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

---

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).

Life After Aurora

A few people have asked what I'm doing now that I'm no longer on staff at Aurora Picture Show (my first child, not of the flesh), so here's a running list.

• I'm making lists! (with the my new app: Remember the Milk-- highly recommended for freelancers)

• I'm working as a Curator and Producer for Confluence: Points of View on Buffalo Bayou, a contemporary art project of the Buffalo Bayou Partnership that initiates the creation of innovation public art and related programming on, along and within the environs of Houston's historic river, the Buffalo Bayou.

• I'm freelancing for Aurora Picture Show's Aurora Video Label, and completing production on two outstanding titles: A Film Is A Burning Place: Works by Enid Baxter Blader; and Cinemad 2009 Almanac, which is curated by Mike Plante.

• I'm co-editing a book with Ed Halter on a history of U.S. microcinemas, titled A Microcinema Primer: A Brief History of Small Cinemas.

• I'm hosting a new bi-annual series at The Menil Collection called "Menil Movies."

• I'm being a hausfrau and mutter

Pictured: Tour of Buffalo Bayou with Sandra Percival, Cynthia Toles, Terrie Sultan, Gilbert Vicario, Mary Leclere, and Donald Sultan.

Texas to Long Island by Van

My wanderlust was satisfied this holiday with a family road trip from Texas to New York to visit my parents. Along the way, we visited/crashed with friends, film folks, and ex-Texans. Our northbound stops incuded the 100 acre Rushing Nursery near Mobile, Alabama; the headquarters for the A/V Geeks in Raleigh, NC; and a mountainside cabin/residence of Glen Latham in Linden, Virginia (where we had a some decadent donuts at The Apple House). We arrived at our destination: Freeport, NY on Christmas Eve, and now we depart for home (Houston, TX) in the morning. First stop, Orgone Archive residence in Pittsburgh, PA.

Pictured top to bottom:
Germaine at A/V Geeks HQ; Lola, Gigi, Ralph at Rushing Nursery; Glen in cozy cabin.

Click for complete photo set.

From My Parent's Home to My Dream Home(s)

This past summer I continued taking photographs of my parent's Long Island home and have posted them to my Flickr site. This is the same house I grew up in, and the major theme of the decor is "nautical". Of late, I have been dreaming up my ideal home, largely influenced by my beach-side and road-side upbringing, and now I am certain I want to live in (a.) an r/v, (b.) a houseboat, OR (c.) a lighthouse. The following are some places I would live, if I could. Pictured: Starlux Hotel, Wildwood, NJ.

A Vintage Airstream Trailer in New Jersey
A Houseboat in Berlin
Galloo Island Lighthouse

Here Is Always Somewhere Else

DVD review for Cameraworks Fall/Winter Issue 2008

Here is Always Somewhere Else is a documentary film by Rene Daalden which pieces together the brief life of the enigmatic artist Bas Jan Ader (1942-1975) who was lost at sea during the creation of his final performance, In Search of the Miraculous. In 1975, Ader attempted to cross the North Atlantic in a twelve foot six inch sailboat named “Ocean Wave” from Massachusetts to Ireland, but only his vessel reached the Irish coast some six months later. For an artist whose films, photos, and performances were often framed around profound failure—images of the artist falling, colliding, crying—this final gesture seemed prophetic and staged, but continues to be a mystery for even those closest to him.

Thirty years later and upon the urging of Ader’s widow, Mary Sue Anderson, Rene Daalden began retracing Bas Jan Ader’s footsteps, which were often parallel to Daalden’s own—from Calvinist families in a small city in Holland to the no religion manmade landscape of Los Angeles. The two figures became aliens in both their assumed hometown and their actual homeland, or as Daalden states “home is never the same as you remember” for emigrants. While Ader took the path of conceptual art, Daalden became a feature film director, and his expertise in a more traditional movie realm serves this nearly impossible-to-recreate story well. Through the hazy lens of three decades past, Daalden successfully makes sense of Ader’s journey from failed artist in his lifetime to one of the most mythical and influential artists of today, using testimonies and excerpts of related works by contemporary artists like Charles Ray, Richard Serra, Tacita Dean, Marcel Broodthaers, Ger van Elk, Pipilotti Rist, and Rodney Graham, peppered throughout his story. In this way, Here is Always Somewhere Else is also a rare and engaging survey of contemporary art film and video.

Daalden begins the film by asserting how difficult it is to really know another human being, demonstrated by a visit to Ader’s widow’s home in Claremont, California, which only serves to heighten the mystery. Even the artist’s wife is bewildered by Ader’s intentions, and keeps the residue of his work—postcards for exhibitions, photographs, and notes--buried under a chaotic pile of junk, complete with scurrying rodents and shades of Grey Gardens happy madness. Mary Sue makes a suggestion to Daalden to use his own intuition to trace Bas Jan Ader’s journey, and this becomes the device for Daalden’s exploration of both his journey and Ader’s. Through archival images of Ader’s art films and Daalden’s feature films, the director discovers the overlapping themes of gravity, pilgrimages, and the search for one’s destiny—heavy subjects that Ader approached with comic self-deprecation and Daalden with camp. Interviews with Ader’s relatives and peers prove less revealing, and serve only to underscore the confusion that surrounded his brief life. Amazingly, the most profound statements come from the people who never knew Ader, namely the sailor Henk De Velde, who has circum-navigated the globe five times, and states with acuteness awareness that Ader was searching for the in-between moments--after the fall but before the impact--when you let go of this world for a instant.

With snippets of films of the artist falling from a tree into a stream, riding his bicycle into a canal, rolling off of his rooftop, and forcing himself to cry on camera, the documentary depicts a hopeless romantic, whose sentimentality was cultural and deep-rooted in a tragic family history, but ill-matched for the time, which favored Fluxus and irony. The real clue to Ader’s work comes from the story of his parents, resistance heroes who hid Jews in their home during World War II, leading to the execution of his father, when Ader was only a toddler. Their heroic gestures and constant search for divine meaning, left an impression on Ader that he could only express through trying to always be somewhere else, to become part of the cosmos or an ocean wave.

Have 20,000 Films, Will Travel

Written for PIQ Magazine, May 2008

While America’s favorite movie of all time might be Titanic by James Cameron, for 16mm film collector Skip Elsheimer it’s Pride on Parade by Oscar Meyer, a 1979 morale-boosting film made to increase the productivity of assembly line workers by comparing their synchronized activities with those of a high school marching band. Images of festooned, high-stepping musicians are juxtaposed with weary looking Oscar Meyer team members in lab coats and plastic shower caps as they sort, inspect and package baloney and hotdogs. See the similarity?

It’s the search for these sorts of “huh?” moments that makes collecting 16mm PSAs, educational, training, and industrial films an obsession for Skip Elsheimer, founder of the A/V Geeks archive. Did anyone in the Oscar Meyer production crew notice the weak smiles of the workers and the porno-like quality of the assembly-line footage with rhythmically bouncing hot dogs? (Skip says the trade term for this is “assembly line porn”.) These bad ideas gone good are common among 20th century informational films, like another of Skip’s finds, Shake Hands with Danger (1980)--a cautionary tale of heavy machinery accidents and careless operators, set to a catchy country and western song about severed fingers.

Shake hands with danger
Meet a guy who oughta know
I used to laugh at safety
Now they call me... Three-Finger Joe

After watching so many safety films you would think some of it would have rubbed off, but Skip’s house in Raleigh, North Carolina is piled high with potential hazards. His bungalow is home to 20,000+ film prints, assorted projectors, a Telecine (for transferring films to digital formats), a large collection of film strips and their accompanying (beeeeep) cassette tapes, as well as his supportive girlfriend Germaine Fodor (and her own collection of original handicrafts like a Toast-chee pillow she made for Skip after their first date), not to mention their rescued and disabled iguana Judy, who roams free, at about one inch per hour.

In the 1990s, Skip was a member of the Raleigh-based music/performance art collective, Wifflefist—known for live audio/visual mash-ups of media history, such as their Hee Haw/Lawrence Welk Show show. This was a continuation of Skip’s childhood interest in puppet shows and drama club. While searching for material for one of their gigs, the group acquired a large quantity of discarded 16mm films at a local flea market. This passing fancy for Wifflefist, which disbanded in 1998, eventually became Skip’s full time pursuit. The datedness and campy fashions were part of the initial appeal of the films, but as time passed, Skip grew to appreciate their more subtle qualities—experimental camera work, imbedded sociological meaning, and unintentional works of art. A recent find from the latter category is titled Tire Rigging Demo (no date)—with stunning close up shots of car tires rolling and bouncing over mountainous terrain accompanied by exhilarating production music. Skip guesses this test film was made to demonstrate an ad agency’s “new rig” to potential automobile industry clients, the first clue being that it was recovered from a dumpster outside of an ad agency in Los Angeles.

How Skip amassed over 1,000 films per year can be explained by the 1980s technological shift from film to video. As VHS tapes became the preferred teaching format of libraries and archives, entire collections of 16mm ephemeral films from the 1930s-1980s were phased out of school systems and public libraries nationwide, with no time or money to consider transferring or preservation. Skip says, “They needed the room to replace old teaching machines--16mm projectors and films—with new teaching machines-- computers. Often I would need to pick up an entire room of films and shelving to make way for PCs.” There was a kind of film free-for-all for anyone who could reduce a librarian’s laborious trips to the waste bin. Now Skip makes special road trips to distant states to save de-accessioned films (he’s like the EMS of celluloid), and occasionally rounds out his collection with a rare title or two purchased from Ebay—though he dislikes the online auction house overall because “it sucks my time, and my money.” While the films may mostly be free for the asking, the habit of collecting is not. Skip’s decision to buy an eight-bedroom former Raleigh boarding house for storage purposes, and pour his life savings into purchasing, picking-up, and refurbishing a coke machine-size, 1000 lb. Telecine was the price he paid to keep up with his obsession. In the last three years he has finally cobbled together enough income through film transfers, stock footage licensing, public screenings, talks, and DVD sales via his publisher Fantoma to quit his day job as a funny and affable phone support technician for Alien Skin Software. International tech support has lost a rare asset while film history has gained an archivist.

Today, Skip is part of a small circle of well-known 16mm collectors in the U.S., among them, Rick Prelinger of Prelinger Archives, who Skip cites as a major influence. Rick began collecting ephemeral films about a decade before Skip, and made national news in 2002 when the majority of his films (over 120,000 individual cans) were acquired by the Library of Congress. Rick and Skip both contribute to the website, www.archive.org--providing free distribution of public domain films--and have been spokespersons for film preservation, orphan films, copyright and ownership issues. Skip says the two met circa 1993 when he was trying to sell films (unknowingly) to a client of Rick’s, namely, Mystery Science Theater. Skip sent along a list of titles to MST, which they then forwarded to Rick. Rick did a little reconnaissance by calling Skip and inquiring if he had a copy of the sought after title Soapy The Germ Fighter (1951). Skip did, and the friendship commenced. Since then Skip has successfully licensed footage to television shows like Wonder Showzen, VH1, and The History Channel.

What really distinguishes Skip from other collectors is his signature A/V Geeks film screenings that are participatory, performative, raucous, and generally take place in unusual settings (although he has regular screenings at two Raleigh mainstays--the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, and an Irish Pub called Tir Na Nog.) He has shown school bus safety films on a moving school bus, cafeteria manners films in a Middle School cafeteria, films about drinking in a micro-brewery, films about insects and pesticides on a farm, creepy religious films in a church, boat safety films on a boat, films about meat in a sausage factory, films about winter in the middle of a gruelingly hot, humid summer, and films about fathers for Father's Day hosted by Skip and his dad. Major institutions like Anthology Film Archives, New York, George Eastman House, Rochester, and the American Museum of the Moving Image, Long Island City have also opened their doors and their theaters to him.

You can see the broad appeal when you read about the shows in Skip’s own words.

And A Puppet Shall Lead Them: For some reason, somebody in charge felt that they could get their point across better if they used a puppet. Nevermind how distracting, ludicrous and somewhat creepy it all looks. Join the A/V Geeks for a night of 16mm films where the puppets know best. Films included: The Toymaker, Santa Claus and Punch and Judy, Parents: Who Needs Them? and What Is A Family?

Small Furry Animals And The Sins Of Man: Who said that animals can't sin?!? A look into a world where dogs are bigots, lemmings commit suicide and rats perform heinous crimes against nature. These films come from a school system near you for your entertainment. All you have to do is figure out what the lesson was supposed to be.. Films included: Hoppy the Bunny, Frank and his Dog, Skipper Learns a Lesson, Disney's White Wilderness: Lemmings (excerpt), Ratapolis (excerpt) and Squeak the Squirrel.

Food: It's What for Dinner: 16mm educational films that deal with food and food preparation. Delightful, delicious and good for you too! Or is it? Films include Why Eat Our Vegetables, Keeping Food Safe To Eat, Tasting Party, Short Order Cookery, Pride on Parade, Outbreak of Salmonella Infection and The Art of Cake Decorating with Norman Wilton.

Huh?: Whoever made these films had a point to make. They wrote a script, involved dozens of people and spent lots of money. So, why is it that these films don't make any sense? Films include: Easy Way Out, Appy's Adventures, Curious Habits of Man, Day the Milk Was Turned Off, Punctuation: Colon, Semicolon, and Question Marks.

What every one of the A/V Geeks events includes, regardless of location, is a kick-off participatory read-a-long film strip on subjects like Why Aren’t I Popular? and What Troubles A Troublemaker? Audience members read one line of the text while Skip congratulates them on their solid reading skills. This sets the classroom tone and helps bring those who remember back to their school days.

Today Skip is heavily involved with the recently inaugurated International Home Movie Day, and is also helping to digitize and put online other institution’s film collections, like the Academic Film Archive of North America and University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Museum (with over 600 anthropology and archeology films). In his most monumental task to date, Skip was hired by NASA to put their entire collection of film and video on the Internet. He says he doesn’t collect films just to own them, but rather, “to reintroduce these films to the public. Their real value is in showing them to people.”