Howard Kleger: Modules. Schema. Diagrams. The Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study
Amidst the bassy rumblings and relative darkness of a noise show (the International Noise Conference, which boasted over 20 bands) I encountered the work of Howard Kleger for the first time. From what I gather, he's a bit of an inventor/artist who never simplifies anything, and for whom life is one large complex puzzle.
****Really good pics of the show (taken by Richard Davis) can be found on The Institute's project page for "Howard Kleger: Modules. Schema. Diagrams." While there, please also check out a link library on Howard with an introduction to his work written by Brandon Joyce, the exhibition's director.
April 27: GUS (Ramsey's tiny Gallery Under the Stairs) Opening: Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof The final GUS opening of April - Sunday, April 27th, at 7pm, GUS presents a collection of tiny paintings by Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof.
Reception begins at 7pm.
April 27: International Noise Conference
The Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study hosts the International Noise Conference, beginning at 7PM and continuing into the evening. Numerous acts; short in nature. Donations Welcome
April 27: Let the Dawn Only Come! Going away show for Ramsey Arnaoot, who is moving to Syria in May. Drawings, paintings, light sculptures. Opens at 8pm.
A screen shot of the Audio-Video Sampling Synthesizer.
Ramsey Arnaoot is a philadelphia-based artist and faculty member of The Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study, which we call pifas for short. I wrote a blog a while back on Ramsey's artist residency program here.
His piece for Given Enough Eyeballs is an Audio-Video Sampling Synthesizer , and has the distinction of being the only project in the exhibition that actually utilizes open source technologies. At it's simplest the Audio-Visual Sampling Synthesizer is a machine that will create a mixed-up version of anything you put inside of it, a tool for creating new data out of old. At it's most complex it gives us a behind-the-scenes look at digital media that we often take for granted, making the technologies of the image transparent.
Candida Pagan's "No-Confidence Party" was at Pifas but it closed last week.
It's still hard for me to think about the year 2000 as being a long time ago. I met someone yesterday who was born in that year.
I was twenty and it was the first time I ever registered to vote. I registered to vote because of Ralph Nader, I wanted to vote for him. I totally thought voting for Al Gore or George W. Bush would be voting for the lesser of two evils. While I don't still feel as strongly that way, I'm still proud of the fact that I voted for Nader that year. I wouldn't have voted for Gore the way I felt about him then. I wouldn't have even registered.
9/11 happened in 2001, after all that recount bullshit. Does anyone else feel like this happened yesterday?
Electoral College. I remember thinking this thing was a bad idea in Fifth Grade Social Studies.
Now. This is the most optimistic I've been about a presidential election since 2000.
Still underlying this optimism is this:
Sorry, the only clip I could find is actually a campaign commercial for this guy, but I also found this awesome video of Dennis Kucinich:
So, when I went to The Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study the de facto headquarters of Candida Pagan's brainchild political party, the No-Confidence Party, it took me back to 2000.
The basic party platform is this; write in an actual vote of no confidence (to congress?), informing them that you have no confidence in the american voting system. I assume this is sort of like the British version of a motion of no confidence, "a censure motion, a no-confidence motion, or simply a confidence motion, [. . . ] a parliamentary motion traditionally put before a parliament by the opposition in the hope of defeating or embarrassing a government."
In short, this "artwork (?)" made me think about how much my personal notion of The United States has changed over the past eight years and it made me dizzy.
Just to make this clear; though I enjoyed Ms. Pagan's project this blogger in no way condones voting any way but Democrat in the up-coming election.
Also at Pifas was this itty-bitty gallery by Sophia Wang.
