How to Disrupt a Poncy (fancy) Art Opening
Distrubeted zines at Sxrvxve: Designed Howlings at the Ugly Duck in London. Giving instructions on how to cause some good trouble.
How to Disrupt a Poncy (fancy) Art Opening
Tips for Guerrilla-style disruption of your neighborhood-gentrifying gallery. Originally, This zine was distributed at a performance including shining shoes, performing verbal hustles and three card monte routine while also handing out anti-gentrification zines on how to disrupt a poncy art opening.
The Humble Hustle
This performance ended up including shining shoes, performing verbal hustles and three card monte routine while also handing out anti-gentrification zines on how to disrupt a poncy art opening.
An Offer
An Idea exchange within my studio
Between the first and second year of the MFA program at GSA, each student puts in a proposal for their studio the next year. In mine, I listed needing a space “cozy enough to welcome individuals to practice hospitality.” Here I can play a super host and extend a special invitation. The space here is different than the typical museum or gallery and we are outside the typical practiced rules and behaviors in those spaces. Here we get to define how we behave. Here I invite you to share ideas. Here, outside these structures, you and I can exchange and collaborate, and more importantly play.
An Offer
An Idea exchange within my studio
Between the first and second year of the MFA program at GSA, each student puts in a proposal for their studio the next year. In mine, I listed needing a space “cozy enough to welcome individuals to practice hospitality.” Here I can play a super host and extend a special invitation. The space here is different than the typical museum or gallery and we are outside the typical practiced rules and behaviors in those spaces. Here we get to define how we behave. Here I was invite you to share ideas. Here, outside these structures, you and I can exchange and collaborate, and more importantly play.
Soul Food
My submission for an Artists’ Cookbook, created and edited by Rudy Kanhye, explored the cultural contexts and rituals around cooking and eating. Whether dining alone, with friends, or in the vicinity of strangers, the act of eating represents a marker of performed identities. In my social engagement work, I like to focus on immaterial qualities; for example, I believe the taste of soul food is different than southern cooking because you think about the ones you love when you cook. Consequently, a bit of your soul goes into the dish and enhances the flavor.
Soul Food
My submission for an Artists’ Cookbook, created and edited by Rudy Kanhye, explored the cultural contexts and rituals around cooking and eating. Whether dining alone, with friends, or in the vicinity of strangers, the act of eating represents a marker of performed identities. In my social engagement work, I like to focus on immaterial qualities; for example, I believe the taste of soul food is different than southern cooking because you think about the ones you love when you cook. Consequently, a bit of your soul goes into the dish and enhances the flavor.
(A)Long Walk Hospitalfield to Hospitalfield 5 miles
Digital audio created from local field recordings was listened to via my personal iphone, and passed from individual to individual during the exhibition at Hospitalfields.
Duration: 10:00 mins
Sturmgewehr
8.5×11 sheets of paper, Scotch® Magic™ Tape, youtube tutorials from kids 8-10 years of age
How curious! how real!
Neon, and envelopes of wildflower seed for bumblebee habitat. An interactive installation that plays with the idea of sites and non-sites. The work is titled “How curious! how real!” and includes envelopes of wildflower seeds that visitors were invited to take so they could plant the seeds. I am interested in exploring these ideas further and helping create sustainable communities.
How curious! how real!
Neon, and envelopes of wildflower seed for bumblebee habitat. An interactive installation that plays with the idea of sites and non-sites. The work is titled “How curious! how real!” and includes envelopes of wildflower seeds that visitors were invited to take so they could plant the seeds. I am interested in exploring these ideas further and helping create sustainable communities.
Stands Scotland where it stood
A collection of footage from around Scotland showing members of the public ringing the bells which comprise the work “blue, blue” before final installation. The video was one of the files on the drive Stands Scotland Where It Stood, and was part of the digital space of that physical exhibition.
Stands Scotland where it stood
A 16 GB USB shared on deaddrops.com 1 file included 12 GB available for others to share. This is part of a work of Aram Bartholl who began placing Dead Drop USBs as a way to offline file share in New York City in 2010. This continues providing that platform here in Scotland as well as allowing others in the group show, or the public, to share other work, supplement their current show, or just be part of a time capsule. The first file on the drive was mine to kickoff this digital space that provides another room for exhibition.
blue, blue
A collection of handmade and manufactured 20th-century bells and vibration motors installed on the ground floor of the Glue Factory in Glasgow. Each bell vibrated silently at a low ultrasonic speed that could only be perceived if touched. Bells would gently sway during the installation.
.Replace “program” with “art” .Replace “users” with “viewers”
Fifteen internet memes created with a meme generator projected from the CCA onto Sauchiehall Street, made as a result of a collaboration with curator Rudy Kanhye, responding to Caroline Woolard’s application of Open Source models to art production and her invitation to develop new models that sit outside traditional “gallery” structures, and more closely reflect the conditions of freedom in the use and re-use of art.
Hope Street
A series of social engagement projects kicked off as part of an exhibit in which a service was offered, and in exchange of fulfilling the contract, I was to be given a drink of my choice at a Hope Street venue of my choice.
The services offered – my tasks – varied widely and included taking guitar lessons, playing pool, drawing portraits, a choice between listening to completion a growing Spotify playlist or having a conversation about race, and having to prove reality was real. Coming up with the one question a curator should ask before working with a social engagement artist, going on a date with a woman’s male persona to see if he was gay, and listening to someone talk about their feelings, were some of the more creative exchanges.
There…
During December 5, 2016 – December 16, 2016 I had an open piece where I determined the structure but the public created the content (much like Hope Street.) I invited the public to join me in an interior with a west facing window from sunset to nautical twilight during the two weeks before the winter solstice. During that time, as the room and city grew dark, the visitor/audience and I experienced the transition together; they directed and experienced their own temporal moment.
Same as it ever was
Aroma and ultrasonic diffuser
Also working with the borders of perception is Same As It Ever Was, a work encompassing a series of aromas and ultrasonic diffusers. Early on I established a vocabulary of what I wanted to explore within the Glue Factory, looking to the aroma to convey something of the outside landscape. Since this exhibition was a group show, several other artists expressed interest in having aromas compliment their work. So, I worked with five of my cohorts to construct a supplementary experience. When there was wafting and drift of aroma, unexpected associations were created which I think is interesting; the power of smell and memory can construct new memories and recall old ones in the minds of both the artist and the viewer.
.Replace “program” with “art” .Replace “users” with “viewers”
Fifteen internet memes created with a meme generator projected from the CCA onto Sauchiehall Street, made as a result of a collaboration with curator Rudy Kanhye, responding to Caroline Woolard’s application of Open Source models to art production and her invitation to develop new models that sit outside traditional “gallery” structures, and more closely reflect the conditions of freedom in the use and re-use of art.
.Replace “program” with “art” .Replace “users” with “viewers”
Fifteen internet memes created with a meme generator projected from the CCA onto Sauchiehall Street, made as a result of a collaboration with curator Rudy Kanhye, responding to Caroline Woolard’s application of Open Source models to art production and her invitation to develop new models that sit outside traditional “gallery” structures, and more closely reflect the conditions of freedom in the use and re-use of art.
Hope Street
A series of social engagement projects kicked off as part of an exhibit in which a service was offered, and in exchange of fulfilling the contract, I was to be given a drink of my choice at a Hope Street venue of my choice.
The services offered – my tasks – varied widely and included taking guitar lessons, playing pool, drawing portraits, a choice between listening to completion a growing Spotify playlist or having a conversation about race, and having to prove reality was real. Coming up with the one question a curator should ask before working with a social engagement artist, going on a date with a woman’s male persona to see if he was gay, and listening to someone talk about their feelings, were some of the more creative exchanges.
The rain will be light.
A video of non-creative writing text from push notifications about weather in an unknown location.
Collectors item
I recorded sounds on Horn Island and created a single pressing of a 12in 45 rpm record of field recordings of ambient sounds. Displayed with a cover that I also designed and was silkscreened by the printer who worked on Brian Eno’s ‘The Ship’, my record is displayed with other vintage records encouraging the finding and choosing of vinyl.
A collector mentality is encouraged on the island – collecting experiences, collecting items, collecting yourself, even recollecting vinyl. Vinyl as a medium is a sculpture relief that as it moves through space on a turntable reproduces an experience, fills a space and defines that space in a new way.
Collectors item
I recorded sounds on Horn Island and created a single pressing of a 12in 45 rpm record of field recordings of ambient sounds. Displayed with a cover that I also designed and was silkscreened by the printer who worked on Brian Eno’s ‘The Ship’, my record is displayed with other vintage records encouraging the finding and choosing of vinyl.
A collector mentality is encouraged on the island – collecting experiences, collecting items, collecting yourself, even recollecting vinyl. Vinyl as a medium is a sculpture relief that as it moves through space on a turntable reproduces an experience, fills a space and defines that space in a new way.
hole
Short 22-second video shot in Glasgow Scotland.
Exhileration
In May of 2015, I transported a boat I spent almost a year designing, to the Gulf Coast and assembled it to row out and live alone on the U.S. barrier islands in the Gulf of Mexico. While on Horn Island I lived in primitive camping conditions, making site-specific works, surviving on with only what I brought with me.
Exhileration
In May of 2015, I transported a boat I spent almost a year designing, to the Gulf Coast and assembled it to row out and live alone on the U.S. barrier islands in the Gulf of Mexico. While on Horn Island I lived in primitive camping conditions, making site-specific works, surviving on with only what I brought with me.
watched
16 minute video of police surveillance cameras recorder from my handheld iPhone for as long as was comfortable to hold the camera in that position.
Shutter
Nine Found gloves arranged randomly by a random hexadecimal generator
Time Flies Like an Arrow
Two pairs of bananas rest on identical wall-mounted metal hooks. One is a pair of imitation bananas made from resin, the other is a pair of real bananas from a grocery store. During the exhibition, the organic bananas change from a bright green shade to looking like the model bananas. After a couple of days they pass their prime and turn black and dry. Depending on the exhibition time and space, the organic bananas are replaced. This process can take about a week in the preservative conditions of an exhibition space.
#transmigure
Anyone can bring an object that will fit within the cubic footage of a white box. The participant opens the box, photographs the current incumbent, shares the photo via social media using #mogrify. They then replace it with an object of their choosing and are free to take the previous object.
This piece explores the production of art, the producers of art and the authority of those acts by removing myself as the artist. Ultimately, what exists is a low tech machine. After all, the origins of mechanics were inspired by gift giving and the adventure of discovery. Even if the piece exists only to excite, elate and encourage the imagination, then it is successful. The last step, meanwhile, the sharing of the image on social media, imbeds qualities into the piece, the sharing within a walled garden, archiving, transience, or even not sharing it at all.
Flight
Three white square trays, Three Pyrex funnels, and pine pitch. Pine pitch will slowly fill trays over the next 1000 years. After all the pine pitch has been deposited in the trays the process is started over.
All the girls in LA I liked on Tinder 12/2/2013, Cyber Monday
2’33” video documenting all my likes for girls in LA using the dating app Tinder
L. M. F. A. O.
Found art with edited text.
goods
Acrylic box with lifesized solid chocolate foot and honey. The foot was cast from a single mold taken from a model and using dark chocolate.
Pas, Pas, Pas
Three lifesized solid chocolate feet and gilded chain. The feet were cast from a single mold taken from a model and using dark chocolate. Mounted with gilded chain styled after a horse bridal hung on a hook.
Pas, Pas, Pas
Three lifesized solid chocolate feet and gilded chain. The feet were cast from a single mold taken from a model and using dark chocolate. Mounted with gilded chain styled after a horse bridal hung on a hook.
i have nothing to say and i am saying it
Dozen sharpened ticonderoga pencils with each pencil’s shavings in a sealed container
1…2…3…
Three vintage glass Coke bottles on a glass shelf. Each bottle contains a paper airplane and is sealed with coke cap. Shelf is mounted 81 inches from the floor.
time stamp
19 6×4 inch Postcards with the time from my iphone every time I looked at a clock during 24hr performance from Oct. 26 to Oct. 27 2012
grow house
Site-specific installation at Bemis Art Center with tree and 48” electric lights
contemplation on a day
A conceptual work resulting in a site-specific edition variable dimension
tired good
Acrylic paint, encaustic on panel with found wood
know that dust
Cast acrylic on panel with found wood, stool, lamp, fluorescent bulb
wasted my hungry
Cast acrylic on panel with found fluorescent light.
swung on day
Cast acrylic paint, iron oxide, sand, and encaustic on wood panel
twice, it’s torn
Cast acrylic on panel with found objects
things that want
Cast acrylic on panel with found objects
one loved miles
Cast acrylic paint with tar, and found painted rock on wood panel
off the grid
5 squares of 1.3 oz. Silicone Impregnated Ripstop, site-specific instructions, and storage bag
superman dam fool
Acrylic on panel with found objects.
i’m still here
Acrylic on panel with found objects.
all the way here
Acrylic on panel with found objects
smells like perfect
Acrylic on panel with found objects
smells like perfect
Acrylic on panel with found objects
but watch punches
Acrylic on panel with found objects,
superman dam fool
Acrylic on panel with found objects.
but watch punches
Acrylic on panel with found objects.