CricketToes

Chipstone Encourages Artists/Museumgoers To Say "What A Tool"

Last March, Milwaukee's own decorative arts foundation, Chipstone, issued a challenge to a cadre of established artists in the UK and the US: Take a peek into your box o' creative instruments, choose one that grabs your usually splintered attention and make a work of art using just that one gadget. In addition, the artisans must shoot a video documenting their process and explaining to the rest of us just how easy/difficult it was to accomplish this formidable mission.

The means by which the artists were invited to participate in this project and subsequent exhibition curated by Ethan Lasser at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) was through visual demonstration—a sweet short video by filmmaker Nicola Probert:

 

Okay, first of all, I absolutely love the fact that there are missing pixels in the footage—a quirky problem common among older cameras—which can be clearly seen in the shots taken prior to the lens cap being removed. Second of all, it is truly amazing that the camera continues to shoot so far into the dismantling process, clearly telling us all that there can still be life in something that's had its attractive outer skin stripped. Third of all, Probert's haphazard manicure—at the beginning of the video one hand has chipped red polish and the other blue—shows us her punky little hands, proving that she's a full-on artist who's completely immersed in the task and isn't aiming for a shallow yet far more lucrative gig as a hand model.

In the end, sixteen artists accepted Chipstone's invitation to participate in the The Tool at Hand and their works + videos are on display in the Decorative Arts Gallery at MAM, starting today and running through April 1, 2012. To get you more than interested, view some of the artist's videos here.

If you happen to be free tonight and you're looking to cram some learnin' into your brain, there's a gallery talk at 6:15PM. Also, they've scheduled a super fun event called Tool Weekend from March 16-18, complete with artist talks, demonstrations, competitions, and performances, giving you the opportunity to express en masse what's sure to become the exhibit's catchphrase, "What a tool."

(Thanks, Claudia!)

Related:
Meta-Craft At MAM: Welcome To The Future!
Breaking: Green Lives In Winter

Meta-Craft At MAM: Welcome To The Future!

Both inside and outside the art world, craft is very rarely associated with deep theoretical and critical thought. With its inherent emphasis on creation through practical skills--which carries with it an implication of the roughhewn and the callused hand--the form has suffered from a lack of respect, existing often as the butt of mocking jokes snickered at by the pompously priggish.

This perception of craft as the realm of the simpleminded and pseudo-artistic couldn't be farther from the truth, of course, and a new exhibit opening this Thursday, March 10, in the Decorative Arts Gallery at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is poised to change some minds and get some well-deserved payback, baby.

Entitled The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft, the show debunks the notion that craft is a solely backward-looking art form promoting a nostalgic, rose-colored past that rejects the "evils" of modern life. It is a marriage of the new- and oldfangled unlike any witnessed before, including the overexposed, overhyped Steampunk movement. If ya don't know what that is, just browse through the Boing Boing blog archives--I guarantee, you'll be sick of it by lunchtime.

Curated by Fo Wilson, artist and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Assistant Professor of Art & Design, The New Materiality presents the completely fresh and unapologetic work of sixteen emerging and established American artists who combine traditional materials with digital tech goodness. It's meta-craft at its finest!

With her consistently stellar work aimed at bringing craft forward in time and her unfaltering eye of critical and theoretical examination, the exhibit couldn't ask for a more insightful curator than Wilson. Those who attend the show are heartily encouraged to pick up the catalog so that they may experience her phenomenal grasp of the art form's place in history and its path into the future.

Organized by the Fuller Craft Museum and brought to MAM by the Chipstone Foundation, The New Materiality runs from March 10–June 12, 2011. Wilson--a.k.a. Queen of Contemporary Craft--will give two gallery talks on April 19 and May 3, both Tuesdays and both at 1:30PM.

Link (Thanks, Claudia!)

Related:
Not Just Another Art Panel Discussion

iPhone App Answers Art's Most Pointless Question

As all fancy iPhone users know, there's a multitude of apps they can download to their gadgets should they desire to have the experience of time being relentlessly sucked through their fingers at light speed. In fact, everyday scores of teenagers get so engrossed in the virtual Game Of Life that by the time they look up they have no real life of their own.

Thankfully Deeplocal and The Mattress Factory of Pittsburgh, PA have come to the rescue with an app that's so monumentally important we just had to bring it to your attention: Is This Art?

That's right, people, no longer will you have to twist your noodle this way and that, striking cerebral poses normally achieved only by the world's most nimble gurus, in an effort to discern whether what your lookin' at is art or not. Just ask your iPhone and the mystery shall be solved. Spooky, yes? You're darn tootin' it is.

Actually, it's supposed to be a humorous little interactive thing whereby peeps take photos, submit 'em and--viola!--get back clever answers to the most subjective and pointless question ever. For example, "This work manipulates reality in a realistic but non-manipulative way, therefore THIS IS ART." Haha! Now we understand why complex algorithms were invented.

Go here to see photos submitted and answers given. Feel free to submit comments of your own to the site, which no doubt will soon be inundated with überserious art debaters who wouldn't know a joke if it physically shook their funny bone, shouting, "Laugh, damn it, laugh!" Here's hoping!

(via @The_Mint_Museum)

Submit Your Proposal to Own the Road

The Wormfarm Institute, nestled deep in the heart of beautiful Reedsburg, Wisconsin, has put out the call to artisans--you're one of those, right?--to submit proposals for its newly hatched Roadside Culture Stand Project. Artists, architects and all other peeps handy not only with their hands but also with their noggins are invited to apply. Don't know how many mechanics, farmers, wood workers, or aerospace engineers read this here bloggity blog, but if you're out there let me just say, "Hey, nice to have ya here!" and furthermore "You're welcome to apply, too!"

So what's a Roadside Culture Stand? It's a mobile unit used to display, sell and barter over fresh produce and artistic/crafty works. 'Nough said? No? Well, maybe some visualization will help. Remember that time when your parents hauled you outta bed, bleary-eyed and dazed, on a crisp autumn Sunday morning, cheerily stating, "We're going for a drive in the country, kid!" And so you all did. During that ride your mother suddenly pointed to the side of the road, exclaiming, "Look! Corn!" or "Look! Quilts!" or "Look! Rutabagas!" and there was a stand with friendly folks selling fresh stuff to eat and/or nice stuff they made, and your mother was overjoyed. Also, you had rutabagas for dinner every night for the next month.

Okay, now that we're all on at least a vaguely similar page, the first thing ya need to know to get your design and construction juices is flowing is that, if you're proposal is selected by the world renowned Roadside Culture Stand judges, you will receive a whopping $3,500 to cover all design, fabrication expenses and your artist fee. Whoot! Not only that but a flatbed trailer will be provided at no cost. Double Whoot!

The second through six things you need to know are these:
• Your proposed stand must meet the specifications of being built on the 5x10 foot steel flatbed trailer provided.

• The design of the stand should be visually compelling when open and in use as well as when closed, and it must be visible at night.

• Your proposed stand must be roadworthy as it will be pulled on a frequent basis by pick-up truck.

• The stand must be easy for one person to set up and a built-in shade/weather shelter canopy is highly recommended.

• Materials must be durable and low maintenance--the use of recycled material is encouraged.

• Your proposed stand must have good security and information signage should be visible both when open and closed.

And, finally, the seventh thing--Submission Guidelines:
• One page cover letter, including contact information and your preference for rural or urban stand. Also, address why this project interests you. If applying as a team, list all team members and designate one as lead applicant.

• At least two drawings of proposed Culture Stand design, including one view of stand closed and empty of produce, and one view of stand open for business. The words "Home Grown" should be featured prominently.

• A statement, not to exceed one page, describing Culture Stand and its function in detail--you have Cricky's permission to use my visualization technique, but don't blame me if they say you're just too much of wackjob, 'kay?

• Current resume, not to exceed 2 pages with 3 professional references who can address your capacity to bring such a project to fruition.

• Up to 10 images of past work. Preferred format CD or DVD. Each image must be jpg not to exceed 1MB. Your name must be on CD. High quality photos or slides are also acceptable. Images must be sent through regular mail and will be returned only with self-addressed stamped mailer. DO NOT email images--they'll be headed straight for the virtual trash.

• Deadline is December 31, 2009.

Mail your submission to:
Selection Committee
Wormfarm Institute
E7904 Briar Bluff Rd
Reedsburg WI 53959

Phew! Now, I've go it on ultimate authority that a total of three stands will be selected for 2010--two rural and one for our inner city Milwaukee--and they plan on more in 2011, so if ya don't get in this time, just try, try again!

To see an example of a Roadside Culture Stand, click here. Questions? Email Donna Neuwirth wormfarm at jvlnet dot com.

If you do get selected, you'll be able to visit your stand whenever ya want, where you can put your hands on your hips, gaze out proudly and say, "I know this road. This is my road."

(Thanks, Spoon & Donna!)

Related:
Artistic, Soft-Bodied Forum Seeking New Members

Horseless Carriage Maker Proves Behavioral Psychology of Fun

When was the last time you heard any of the Big Three U.S. automakers actually introduce an idea for the good that wasn't completely made up of empty oh-look-at-us-we-care-about-health-and-the-environment PR hot air? Think hard now. Give up? Yep, that'd be never.

Leave it to Volkswagen--the creators of the "people's car"--to start a project that not only talks the change-for-the-better talk but walks it, too. It's called The Fun Theory and its aim is to encourage peeps to upgrade their daily behavior so we can all live a better life.

Based on the well established psychological premise that folks will respond positively to change if ya make doing so even a tad hoot worthy, The Fun Theory has already shown some powerful results. B.F. Skinner, eat your heart out!

To wit, Piano Stairs:

Haha! That is so frickin' awesome I can hardly stand it! When I watched it the first time, tears of happy, mushy joy filled my eyes and that's sayin' a whole lotta somethin'.

Best of all, Volkswagen is holding a competition for Fun Theory ideas and you can submit your own here. First prize is €2500--that currently rings in at about $3661 USD--so rev up your puzzler and get crackin'! Deadline is December 15, 2009.

Link (Thanks, Brian & Kate!)

RIP Les Paul

For over sixty years, the name of guitarist and inventor extraordinaire Les Paul could not be spoken or written in any forum without at least one mighty descriptive noun attached to it--genius, wizard, legend, creative madman--and these weighty words of honor could not be bestowed on a more worthy human being. Yet he was mortal and, like all mortals, his time upon this planet was destined to come to an end. And so it was yesterday, August 13, 2009, that Les Paul passed away at the age of 94, leaving a legacy unmatched in the world of music.

Born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915 in Waukesha, Wisconsin--Whoot!--Paul changed his moniker to a less, um, fussy one for performance purposes in the 1930s. With the aid of an uncommonly wise mother who allowed him to pursue his natural curiosity and inventive tendencies--even letting him punch new holes in her player piano rolls when he was not yet 10 years old so he could experiment with a burgeoning multitrack effect idea--Paul was the epitome of what we now call a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) übercool geek.

A genuine self-taught artist--he never did learn to read music--Paul had the type of instinctual sense for melody, chord progression, instrumental layering, and composition that turns even the most balanced of us tune makers green without absolute envy. That, combined with an astonishing work ethic, made Paul one of the greatest and most innovative musicians of all time.

In 1941, Paul invented "The Log", a solid body electric guitar. Gibson Guitar Company very shortsightedly turned down his monumental achievement, but changed its mind when Leo Fender introduced his own commercial solid body electric guitar in 1950--nothing like a poke from the sharp competition stick to wake ya up, eh?--and the much prized Gibson Les Paul Guitar line was born.

From there he went on to fundamentally change the way we perform, record and experience music through the invention of the multitrack recorder, making overdubbing possible and giving us the ability to record a number of tracks separately--no more fear and loathing of erasing previously recorded tracks. Ingenious! He also developed the first echo and reverb techniques and tools, providing a richer and more compelling sound.

Along with his wife Mary Ford--a.k.a. Iris Colleen Summers--Paul rocketed up the charts with a number of hits in the 1950s, including their unique version of "How High The Moon", and had a seven-year run of Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home, a radio and television show. Paul and Ford were pioneers in home recording, creating records in their living room that sold millions of copies. Sadly, the couple eventually divorced when Ford decided that she didn't want to continue on in the hurly-burly music life and Paul couldn't give it up. Mary Ford died in 1977.

Paul retired for about ten years for health reasons in the 1960s. An injury sustained in a near-death car accident in 1948 had left his arm permanently crooked--a position he'd insisted the doctors set it in to avoid amputation--and that old devil arthritis began to make its painful presence known in his hands. But he just couldn't stay away and he came back in 1974 to make a record with renowned guitarist Chet Atkins. Chester and Lester won a Grammy.

From 1984 to 1995, Paul played every Monday night at Fat Tuesday's in New York City, then he took his weekly gig to the Iridium Jazz Club in 1996. His arthritis worsening, he taught himself to play the guitar in a whole new way by rethinking the possibilities offered up by his extremely stiffened fingers. He continued to play nearly until to the end.

Honored by various music and science institutions, Paul was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988. Kev and I had the awesome pleasure of seeing his collection, including the Les Paul "Clunker"--that's a modified 1942 Epiphone Broadway electric guitar--in the Architects of Rock and Roll exhibit last year. If ya ever get to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, head up to level 2 and get ready to be stunned.

In 2007, the PBS series American Masters aired the documentary Les Paul: Chasing Sound and I encourage all who have never seen this film to do so immediately. Here's a clip:

Also, Terry Gross did a great interview with him in 1992, which was rebroadcast today on Fresh Air.

Mr. Les Paul, we shall deeply miss your no-holds-barred, creative, knowledgeable and high-spirited presence here among us, but we shall continue to sincerely thank you everyday for all the gifts you have so generously granted us.

Related:
It's True: Rock and/or Roll Lives in Cleveland

Look at the Rack on that Milwaukee County Bus!

It's a happy month for Milwaukee County bus riders and those who've been wanting to combine their bicycle riding fetish with public transportation. As of June 30, all Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) buses will have bike racks installed on their snouts, accommodating two of the two-wheeled contraptions in a single ride. Whoozzah!

Tomorrow, June 4, MCTS is hosting a launch party that starts at 12 noon in front of the Milwaukee County Courthouse on 10th street. Politicians and MCTS management will give what's sure to be a string of rousing oratories, no doubt matching the power and skill of those presented by President Obama.

Then it's a bicycle lock and load demo by County Board Supervisors Patricia Jursik and Christopher Larson as well as Shea Schachameyer from the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin. Those three, and anyone else who wants to join in, will ride the bus to O'Donnell Park--that's at the intersection of Wisconsin and Prospect Avenues--where they will unlock and unload, cycling off at precisely 12:45PM for a joyous little jaunt through the park. There won't be a dry eye on the lakefront.

Though it took quite a bit of time for us to get it, we finally did and it's a fantastic sign of progress, people--one that we should all be singin' the praises of. To those of you who still think riding the bus is for losers--and if that's true, then go ahead and mark my forehead with a big fat L--there's really only one thing to say: Looks like the losers won.

Link (via BizTimes Daily)

Review: People Who Do Noise Is/Are Fun to Watch!

I've been meaning to review the feature length documentary People Who Do Noise for a while now. In fact, we've had the DVD for so long that the good people at Netflix must think we're either dead or we're trying to keep everybody else from seeing it, which couldn't be further from the truth--we are alive!

Directed by filmmaker/videographer/musician Adam Cornelius, this low budget documentary centers on the experimental music scene in Portland, Oregon, and serves as a good introduction for those who just don't get why people make this stuff as well as a pretty enjoyable treat for those of us who do.

Shot in 2007, Cornelius thankfully fought back the urge to employ trippy visual effects and keeps his shots relatively clean and stable. Given the subject matter, one can only imagine what horrific results would have come about had the documentary been created by an overly earnest arty type, so kudos to you, my friend.

Through interviews and largely private performances, People Who Do Noise highlights the diverse and varied instruments, styles, methods and philosophies of the musicians involved in the creation of noise and experimental music. Folks who are unfamiliar with these genres but can maintain an open mind will be most surprised that there exists so much thought behind the squeaks, squeals, screams and white noise. On the other hand, there's some fairly nutty moments as the musicians describe their individual processes, proving once again that HIlarity can and should be part and parcel of every type of art. Once you start takin' yourself too seriously, it's all over, man.

While most are young one- and two-person shows, the exception is the fabulous and nearly mythical five piece Smegma. Born in 1973, the collective performs free improvisations, combining traditional and handmade instruments as well as turntable work. Also, they wear weird, freaky costumes, which is completely awesome!

The one true disappointment is that there are only two--count 'em, two--female musicians presented in the whole one hour and twenty-two minutes: Kitty Midwife and Oblivia of Smegma. I realize that the noise and experimental world is a predominately male one, but come on, really? Only two in the whole of Portland? Ms. Midwife does speak directly to the fear and loathing of many women to play noise, which is based on an unfounded belief that being wacky somehow negates your femininity. Her mesmerizing performance clearly proves that to be a vicious lie--believe me, she had the undivided attention of the three gentlemen I watched the movie with, so take that, you fraidy cats!

Anyhoo, in conclusion, I would recommend you check out People Who Do Noise at your earliest opportunity. It's true that some in the audience who happen to be in the know about noise and experimental music may get a bit frustrated that there isn't more techy nerd talk about the instruments--oh, what's that ya got there? A Wiard 321 Module (a.k.a. The Sequantizer)?--but that would get mighty tedious for anybody who has no clue as to what in the hell they're talkin' about, so deal with it.

You can rent People Who Do Noise from Netflix--and keep it for weeks at a time as we did!--or buy it from Film Baby.

Official Website

Related:
People Who Do Noise & Other Effin' Sh*t

Prepay Your Funeral and Win a Prize!

The race to prove just who exactly are the nuttiest folks on the planet continues unfettered as an Aussie funeral home is currently offering clients the chance to win a Jura IMPRESSA J5 automatic coffee machine (pictured left) if they prearrange and prepay their own personal día de la muerte. Haha--sign me up, Lurch!

The idea of paying a fixed price prior to the day you kick off and freeing your loved ones from that emotionally charged financial burden is a good one, but, until that day, what truly creepy thoughts and images would play in your mind with every sip of espresso pulled from this baby? On the other hand, it may well boost the effect of the caffeine high, so I say brew on!

Link (via CoffeeTalk)

Hey Tech Geeks: DIY Crap Coffee!

Ah, technology--it's a wondrous, often irrational thing that just keeps getting more mind-blowingly pointless by the minute. To wit, a Finnish designer named Reko Mäenpää has created an experimental coffee machine with all the high-tech bells n’ whistles you could ever hope for but it makes what I can only imagine would be the most expensive craptasic java ever.

Mäenpää integrated a 500MHz Intel Pentium III processor with GeForce MX440 graphics and Windows XP into the coffee maker, giving the user the ability to order a 23 second cup o' joe though a touchscreen or via a WAP phone or remote web browser. So what's wrong with that? Nothing, except the machine has no capabilities to grind fresh beans so the coffee is of a powdered variety. Well, good golly, Martha, we gotta get ourselves one of those ASAP 'cause I just can't get enough the stuff from the vending machine down at the plant!

Now, to be fair, I would bet the farm and all the critters on it that the powdered coffee in Finland is way better than the freeze-dried compost filler we have here in the US, but really, powdered coffee? Let's hook that baby up to a Baratza Virtuoso Grinder and really get brewin', man!

As my java guru used to say, all the technology in the world still can't get you a decent cup of coffee.

Link (in Finnish; via CoffeeTalk & Slash Gear)