I was finally able to get over to the Brooklyn Artists Gym today to do a little painting; I took my son Adam with me and managed to get him to sit for me and did this sketch (below).

It’s difficult enough to get a teenager to sit still for long – I managed to get Adam to sit for about 90 minutes.

I usually try to finish whatever I’m working on in the same sitting – as far as I can.  Years ago, when I painted more often, I felt I often overpainted and it took much longer to achieve anything.

 

As I mentioned in my last post, I planned to go to BAPLab2006 and I did; I’m 80 dollars poorer for it but I had a good time and it was all in the name of Art, or something like that.  I took a lot of pictures too – but I’m not sure it makes sense to post them here as quickly take up space on the webservers – maybe I’ll post one or two pictures, that’s it.

There were a couple of thousand people attending a werehouse that was converted into a large art gallery – happening space. Some of the same artists that were part of the NYU Interactive Communications Program were also in this show and I spoke to one artist whom I remembered from a couple of months ago.

 

There was a photo montage that altered a person and you could interact with it – and I am showing me, being altered, not for the better, I’m afraid.  Actually, the work I was part of here was called Musical Chari: A Game for One Musical Chair: A Game for One.  This work is influenced by the artist’s (Geoffery Bell) fascination with visual apparatuses from the 19th Century.   When the viewer remains still (me in this case) the repetitive images of the viewer gradually coalesce into a single image.  Audio segments are also triggered and manipulated by the viewer’s movements (that’s me, again).

 Other Artists I looked at were Ernesto Kar’s Convergenze Parallele, Jake Klotz’s Rejoice/Restage and another work called Robot/ a canternary project. 

One thing – I went up to the third floor and noticed some bathrooms without doors – they were part of the art installation but people were using them as actual bathrooms – and I must admit, so did I.  I think, only men did this – I did not see any woman using the art installation / bathrooms this way.

There was also a walled off room where some “oracles” were doing readings – or something – and there were silkscreen pictures of nude woman that were semi transparant (that made it interesting to know what was going on inside).  However, I never did find out as i was too hot and the line too long.

I should add that the show I attended appeared to be made up of a couple of groups including the 3rd Ward, a member based studio and workshop facility geared towards established and emerging artists – with facilities for audio/music recording, dance/performance studios, sculpture and fabrication, Digital Media Lab that is fully equipped, a gallery, converence space, lounge and Internet Access Cafe.   Sounds like 3rd Ward and the Bushwick Art Program have it all wrapped up (everything a modern artist could want) except the location – the location is too far out of the way for me to want to go over there – but if you live in GreenPoint, or nearby, it’s probably a good place to have studio space – there was a little floor bot robot painting a painting of about the 1970′s.  Don’t ask me what it all means as I don’t know.

I also found out about another artist space that is technology oriented closer to home called LEMURPLEX, located at 451 3rd Avenue, pretty close to Brooklyn Artists Gym (which I need to go over to, maybe Sunday – today – haven’t been over there for a couple of weeks and I need to paint).

LEMURplex is a new performance/gallery/teaching space in Brooklyn, located between the vibrant neighborhoods of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Gowanus and Red Hook. LEMURplex will teach and showcase the best in art and technology.

LEMURplex is the home and workshop of LEMUR: League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots. Founded in 2000, LEMUR is a group of artists and technologists who create robotic musical instruments. LEMUR’s work is shown throughout the world in performances and installations. For information on LEMUR, go to lemurbots.org.

How Fantastic!  Here, but a mile or two from where I live a couple of blocks from where I paint, exists the League of Electronic Muscial Urban Robots that goes all over the world to perform and create installations.  There’s also courses that are tought – but at this time I don’t think I’ll be taking any of these (they’re programming oriented – but more for visual artists that want to do robotics – a path I went down several years ago but found I did not have the interest or focus for it).

I’m glad I went to BAPLab2006 tonight – I’d probably not even have learnt about LEMURplex had I not gone – it’s also nice to see a new batch of artists – the future (which I see myself as a bridge to – I’m old enough to have lived in the 60′s and 70′s yet progressive enough to really live and identify with the artists of the 21st Century).

 

There’s an opening tonight in Brooklyn that I will attend tonight (if you can get to it) – or at least, look at their website.

This summer BAP will be hosting the first in a series of programs entitled the “BAPLab” taking place on July 22nd 2006. Showcasing well known artists side by side with emerging artists, the Lab’s purpose is to expose both audience and artists alike to the vast spectrum of digital culture. Located at 3rd Ward, in the outer edges of Bushwick, (that’s why I probably won’t make it over there) the Lab is an experimental event where artists are encouraged to explore new paths and investigate new ideas through a curated program of electronic music, video, sound installations and interactive works.

Part exhibition, part creative R&D program, the BAPLab is a festival of ideas.  An environment where artists can explore new approaches to creative expression.

I liked listening to Pathways To Pluto - by r. john valeo – perhaps it’s because I’m a Scorpio that I’d like Pluto music.  But then there’s Red Wine Reduction by Handshake or Sex Deluxe by Hakan Lidbo – you can hear all of the work by going to the website.

BTW, this BAP lab show sounds (no kidding!) similar to NYU’s Interactive Communications Program Spring Show which I covered in great detail on Webmetricsguru.com a couple of months ago.

Interactive show mobbed (I first heard about the NYU show via Smartmobs.com, a site I also write for now – but did not write for them at the time).

Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU – A Review – Part 1.

Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU – A Review – Part 2.

Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU – A Review – Part 3.

Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU – A Review – Part 4.

Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU – A Review – Part 5 of 5.

I’ll have more to report on later and you can also read a notice of this on SmartMobs.com .

Happened upon Charles Saatchi’s Your Gallery website which seems to me to be the first instance of Art Dealers getting into the Social Media scene.  Instead of looking for artist to represent – Saatchi is allowing the artist to post their work onto his site (ok, he did not invite everyone – but yet anyone can post their work).

There’s also a virtual tour of the actual Saatchi Collection in London that looks part Computer Animation and part Photography. What’s noticable to me is that the figures in the virtual tour are immobile, much as the art iself – perhaps in this case, the figures are part of the art of Virtual Tour (you can’t see the pictures on the wall very well – the movie is really about taking a tour of the Saatchi Gallery, not what is in the Gallery.

Perhaps the only thing missing from the Virtual Tour was Wild Divine’s biofeedback mechinism to make a tour interactive – As Wild Divine’s Wisdom Quest is (the second Computer Game from Wild Divine).

Getting back to posting your art in Saatchi’s Gallery, I posted one of my own.