here’s a sneak preview of one of the sequences for the upcoming screening at Three Walls on friday, it cuts off a bit a the beginning and runs a bit fast but i’ll fix that for friday. Events details are as follows:

Friday February 26, 2010

Chasing Two Rabbits

Friday, February 26^th, 2010.

Doors at 6pm, Program starts at 7pm

Suggested Donation: $10.00

Chasing Two Rabbits is a special event curated by Sonia Yoon and Shannon Stratton that pairs animators with live performances by sound artists and musicians. Inspired by the experimental films of Norman McLaren, who combined abstract imagery (including scratching and painting into the film stock in earlier work, as well as paper cut-outs and live action and dance) with imaginative music and sound, Chasing Two Rabbits, acts to pair artists in both genres to produce a unique event where, rather than leaving art to illustrate a story, perhaps sound and vision will illuminate each other.

The program for the evening will include animations by Gracen Brilmyer, Peter Burr, Tom Burtonwood, Dana Carter, Jodie Mack, Tracy Taylor, and Rebecca Schoenecker with sound by The Chicago Phonographers, Chris Hammes, Eric Zeigenhagen, Steve Lacy, Frank Van Duerm, Kotoka Suzuki, Cait Stevens, George Monteleone and Broken Chooser.

“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.”

Lander, Cardboard and mixed media, 2000

Lander was the next generation of mobile sculptures i produced at SIUC. The Lander was a in military speak a MANP (Man Portable) sculpture. Drawing inspiration from the Apollo Eagle Lunar Lander the piece folded into a compact rectangle that could be carried as a backpack. A standard camera tripod provided legs to raise the Lander off the ground. The sections were intended to resemble solar panels or some kind of sensor array. Once again i painted it a bright yellow for maximum disruption when set up in public.

Apart from creating some kind of absurd intervention, this piece was the first system sculpture. Traveling first from Carbondale via Amtrak to Chicago, then by air from Chicago to Minneapolis (via Kansas City) and back again this piece was an early stab at developing an administrative art work. Lander was a super important work for me as it focused in on a range of themes and practices that would shape my development both at Carbondale and later here in Chicago.

First and foremost it got the work out there. In a real physical sense. Not only was the work shipped around the Midwest but at each location it was installed on the street for 10 – 15 minutes and passed out information to passersby. Each intervention was documented with photographs and later in the gallery these images were combined with maps showing each site. Apart from the simple act of getting visibility this project cemented the DIY ethos that would define pretty much everything i have done since as an artist and arts professional. In a wider sense this piece symbolized the transportation of ideas, creating networks, developing “integrated systems.” All concepts that again would prove key to my thesis show and later to my practice. And oddly enough for me this piece was pre-internet, sure i was using email, and thinking about web sites and so forth but it was still dot com bubble land, ie it wasn’t utterly ubitquitous. For me this piece was about tracking an object of intellectual curiousity through physcial space, as one might track a package via fed ex.

UPDATE 08/29/09

APS Filmstrip showing different installations in MPLS, 2000

Digging thru boxes tidying the studio and found this image, of showing various installations of Lander in and around Uptown in Minneapolis during the Thanksgiving break in the fall of 2000. I love the format of this APS filmstrip, a sort of pre-digital image, or at least a transitional technology that if anything was a signal of the eventual demise of 35mm (135) camera film. Anyhow i love how this image shows all the different states, with a numerical designation in the bottom left corner and so forth. At some point i’ll upload further documentation of the project and possibly build a small sub-website to tell the story completely.