A couple...3

(Detail)
Marc Horowitz (click on images to enlarge)
Twitter Drawings, 2009 - detail
100 drawings, Ink on paper
4 3/4" x 5 1/2" each (68" x 64" overall)
(unique-, full set available as limited edition book)

This artist made his life into art for three months by exposing it to the public via live feed.
These twitter drawings are best seen at the gallery. Video from I need to stop below.
www.ineedtostopsoon.com/

Kristin Lucas "The future is not what it used to be" Postmasters Gallery
In this floor installation Lucas casts candles in wax of antiquated relics of technology
and during the opening sets them alight. This has been the movement of the new media community, to take what is once ephemeral- code, electrons dancing on a screen, and make it into craft. Transform something that exists in the realm of the mind and materialize it in this world. Place it in the white box with purpose. Lucas uses her seniority or experience to accomplish this in triumphant fashion. These sculptures are both real and by nature ready to burn. They are both useless and full. They are both new media and Art with a capital A and so their place is successful. This well curated show is totally awesome, so if you have an interest in computers, or the internet your time spent here will be well rewarded.


Dan Kopp (Detail) HTML at The Volta Art Fair

Joe Mckay " The Fut..." Postmasters -Digital Print on Aluminum or Plexi (detail)
This is a great piece that I will not be able to explain completely, He uses google maps street views and the reflection of a van to create this image.
It takes technologies ability to see everything all the time and the absurdity of being able to see
is blindness if there is no comprehension of what we are looking at. Joe hope that is okay.
Anyway brillant, funny, profound this is the most overlooked artist working in new media today. Again, I feel experiencing his work at Vertexlist in the form of cellphones interactively and through installation, or outside in a field may suite him better than a cog in the wheel. The small photograph takes something warm and funny and cools it down.

Marcin Ramocki "The Future..." Postmasters
Still from animation with sound by Paul Slocum
This piece is a composite of animations posted to Spirit Surfers. Ummm It questions whether
something is as good as the sum of it's parts and whether transforming by changing it's context benefits use. Each of the parts in the format was created for spirit surfers and life on the internet. The collaboration is so strong that making a piece for the gallery, seems a daunting task. At the opening with the sound crippled by the crowd I was not sure about the piece. On returning it rocked along, but in retrospect writing this- I go back to the internet. Each element is so great as boon or wake hence, context rules, and the source spirit surfers wins. This is one of my favorite artists and have no doubt his next effort will totally blow me away. I write this after coming to the conclusion that new media artists don't take criticism well, more on this another time.
Detail: Kevin Bewersdorf Postmasters
This work is by an artist/guru and member of spirit surfers and creator of Maximum Sorrow.
I am not sure what to think when he makes stuff for the gallery, but on the internet Kevin has few that can hold a candle to him. Tom Moody would be such a person who would have been a nice addition to this powerful and nicely curated group show featuring web artists. As far as the piece above "it asks more questions than it answers"- Marcia Tucker and so elevates itself to this post. It challenges what our expectations of what well behaved art should do and for that super.



Dan Kopp at CTRL gallery Houston TX- Volta
These are incredible paintings that while they benefit from the concept of the Fair suffer from the Fair - that they are not really experienced with the space and time they could use. Kopp has the ability to make every gesture in his painting work. Basically using transparency and the lessons of Morris Louis he has re delved the depths of surrealism making Matta roll in his grave. One of the few painters today who can make heroic paintings that seem UP and philatelic yet not turn his back on the fact that we are totally fucked. These paintings are like William Blake if he could paint and draw and did not have a stick up his ass. Kopp has got it all content/color/ light - eastern- western@##$ it is like looking at the whole of art history, while getting cracked over the head with a wine bottle. Or getting off on the stained glass windows at the Vatican Cathedral while doing crack and getting it with a bottle of Absolute.




Postmasters
Eva and Franco Mattes (aka 0100101110101101.org)
Reenactment of Marina Abramovic and Ulay's "Imponderabilia" - Synthetic performance in Second Life , 2007
HD video, color, sound
running time: 8 minutes 40 seconds
Edition of 3 +AP
During the opening i was transfixed until realizing that this second-life online piece was not happening in real time and was a loop. What a let down as those characters went from the actions of people transformed into something static and dead. That said, hats off to Postmasters for bringing this important and under represented subject into focus in this unfocused moment of history.
Mary Reed