Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Slingshot Out the Valley

My goal with my Honors Art History Senior Thesis was to put a little more local relevance and vitality into my academic pursuits. The end result is a split piece, a 20 minute art journalism video that profiles 3 local artists and contextualizes Salt Lake through the 337 Project. I showcased the work of Margaret Willis, Cein Watson, and Jann Haworth. Each of these artists does amazing work and has a complex relationship to Salt Lake City, together they create a snapshot of a corner of the city's creative field. The project could never be a whole portrait of all the amazing things going on in this city, rather I wanted to get a little more familiar with specific artists than we were able to in Afterimage: The Art of 337.



This video portion is the more consumable side of the thesis. It is expanded upon by the written portion, which delves into the roles of these artists in establishing local identity, the ideas of habitus and global art, and the role of technology in the aforementioned concepts. The paper posits that our interconnectivity is key to pushing great creative endeavors into the cultural limelight, which is mutually beneficial for the artists involved and art consumers both on a local and global level. It warns participants in this hybrid culture against becoming too homogenized in the expansive reach of the internet, and discusses methods artists can employ to maintain individuality while still enjoying the benefits of convergence culture.

Music by Casey Blandford and Alex Haworth

I'll soon have links up to the individual interviews, enjoy! Read More......

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Cat for a good cause


Everyone come out this saturday and race to support Ali! Should be fun... Read More......

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Visual Thesaurus

This little guy is a map of a speech I've been working on re: the state of the world and our role in it.
vis-thes Read More......

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Hey Little Buddies

hey little buddies... Read More......

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Eva

Eva Small Plates and Drinks

There's a new restaurant in downtown Salt Lake that you'd be out of your mind not to frequent. I heard murmurs about this place from Tessa Lindsey, who I mentioned last month. She designed the interior, which is incredible. A mix of clean Art Nouveau lines with high light ceilings and wood floors give the restaurant the feeling of a friendly unpretentious gallery.

Eva Small Plates and Drinks

To fit the bill, Tessa hung some very nice paintings by her ever so cool boyfriend Trent Call, all large canvases that are a subtle new take on his familiar comic figures. The vibe is great, small and classy, simple, but very loved. Max occupancy is probably about 35.

Eva Small Plates and Drinks

This intimate size fits the owner/chef's style very well, as he is ever present and has a hand in every dish. This is his first solo restaurant project after learning in San Francisco and jointly running a highly acclaimed place in Seattle. His food is incredible. Every dish is bursting with flavor and it's impossible to choose between them all. I tried the glazed pork ribs, which were totally decadent and caramelized, and the spanacopita, which was described as the chef as more simple than his award-winning recipe from Seattle. It was very bold, however, and totally complicated enough for me. Both were tapas-sized small plates portions. The price of this restaurant is what really kills me: Those two together were only $11, and this is some seriously high quality stuff, and the portions are enough to share 5 different things between 3 people and leave stuffed. I also tried the pear and ratatouille pizzas, which were both great, the ratatouille better. The chef recommends the BLT pizza as well. The pizzas are cute little personal things and only $7.95!

Eva Small Plates and Drinks

Then there are the drinks. Eva has the full gamut from cheapskate to class-act, the first night I got a PBR ($2.50), the second an organic cider ($7.75), and they've got a ton of options up to a very impressive 22 oz. Brother David's 10 proof ale ($11!). The wine selection looks classy, too but I don't know 'nothin 'bout no sissy grape drinks.

Hands down this is the most big-city restaurant in this little town. It's delicious and cheap, intimate and gourmet, well designed, and well staffed. You've got no reason to skip it. Even a cheapskate like me needs to go on a date every once in a while, and Eva is the place. And did I mention it's open until 1 AM?!? Sold. Please save our city.

Eva Small Plates and Drinks

For super-special deals, restaurateurs (that word means waiters, and apparently bike delivery guys) get 50% off all food for a limited time after 10 pm. So take Esther on a date and she'll pay for her half just by being there!

Eva is on Main Street between 3rd and 4th south. Read More......

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

photo.jpg


photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by Der Blaue Reiter

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Kutiman cuttin up the Tubes!

The internet's been humming today with the music mashups of Kutiman, an Israeli artist who's been using Youtube to the fullest breadth the website has to offer. It's pretty cool stuff:



He's a mashup artists along the lineage of Too Many DJ's and more recently the bombastic dancehaller Girl Talk, but the samples Kutiman uses all come specifically from Youtube and incorporate the video portion as well. This tiny distinction makes Kutiman's songs that much greater, because the humble bedrooms, basements, and streetcorners that youtubers broadcast from, complete with crappy lighting and personal sillinesses, become a cohesive song that maintains the tie to its composite parts. Like Daft Punk's Around The World we get a visual for every sound, but in this case the visual was born with the sample. So we get a backstory to every note, scratch, and vocal, an insight into how it was manipulated for the final song. In his amazingly simple way, Kutiman taps into the layering and wealth of information on Youtube and repurposes it into an anthemic readers digest of DIY creativity.

This is what I love about Youtube: It is a constant stream of lo-grade creativity, which cumulatively adds up to something exciting and fresh about the 21st century. Anyone with a cameraphone and a personality (or lack thereof) can be a player. And though Kutiman purposed this creative energy towards music, the possibilities are pretty much limitless. Imagine a screenplay written out of youtube confessional 1-liners with some kind of connecting theme, or a choose-your-own-adventure style argument that links contrasting views of different videos in a continuous point-counterpoint.

The infinite beauty on the net is sometimes buried under ceaseless comments and driveling myspace profiles, but jesus it's a powerful source. Omniscience via the terminal makes us quiet individual gods. Let us create.

I think my favorites are Babylon Band and I'm New. The Vocoder bit in Wait for Me is pretty good too. Screw it, I like them all. I love the interface too, literally cutting up youtube for a new kind of art. Cheers.

Thanks to Luke for throwin' down the gauntlet. Read More......

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Dada Party!



We're at it again! A fantabulous art party to kick off your springtime, right in the heart of the March Gallery Stroll. Come one come all, at The Dada Factory, 930s. Rio Grande St. Bring the hotness.

FEATURING:
Installation and Music By Austin McBride
(His badass new bedroom designed and executed by Ryan Manning with Austin's help)
Film and Performance by Davey Davis
(Excerpts from Senior Thesis journalism piece on local art featuring the work of Jann Haworth, Cein Watson, and Maggie Willis)
Stunts and Awesomeness by Chris Ginzton
(Yeah. He will.)
Music, Zaniness, and Insouciance by Alex Haworth
(He really doesn't give a damn about you. It's amazing)
Drawings by Brian Butler
(YOUR PORTRAIT WHILE YOU WAIT! IT'S MAGIC!)
Music by Luke Williams

There will be paint, and naked people. Someone will jump off the roof. There really will be an appearance by the 337 Art Truck (If we can figure out how to fit it in the back yard)!

BE THERE ALL NITE! I'm planning on heading home around 8:30 and onward we go. Read More......

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

xkcd is a modern prophet

Once again xkcd sums up something incredibly true and hilarious about tech culture:
Original here

Drunken adventurer dropouts unite! Now I want a kindle. Read More......

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Yves Klein Lives

For a while now, I've been working on a paper about the amazing Yves Klein. Today I presented my research.


First: an 8 minute lecture on the artist's life, work, criticism.


I then quickly dashed outside and bid the class to follow.


Then, the reading of a manifesto I edited together from Klein's journals, followed by a leap into the void. I was attempting to levitate off the balcony:








Pretty close, eh?

Thanks to Anna for the lovely Photos. Read More......

Sunday, March 1, 2009

photo.jpg


photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by Der Blaue Reiter

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