (Top Value Television), color, sound, video
Sixteen-year-old guru Marahaj Ji attempts to levitate the Houston Astrodome in this 1973 DuPont award winning documentary. Follow the guru from his New York mansion to limousines in Houston and listen to his followers celebrities and non-celebrities alike extol his virtues. TVTV's creative use of graphics, live music, and wide-angle-lens shots to convey the desperate efforts of these lost children to find a leader. "If this guy is God, then this is the God the United States of America deserves." Abbie Hoffman. Courtesy Video Data Bank

Further reading:

Last Innings at a Can Do Cathedral, Jim Yardley, October 3, 1999, New York Times

Ode to the Astrodome, Brock Bordelon, astrosdaily fansite

Lessons in the Sky: A Filmic Tribute to Audubon

Tuesday, June 16, 2009, 8:30pm
Dia Art Foundation and The Hispanic Society of America present 'Tuesdays on the Terrace' @ Audubon Terrace at The Hispanic Society of America
Broadway between 155th and 156th streets, New York City

Lessons in the Sky: A Filmic Tribute to Audubon
Curated by Andrea Grover, founder Aurora Picture Show

John James Audubon’s New York farm, Minniesland, once occupied 40 wilderness acres of what is now the Washington Heights Neighborhood in Upper Manhattan. This cinematic tribute to the universal pastime of bird watching is a nod to the farmland that once comprised this region, Audubon’s life work with wildlife, and the timeless current of artists’ studies of the natural world. This screening will showcase short films and videos on birds and natural history in a variety of genres including film and video art, documentary, experimental, animation, found footage, historical and silent films.

Image: The realTime and Life of John James Audubon, Emily Kuehn, video and animation, 2009

New DVD by Enid Baxter Blader: A Film is A Burning Place

I'm pleased to have produced this DVD of shorts by the fabulously talented, Bluegrass songstress, and beautiful heterochromic-eyed filmmaker, Enid Baxter Blader.

"A dreamlike poem to landscape and the body, presence and memory, more delirious than anything Hollywood could imagine."-- Barry Schwabsky, Artforum

A Film is a Burning Place: Works by Enid Baxter Blader This compilation of experimental short films and videos by Enid Baxter Blader unfolds like the pages of a lost diary, with fleeting glimpses into an anonymous someone's memories and desires. A filmmaker, painter, and bluegrass musician, Enid Baxter Blader finds inspiration in ruminations on rural life, stormy weather of the emotional and environmental variety, majestic landscapes, and small town civility.

Works on the DVD include: Local 909er, Secret Apocalyptic Love Diaries, The Revival of Lee Mackey (excerpt),They Will Cure What Ails, Blind Town/DownHome Sublime, Corn, 2001, Lindbergh Road (excerpt), Just a Second (excerpt), Blue (excerpt), Lucille and Letter from the Girl (excerpt). 101 Minutes.

The DVD includes an essay by novelist and journalist, Ben Ehenreich.

Purchase DVD
Wholesale through Microcinema

CINEMAD DVD hits the streets

Mike Plante curated this superb DVD by some of the gods and goddesses of experimental cinema, and Aurora Picture Show and I produced it (Aurora Video Label). The DVD comes with a 60 page booklet of interviews from 10 years of Cinemad, Mike Plante's indispensible zine about independent, avant-garde, and underground cinema.




Cinemad: Almanac 2009
A new DVD compilation of damn great short films by:

Animal Charm
Cam Archer
Stephanie Barber
Bruce Conner
Kevin Jerome Everson
James Fotopoulos
Sam Green
Jake Mahaffy
Bill Morrison
Leighton Pierce
Jennifer Reeves
Deborah Stratman

To celebrate 10 years of covering unusual films and filmmakers, Cinemad magazine presents a compilation of short films that defy simple categorization. Produced by Mike Plante and Andrea Grover. 77 minutes.

Trailer
Purchase DVD here
Wholesale purchases through Microcinema

Confluence: Points of View on Buffalo Bayou

Here's an excerpt from the press release for Confluence, the public art project I've been working on with Sandra Percival.

Buffalo Bayou Partnership Announces Confluence: Points of View on Buffalo Bayou and Spring Artists Talks

HOUSTON, Texas (February 18, 2009) – Buffalo Bayou Partnership announces Confluence: Points of View on Buffalo Bayou, a multi-year contemporary art project that will introduce innovative public art within the environs of Houston’s historic waterway. The first manifestation of Confluence is a March-April 2009 series of Artists Talks by participating artists, Matthew Coolidge/The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Mark Dion, Teresa Hubbard /Alexander Birchler, and Pedro Reyes.

The Buffalo Bayou Partnership, an organization that oversees beautification and redevelopment efforts along Houston’s historic waterway, has a long history of supporting public art on Buffalo Bayou from temporary architecture to dramatic permanent lighting design. These significant commissions by prominent artists and designers, such as Mel Chin and L’Observatoire International, undertaken over the last two decades, have established visual landmarks along the Bayou that contribute to the mapping of the waterway, and enhance public engagement with the bayou.

Confluence: Points of View on Buffalo Bayou will invite local, regional and international artists to create new temporary and permanent public artworks, integrated public programming, and special events for the 10-mile stretch of the Buffalo Bayou from the Memorial Park to the industrial Ship Turning Basin, connecting diverse Houston neighborhoods to the history and present-day life of the Bayou. Artists have been selected on the basis of their past work and their ability to engage the imaginative landscape of the bayou.

The Artists Talks series will introduce past work and proposals by artists invited to develop projects for Buffalo Bayou. The artists have conducted site visits to the bayou, presented preliminary ideas, and are in the research and development stage of their projects.



For more information, please contact Trudi Smith, Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s director of public relations and events (713.752.0314 ext. 3, tsmith@buffalobayou.org).