EB – feather2pixels

Tagged: EB

July 30, 2013

Favor de agarrar uno.

9:20 am

Character Profile, the July 2013 text and language based group show I curated at Root Division in San Francisco, is over.

Just a rapidly fading collection of electrochemical brain markers and digital residue on the internet, the exhibition now exists only to the extent that we accept the highly contested notion of the past as a tangible component of reality. Character Profile does not think, therefore it may not be and may never have been.

To combat existential dread, I recorded this ten minute walkthrough of the show in 1080p.  We did it off the cuff in one long continuous take, so sorry if I misrepresented anything you might find important.   Thanks to EB , Trevor, and Lonwell for help with this.  And thanks to everyone who participated in the viewing and creation of this show.

[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”//www.youtube.com/embed/UXwZGbFcN6o” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]

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July 24, 2013

An exception to the hearsay rule which allows a witness to testify to the accuracy of a recording or documentation.

5:33 pm

One of my big summer projects was An Interview With the Author Monica Zarazua.

It’s a screenprinted motion picture on thirty-eight wood tiles made for a group show at Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oak-land.  That show explored intersections between the literary and visual arts and my intent for the piece was to blur the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, creating an imaginary space for the non-imaginary author of the show’s short stories to inhabit. Here is a pdf of the show catalog beautifully put together by Xiomara Castro.

The images used in the project, which proceeds left, right, up, and down the gallery wall, were collected from photos and video recordings produced for this work.  Here’s a shitty video about one day in that process!

[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/70608039?byline=0&amp;color=ff0179″ width=”500″ height=”367″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/70608039″>Underwater photoshoot for a screenprint project.</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user16153940″>Jon Fischer</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p> <p>A four minute video filmed during the making of the visual art piece &quot;Interview with the Writer Monica Zarazua&quot; by Jon Fischer. On this day of production, Fischer enlisted several adventurous friends to improvise dozens of simple movements and sequences filmed using HD video underwater in a 59&deg;F pool. <br /> <br /> To develop the final art piece, individual images selected from single frames in the source footage were collected and reassembled to form intertwined fantastical stories that draw on motifs such as color, text, space, and movement. The result resembles something in between a period silent movie, a comic strip, and the pre-cinema locomotion studies of Eadweard Muybridge.<br /> <br /> The piece creates a story for the storyteller to inhabit. Presenting a complex structure of overlapping narratives that is generated from simple recordings of people in motion, the project explores a fluid relationship between fiction and non-fiction, in which each creates the other. <br /> <br /> Filmed by Jon Fischer and Nowell Valeri in 2013.</p>,/imframe]

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June 17, 2013

You may have wondered if a backyard fire pit is legal.

2:25 pm

Character Profile

“Character Profile: New Works in Language, Text, and Wordplay”
Curated by Jon Fischer
Opening Reception Saturday July 13 7-10PM (one block from tacos!)
Exhibition Dates: July 10-27
Root Division
3175 17th Street at South Van Ness, San Francisco
free

About eighteen months ago in Golden Gate Park, I had a sudden flash of inspiration in the form of a succession of twenty-eight free associative phrases that I quite immediately knew I wanted to develop into a substantial art piece.

I was associated with Root Division through some teaching work, and decided to go even further and pitch them an entire language based show through their curatorial submission program. Over the course of four of five months of back and forth I refined the concept, got three or four trusted collaborators involved, and the proposal was accepted as the July 2013 show at Root Division! This group show is going to feature the language-based visual artwork of 27 artists including my beloved Ben Hill, Nowell Valeri, and Erin Bregman. I think it’s going to be a really fun, multifaceted show featuring but not limited to:

  • A wall of Toasted Puns.
  • An interactive sound installation in which visitors can manipulate Presidential speeches with obscene gangta rap with old TV commercials, to create their own postmodern soundtrack the way God intended.
  • Flip Books.
  • A New York Times vs USA Today death match.
  • eBooks (a humongous “e” made out of books).
  • And lots of other engaging, interactive work dedicated to a spirit of play.

Bring your kids!

My project, “American Fistfight” evokes the early era of cinema with rudimentary moving image sequences produced entirely with screen printed 35mm slides. Several vintage projectors connected with a fabricated control panel will allow visitors to maneuver image sequences for themselves while the results are displayed on the gallery wall.

From the curatorial desk:
Character Profile is a visual arts exhibition featuring projects that explore intersections between the forms, mechanisms and meanings of language. Drawing from a cross disciplinary group of twenty-six collaborators from across the country including writers, visual artists, and craftspeople, Character Profile investigates novel functions of language through a broad range of materials, media and approaches. Many of these works are dedicated to a spirit of engagement and play. The exhibition highlights art designed for direct interaction with visitors and work that provokes expanded meanings and alternative associations. These artists present language as both a medium and a subject, and deftly maneuver words to both convey and critique meaning.

Character Profile

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April 12, 2013

A defining feature of the wild card era.

9:41 am

I sure am getting lots of mileage out of my Cliff House/Ocean Beach/Seal Rocks stencils, and here is a recent permutation. It is a birthday present for EB, and also an un-subtle homage to one of my favorite works by the artist Ed Ruscha that I have admired it in the DeYoung museum many times.

Ruscha is a West Coast artist who participated in the Warhol/Lichtenstein driven pop-art movement, and later went on make a series of highly awesome word art paintings in the seventies and eighties. He is one of my favorite American artists. As a mantra, “a particular sort of heaven” perfectly encapsulates my personal West Coast experience, the highlight of which has been finding EB.

(By the way, Ruscha’s “a particular sort of heaven” is incomplete without considering this companion piece)

A Particular Kind of Heaven | Screenprint on Paper | 19×19 inches | 2013

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March 16, 2013

An impossibly small robot that sends backs pixel images from the surface of Mars.

3:47 pm

Another year, another homemade Little Opera logo.

This one features some lovely lettering by Erin, pieced together from a fifteen page cursive drill we executed at Taqueria Vallarta.  Incidentally on our first date ever her and I shared a no sour cream no salsa regular nachos at Taqueria Vallarta. Yes, that’s pretty much just chips and beans.  Some cheese, too.

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January 17, 2013

Could have been wins with one or two more key plays.

5:50 pm

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November 17, 2012

Kobe to LA critics: ‘Shut up’

11:11 am

My work on the Rapha Cycle Club mural is complete.  To recap: the SF based design firm Rebar hired me to put this image on vertical wood beams.  Forty-five total beams, forty-five total square feet:

With screenprinting out of the question, I decided to get this done with large format digital prints on adhesive backed vinyl.  It’s the very expensive stuff used for permanent vehicle decals, and I learned way more about 3M ControlTac technology than anyone should have to.

My neighbor Fran who runs a printing business out of her Precita Avenue garage, did the printing.  EB and Tommy helped me out with the labor intensive application process, which took the three of us working together four hours to complete:

The grand opening of the parklet is 4pm on Friday November 16,2012.  I’ll be there warming up for happy hour.

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August 14, 2012

Mediocre numbers for the Republican ticket.

12:43 am

Valencia to Vermont, my installation of 24th Street screenprints on wood, is now hanging in the office of Supervisor David Campos in City Hall.

It is an honor to see my work on the same hallowed walls that enclosed the likes of Harvey Milk, Dianne Feinstein and George Moscone, preventing them from falling out of the building and helping them determine where rooms ended.  This is all the more exciting for me because Mr. Campos does admirable work representing the Mission and Bernal Heights on the progressive wing of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors –these cityscapes document our mutual district by intersection.   What a cool opportunity!

Thanks to Sheila and David for making this possible.  Thanks to EB for helping with a tricky install and the camera work.

[flv:city-hall-and-lunch.flv 640 480]

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July 28, 2012

I’m selling it. this is real deal not scam and i have phone # to contact .

1:23 pm

First dance, first fistfight, first girlfriend: having logged many seminal moments of my life at summer camp, it was with a commitment to the memorable that I recently executed my duties as art director for one week of San Francisco Boys Chorus away camp.

It’s never really possible to know what kind of impact you are making on eleven year olds, but my basic plan was to win them over slowly by focusing on a precise five day project. Something that would keep kids busy with their hands and look really cool when it was done. Since the goal was to construct set pieces and props for EB’s parallel kid operas, we ended up painting a 50×50 inch Resistance-style portrait of Camp Director Claire. In her creation class, EB helped the boys work the painting into their story.

We began with a photoshoot.

I digitally processed one of the better images into seven discrete layers:

Over the course of five camp days, I projected each layer independently for kids to outline and paint on canvas hung from the wall. Registration marks were used to line everything up.

Then we stretched the canvas on a frame, ready for the show.

So it was pretty cool. And I got the kids to call me Jono. The painting looked very fine from a distance and I think the boys were into the program. Of course we did a bunch of other stuff. We made signs and banners. One day I chopped up a bit of branch from an apple tree and we made medallions. Located in Sonoma County at a Seventh Day Adventist boarding school on the banks of the Russian River, the setting was a nicer than summer camps I remember but the food a lot worse. A huge thanks to EB, Camp Director Claire, and Jess the counselor.

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June 18, 2012

Appealing to the younger listeners that many believe public radio needs more of.

10:30 pm

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June 10, 2012

You can get it in tubes, but the homemade version tastes much fresher.

10:18 am

Check it out:

Our first retail license at Coyote!

And I have been finding our screen printed signs popping up all around the Temescal environs of Oak-land.

All of this activity coincided with our grand opening party last night. To mark the occasion, EB and I printed some shirts re-appropriated by Rachel H.

Thank you to the devoted lot who stopped by to mark the occasion.

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June 4, 2012

After 12 months, or if any service is cancelled or downgraded, regular charges apply.

11:42 am

My just-completed voyage to the US easternlands resulted in some interesting artifact finds at home, as well as the creation of some new ones. Now I am back.

Some pictures of note:

And finally, a video of me and Danny dominating The Looper at Knoebels in Elysburg:

[flv:knoebels.flv 600 400]

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May 14, 2012

Find party ideas and advice for guests and hosts, served fresh daily.

3:03 pm

Remember Michelle Chandra?

She’s the photographer that individually shot all thirty of my screenprints of three cones in the woods at thirty different times of day.

I got the chance to return the favor last Monday by male-modelling for her new project.  She’s been folding butterflies from translucent vellum and theatrically suspending them in a series of portraits she’s shooting at the SF City College studio.

Even though appearing happy and standing on my feet for extended periods are two personal weaknesses, I was happy to endure this four hour light-rigging nightmare freewheeling adventure that Michelle shot on black and white film and will assiduously hand develop.I think they worked out as well as photos of me could probably ever  work out.

Here’s the best one out of sixty. (Erin’s turned out way better)

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January 21, 2012

A sneak peek at our CR-V ad for the big game.

9:25 pm

This Saturday saw the completion of a rare printmaking collaboration between myself and the extended Bregman family.

The project involved the production of one edition of prints that modestly explored the concept of Kindred.  Ziggy (aka Zmom aka Zig_Poet@gmail aka Erin’s Mom), an accomplished Santa Cruz print maker, started things out with a woodcut she described as “invoking the family tree:”

[flv:zmom_print.flv 480 360]

After that, I compiled a primary source motherlode of old letters, journals, report cards, and telegrams found in the Bregman family archive and also one of the world’s great junk shops (thank you, Ben Hill).  With the help of Erin and my letter-writing typewriter, I constructed the words into an extra special, one-layer silver screenprint:

Today in my San Francisco studio it all came together:

What a cool little project. So now I guess if someone I don’t know likes it, it’s off to Australia. Or something.

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