January 3, 2020

Article by Miranda Seaver

Venue: San José Museum of Art

Featuring: Almost Human: Digital Art from the Permanent Collection

I love my robots.

There’s an Amazon Echo in my bedroom who fills my room with lo-fi hip-hop beats on nights when insomnia has the best of me. There’s a second Echo in the living room – we call her “Computer” to prevent any miscommunication between her and her sister – and a Google Home in my parent’s room. We talk to them several times a day, to ask questions when we’re stoned and curious or hungry to win an argument. It’s a strange relationship between us and our new artificial assistants. Yes, they’ve been proven to listen to their surroundings at all times, so we’ve essentially volunteered to bug our house in the name of Capitalism. But it’s 2019, and that’s just the type of thing people are willing to do now.

This is the world of Almost Human, from the permanent collection of the San José Museum of Art. Black Mirror, eat your heart out.

If you have your finger on the pulse of the SJ art scene, you might notice that some pieces from Almost Human were featured at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art a while back, but the exhibit has truly been given the chance to flourish in the new and larger space. They’ve also added some interactive elements, including Ian Cheng’s Emissary Forks for You, a self-described “neurological gym” starring a virtual dog (A Shiba, for those who want the full picture) who guides you through the gallery from the screen of a Google Tango tablet.

I’m always a fan of any art that pulls me from the muck of the everyday, and that’s exactly what happened as I circled the room, head down to the tablet in my hands, and watched in wonder as the environment shifted around me. Each reset of the simulation is a different route, and you could potentially play ad infinitum, following the occasional demands of your tiny pupper until you get bored, or dizzy, or until the tablet freezes like it did for me after ten minutes of wandering. Which doesn’t come as much of a surprise if you consider the limits of basic game design, and it certainly doesn’t take away from the experience as a whole.

What I believe to be the most outstanding, and most relevant theme of Almost Human is the overlap between technology and humanity. It’s seen in more literal ways, such as in Jim Campbell’s duo piece Photograph of My Mother and Portrait of My Father, where he presents two photos of his parents that blur and turn clear following the rhythm of the his body. You can stand in front of both of them and watch his life echo over their own, two generations phasing in and out over each other. It’s like watching life without life. Truly a surreal experience.

I found the most enjoyment, however, in the chance to watch what appears to be technology in the process of learning, and doing so in a way that’s almost childlike. I saw it in Diane Thater’s Untitled (Butterfly Videowall #2), five flat screen monitors arranged in a star-shape on the floor, each showing a single shot of a monarch butterfly. They’ve stretched the shot over all screens, giving the image a disjointed and hazy quality, similar to how it feels to try and recall a memory from infancy. It’s there, yes, but your brain holds it a different way, distorting the image slightly and bathing it in the faint glow of nostalgia.

My favorite work in the whole exhibit is Listening Post by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin. It’s a massive wall of LED modules on support beams, along with speakers hanging strategically around a near-black room. The piece’s main feature is its algorithms and custom software that pulls data from online chatrooms and organizes them into “movements” that are then displayed on screen and narrated through the speakers, creating a soundscape that travels around the space.

I sat there for a long time, in the dark, watching this massive machine displaying statements from its massive cache of uncensored internet data. At one point it was just spelling, scrolling through letters to make words. I could’ve sat there for a lot longer, if nothing else then to see how much information this software had gathered.

Because, strange as it may seem, we’re rapidly approaching a time when that’s all we can do. We’re in an age where we’re no longer “surfing the web” with chunky desktop computers and cacophonous dial-up modems. Technology is creating a new form of art that feels entirely present to the now, an elusive, yet constantly-present moment that is born, aged, and dead all at the same time. It’s art that’s ageless and constantly evolving. And it’s only going to grow – but into what, I can’t say.

All in all, Almost Human is definitely an exhibit worth experiencing. Bring your Echo if you have one. I bet she’d like it.

December 3, 2019

Article by Miranda Seaver

Venue: San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art

Featuring: Sense of Self – Exhibition

We’re all just trying to understand things. To know ourselves, each other, and the ways the past and future play in all our hands.

I can define myself by my qualifiers. I’m a woman – brown hair, brown eyes, five foot six and around two hundred pounds. I am a writer, a lesbian, and I’ve been in the throws of mental illness for most of my life. But these are all just words, and they tend to fall away whenever I cross paths with that enigmatic shape that meets my eyes in every reflective surface. Leaving…what, exactly?

Identity. History. These are the themes that play in Sense of Self, a photography exhibition at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (November 9, 2019 – March 15, 2020).

In this day and age, the art of portraiture is more accessible then ever. There’s no time wasted posing for a painting or waiting for a first-generation camera to develop. Anyone can get a camera, and because of that the depth of perspectives has grown to fit the modern world. Thus is the focus in Sense of Self, where the previously silent voices of queer and POC artists have been brought into the spotlight to flourish in the public eye.

And it’s beautiful, joyous and passionate. There’s a certain hunger for representation and understanding that goes quiet after long enough, only to rush forward as soon as you find that moment of true connection. Take Jamil Hellu, who stepped out from behind the camera to join his subjects from the LGBTQ community in their own interpretation of themselves and their culture. Each title is a quote from the person in the picture. Take the portrait of the leather-bound butch with an American flag balled in her mouth and her first raised in power, titled “When people think of America, they don’t think of someone who looks like me,” voiced Crystal Mason before putting the flag in her mouth. The photographer is seen dressed in matching leather, knelt at her side, turning himself into a prop to further push the power in her stance. He’s done more than document her, he’s joined her in her own perspective, forming a connection far beyond that of photographer and subject.

Or consider Tammy Rae Carland’s series On Becoming: Billy + Katie 1964, a collection of portraits providing fictional representations of Carland’s own parents. She plays both mother and father, framing herself in the early 20th century, gathering laundry from a backyard line or nursing a pint at an unknown bar. These are photos based on ideals and fantasies, as only one actual photograph of Carland’s parents exists. Because of that you get a sense of a mirror reflecting a mirror, as she reconnects the fraying ends in her family history.

While Carland uses her own self to solve her past, Erica Deeman uses her identity to capture the complex beauty of black masculinity. She bathes her subjects in shades of brown similar to her own skin tone, once again blurring the lines between photographer and subject. There’s an open intimacy to the portraits, depicting a true moment of vulnerability. As if they don’t know they’re being watched. Like they feel safe.

Because that’s what makes this collection of portraits so extraordinary, the safety and empowerment that makes the models bloom in front of the camera instead of wither or shy away. You really get the sense that there is a connection being made between artist and model, or even between the artist and themselves. Rules are questioned, pushed, and in some cases broken entirely to better showcase the state of the world today and the lives of the people inside it. It’s not perfect, but that’s the point. To quote a poem by Marcela Pardo Ariza used to go alongside their work Kin Skin: “Kin is messy. It’s viscous, sticky, malleable at its best. Uncontrollable. Sweet and bittersweet; so easy to smear. Contagious.”

It’s so easy to feel alone in the world, and empty within yourself. That’s why portraiture has gained a new importance. It shows more than a face, it shows the interlocking web of history and community that makes up a single human life.

So next time the light hits you or your friend, don’t be afraid to catch a picture. It may feel silly – but that right there is your kin. And as Ariza ends their poem, “Kin is what keeps us here”.

October 17, 2019

Article by Miranda Seaver

Venue: San José Museum of Art

Featuring: Beta Space: Pae White – Exhibition

I am a child.

I must be six, maybe seven, and my parents have dragged me along with them to the hardware store. They have their own business to attend to, so much so that they’ve all but tossed me aside so they could focus their attention on doorknobs and light fixtures. And since this is still the dawn of the Smartphone Age, I have nothing to distract myself. So I take to wandering through the aisles, toying vaguely with these artifacts of a life miles away form my own. It’s not much, but few things pass the time better than ascribing great intent to a meaningless subject.

Well over a decade later I still fall into similar habits. Some people call it “window shopping”, but that doesn’t quite capture what I’m sure we all did as children. The separation, I think, is comprehension. If you walked into somewhere like a hardware store today, you could likely place most of the items on the shelves. As a child, however, disconnected from context and vocabulary, it’s all shapes. Textures. Colors and light. That’s where the magic of these kinds of exploration comes in – from the gentle vulnerability of surrendering yourself to the sense memory of a new situation.

This is where we find ourselves in Beta Space, Pae White’s collection of old and new work organized to celebrate the San Jose Museum of Art’s 50th anniversary.

Pae White is a multimedia artist specializing in the exceptional quality existing in what most would consider mundane. Her current exhibit contains two notable installations that take up the space with an astounding scope. There’s foreverago (2017), a massive tapestry running at 127 feet long. It snakes through the center of the exhibit’s small room, coiling into little alcoves one can stand and be surrounded by cotton, cashmere and metal. You can watch it for it’s details, specially the scattered insects and depictions of psychoactive plants. Or you can let your eyes blur and focus on the colors and shapes, patches of silver and gold, and the most perfect shade of mauve.

The second biggest piece is AGAMEMNOMICS (2013), a massive collection of toys and tchotchkes lined up in a long case that stretches across most of the room. The work started off when White found a number of forgotten toys while in Vienna. With them she fashioned a chess set, and she took photos of nine different pieces and sent them to artists and fabricators all across the world, from Los Angeles to Germany and China. From there they created their own interpretation of the toy, made in the material of their choice. From that point on she amassed a series of mirrors in front of mirrors, reflections echoed enough to fade familiarity into only its barest outline.

And suddenly you’re a child again, wandering around your guardian’s orbit and taking in things you’re too young to understand. It’s a warm feeling, especially in the realm of art world academia, to see an exhibit from your heart and not your head. White’s work has been described as kinesthetic, being “as much a bodily as visual experience that plays with the senses”. Her focus is on our relationship with the ordinary, something that all too many of us take advantage of on a day-to-day basis.

You can do that for yourself even outside of Beta Space. Perhaps when you wake up in the morning you can dedicated a bit more thought to the things you usually ignore. Feel the way the bristles of your brush feel against your teeth, or how the heat gathers in your coffee cup. Curiosity doesn’t go away – not really – it just sometimes needs a little push to rise to the surface. That’s what Pae White is working towards.

So let her help you. Come loose yourself in Beta Space – at least, until your parents are ready to go.

August 5, 2019

Article by Jon Bauer | SAT, AUG 3, 2019, 10PM

Venue: Pier 70, San Francisco, California

Featuring: 2019 Gray Area Festival – Pierce Warnecke Live – ISM Hexadome

Endless Growth (Data Decay v3) is an audiovisual performance by Pierce Warnecke using data to illustrate dynamic ecosystems. Generated from data on population growth, pollution emissions, resource extraction, and global GDPs, this work questions how unbounded growth of humanity is incompatible with our finite planet—it may ultimately result in saturation and irreversible damage. Data Decay is an ongoing series of abstract sonification and visualization works, generated from datasets to convey interconnecting relationships through an audiovisual language.

July 30, 2019

Article by Jon Bauer | MON, JUL 29, 2019, 8:30PM

Venue: Pier 70, San Francisco, California

Featuring: 2019 Gray Area Festival – ISM Hexadome

From July 25 through August 3, the ISM Hexadome will be presented at Pier 70 in San Francisco in two parts. Each evening we will present the full Exhibition in two distinct Segments, featuring the exhibiting artists as listed.

July 16, 2019

Article by Jon Bauer | SAT, JUL 13, 2019, 8:00PM – 2:00AM

Venue: The Midway, San Francisco, California

Featuring: IllUM Art.Tech.Music (GAIKA vs. Madam X, The Flashbulb + More)

April 8, 2019

Article by Meaghan Alfonso | Competition 3 – SUN, MAR 24 2019, 1PM

As always, the GLAS Animation Festival brings in the most creative and experimental animated shorts to its competitions. The weekend long festival lineup consists of so many artists of different ‘languages’ of animation and personalities that you are always inspired. Aside from the Shorts Competitions, the festival also holds workshops, guest speakers, and even Nickelodeon Meet-and-Greets! To give you a taste of what the showings are all about, I’ve listed and described a few of my favorites from the Sunday showing (Competition 3):

CHIMERA by Caleb Wood

After this two minute short, I’ve decided that Caleb Wood is probably one of my new favorite animators. His weaving loops are amazingly well done, and you get engulfed by this slimy totem pole of flesh. A slow camera pan up this living gruesome, breathing thing makes you appreciate what Caleb has created here. He starts out with an unknown creature’s fetus still in its’ womb, and then we follow up this fragile creature’s umbilical cord. The scene turns from something familiar into a hybrid of multiple living beasts all feeling like they share the same heart. We also can’t forget about the sound design, by David Kamp, which ties this whole animation together. I know that most of us don’t remember the sounds of being inside a live being, though we all can recognize it. The sound starts with a heartbeat, and it’s quiet, and you feel alone in this huge space. You can hear the stretching and squishing of something, then you hear multiple creatures and lungs all trying to breathe and survive together as one being.

AGOURO by David Doutel and Vasco Sa

It is easy to appreciate all of the techniques that was used to create Agouro. The layers of oil paint creates these textures in the background and sets a specific mood for the story. It is set somewhere in the mountains during a cold, harsh winter so the neutral colors are a perfect resemblance of being in such a high altitude. Each frame of animation is colored and outlined in a messy way that makes you feel uncomfortable and aggravated, but not in a negative way. It will leave you feeling as though you need to cherish the life you have.

SOLAR WALK by Réka Bucsi (Director, Writer, and Editor)

Reka Busci’s work is so unexplainably remarkable, I don’t think explaining it will even make sense. It is bizarre, yet somewhat real. Her work is such a great blend of alien and human. She starts with these 3D shapes and then it is animated in a way that it ties into introducing the ‘main’ characters and sets the story. I love how she plays with time and space, and sometimes nothing is as what it seems. It is quite meditative and relaxing as well to watch, while the sounds and colors dance in front of you. You are following along with her into this journey of the known and unknown and it is tremendously hypnotizing.

There always seems to be an ocean of aspiration in the audience at the end, while everyone claps and stares at the big screen. These short films are a must-watch if you are at all interested in animation.

If you are unable to attend the whole weekend, the GLAS Animation Festival sells day passes and tickets for individual showings. This is my second time attending the festival and each one was such a treat. To get the full experience I suggest becoming a Pass-Holder because you get to attend some events that Non-Pass-Holder’s can’t, like the Opening Night Party and Nickelodeon’s Networking Mixer! To see what artists from around the globe have created, as well as networking with people in the industry should already be enough for you to attend every year.

February 22, 2019

Article by Talia Colarusso | Photos by Lydia Bell

From the moment you pull down 5th avenue in Wynwood on a not so chilly December night you are instantly transported into a living breathing art exhibition unlike any other. From the local artists scraping for some first time recognition on the corner to the coveted photographer with 700k instagram followers who has drawn an international audience taking up space in the chic warehouse across the street, Art Basel is not an event to miss out on.

Red Dot Miami took things up a level this year, hosted in the famed Maya Studio in the heart of Wynwood Red Dot featured over 75 galleries and 500 artists in the span of four nights. From the moment you enter the sprawling studio space the bump of some trendy New York DJ can be heard playing in the background. But before you even have the time to pull your phone out and Shazam the song you are whisked away by the sheer amount of eclectic works splayed out in front of you. As you breeze through gallery after gallery with a chilled lychee martini in hand it is hard not to get swept up in the whimsicalness of an art exhibition of such grandeur size. It was hard to remember that outside of these walls we were still in the middle of Wynwood and not at some underground art show hosted in Berlin. The sheer amount of international artists featured in this exhibition was enough to take one’s breath away. From the contemporary to classic, to down right extreme there was something for everyone’s taste at Red Dot Miami. As always Art Basel has managed to blow my mind even more than the year before. If you have yet to check out Art Basel for yourself, keep an eye out for the dates for 2019’s Art Basel to be posted.

December 12, 2018

Article by Małgorzata Stanek

Lublin’s Old Town, a bustling historic centre, is home to many outdoor events and festivals, such as the Jagiellonian Fair in mid-August. The Old Town is lined up with ancient tenements, each with its own story to tell, they show that Lublin has always been a city of writers, poets, and artists.

At the heart of this historic quarter is the main square, the market square. Located centrally is a building known as the Crown Tribunal, dating back to the 14th century. The building has served many functions over the years. It was a town hall, then the crown tribunal. Today, it serves as a wedding palace and it’s also the entrance to the Lublin Underground Route.

The main streets fork from here. There are several entryways to the quarter: the Cracow Gate, the Trinity Gate, and the Grodzka Gate. The Cracow Gate is one of the most recognizable monuments of the city. It was a part of 14th century fortifications. It houses Lublin History Museum. The Trinity Tower is one of the highest viewing spots in the city. If you are not afraid of heights and love great panoramas, this is a good place to start hunting for great vistas of the city.

Maria Wirtemberska (15 March 1768 – 21 October 1854), was a Polish noble, writer, and philanthropist. In 1816 she published Malvina, or the Heart’s Intuition, considered Poland’s first psychological novel. [Wikipedia]

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (24 December 1798 – 26 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor of Slavic literature, and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is counted as one of Poland’s “Three Bards” (“Trzej Wieszcze”) and is widely regarded as Poland’s greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a “Slavic bard”. A leading Romantic dramatist, he has been compared in Poland and Europe to Byron and Goethe. [Wikipedia]

Julian Fałat (30 July 1853 – 9 July 1929) was one of the most prolific Polish painters of watercolor and one of the country’s foremost landscape painters as well as one of the leading Polish impressionists. [Wikipedia]

November 30, 2018

Article by Małgorzata Stanek

Still in the world, but not of the world
– Adam Mickiewicz from Dziady (“Forefather’s Eve”)

November is a month of solemn and important celebrations in Poland. November 11 is Polish Independence Day and early November is dedicated to honoring the departed. Specifically, November 2 is All Souls’ Day called Zaduszki in Polish. Zaduszki can be translated as “a day of prayer for the souls”. The eve of this holiday is known as All Saints’ Day. On these two days families visit the graves of the departed, lay flowers and light up candles. The cemeteries emanate otherworldly and solemn beauty as the sea of candles flickers as far as the eye can see. The words of Polish Romantic poet, Adam Mickiewicz from Dziady (“Forefather’s Eve”), aptly capture this atmosphere: “still in the world, but not of the world”. There are many folk traditions related to Zaduszki. It is said that on this day the spirits of our forefathers come to inhabit the world once more.

Thus, on November 2 in Lublin, an interesting annual event, now in its third year, is held. Translated roughly into English as “Souls ardently in tears”, it is an open gathering for singing traditional songs accompanying death.

The gathering is open to all, regardless of singing abilities. You are given a singing book – which you can pay for what you will – a token to help the organizers cover their costs. The songs come from traditional repertoire and speak about death and what comes after, they offer a moment to meditate on death and mortality. The lyrics are characterized by solemn beauty. There’s a distinctly poetic feel to them that sweeps you into their meditative mood.

The songs deal with a sense of paltriness of worldly things, show the departing soul saying farewell to their family, the village – they give voice to the dead. Some of the songs are prayers for them. However, the organizers say that while singing the songs, they also think about the living, to help them go through difficult moments. 

One of the organizers thus speaks about the songs: “They are very varied. Some talk about death in a literal way, reminding us about the decomposition which awaits us at the end; other use more delicate comparisons, focusing on the spiritual side of the process. It’s interesting that melodies which are used for these songs aren’t always as clam or sad as you might think. Frequently, we encounter dance tunes and only the lyrics remind us that it’s a song about a death. I think that this ambiguity and changeability of “moods” makes people want to get to know more songs. Every song brings in something new, even though it deals with a subject as old as death.

The group gathered in the cemetery filled with ancient graves – the resting places of people who came before us and are a part of the history of every day. The singing began right after dark. The voices carried above the lit-up graves, resonating with honesty and the sombre mood of the moment.

Even if your own individual singing isn’t particularly good, the group’s shared voice sweeps you away and your voice melts into the others. You distinctly feel a part of a community, it is a strongly shared experience. The organizers highlight that it is an important aspect. One of the initiators of the event recalls that he had to sing such songs alone on the occasion of one funeral he attended and that it’s really difficult because one singer focuses all the ritual tension on him or herself. For this reason, community is important. Moreover, the group of attendees increases every year and the sense that singing gathering rather than a concert becomes stronger every year – say the organizers. 

And even if your singing might not be the best, when it joins the others, what in the end comes through is one voice, singing as one, in honor of the dead. It’s a strongly reflective and moving experience.