Re: [-empyre-] Week 3 on empyre: Paul Vanouse, Amanda McDonald Crowley, Claire Penacost, and Heidi Kumao
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Dear Claire, Thanks so much for this incredibly personal snapshot of Beatriz. I think that so many of us have been affected by what appears to be an epidemic of breast cancer. I agree with you so much in that what was so remarkable about Beatriz was how she was able to turn such personal adversity into the impetus for artistic creation and research. One such project, The Anti-Cancer Survival Kit http://anticancersurvivalkit.net/ is a project that so many of her friends and associates will continue to work on her behalf. A couple of posts have mentioned this work previously but I have attached the url above again. Best Wishes in your full recovery Claire. Renate On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Claire Pentecost wrote: > --empyre- soft-skinned space-- > Many thanks to empyre for creating this space and then for offering it to > Shani's friends and collaborators for the month. We are typically scattered > and it is otherwise hard to find the means for a collective contemplation, > celebration and mourning of a singular life, its coherencies, tangents and > enduring enigmas. I for one will not be able to make the memorial in New > York, as i will be on my way to Europe to work on various things. > > Thanks to all who have been posting. I have read and reread your thoughts and > memories which make me feel a kind of aching fullness. I am learning many > things about Shani and the ripples her work and life initiated. These posts > also offer me perspective on my own relationship with her, and how it may > have differed a bit from that of others. Although i was always keenly aware > of how important work was to Shani, for whatever reason, our time together > evolved into something less about work than about personal challenges and > transitions. We never lived in the same place so our contact was episodic, > brief, intense. And yet i seemed to catch her at times that she wanted to > slow things down. Now that it's time to contribute something to the list i > find it difficult; there seems to be a consensus that Shani would have wanted > us to focus more on her work than anything else, but what i have to offer is > of a more personal nature and i'm unsure of what i'm at liberty to disclose. > > I remember meeting Shani in some unknown year when she came to chicago with > CAE and they came to our house to hang out for an evening. She was so young > and vibrant and charming! In 2002 we collaborated on the Molecular Invasion > installation at the Corcoran, though we were sort of in charge of different > parts of that project, she on collaborating with the scientist (shoot, i > can't find his name just now) and i procuring seeds and managing everything > to do with growing plants in a gallery. From then on we would coincide at > various events like the Next Five Minutes in Amsterdam where she and CAE were > doing a version of Free Range Grains, in Paris on a panel at the 4S annual > meeting, in Buffalo around the infamous case of the DOJ against Steve Kurtz, > in Irvine at conferences. In 2004 we wrote a paper together exploring the > effects of the Patriot Act on the sciences (Of Patriots and Profits, Radical > History Review, Fall 2005, vol.93). We had some difficulty working out the > terms of this collaboration (under a deadline of course), but one of the > things i loved about Shani was that we could argue and even express fairly > negative emotions but she got over the strife very quickly and didn't hold a > grudge. I always appreciated her honesty and disinclination to let resentment > simmer. > > I think our richest time together was when she talked me into going with her > to the World Social Forum in Nairobi in 2007. I had been twice before to the > wsf, once in Mumbai and again in Caracas. I wasn't going to go this time but > Shani could be very persuasive. She arranged housing for us at the apartment > of a colleague's family. We spent long days in sessions at the forum and long > evenings on the porch of our borrowed (rented really) apartment just talking > about everything imaginable. When the forum was over we spent a couple of > days exploring wildlife parks in the area. I will look for photos. This was > 10 days at a relatively leisurely pace. I knew about the Shani who was always > in a hurry, but that is not the Shani i experienced. We talked about this > pace, her feeling that she probably didn't have much time in life, and her > desire for time to step back and contemplate. > > Since Shani died, i have been diagnosed with breast cancer myself. My case is > so mild compared to what she faced that there is hardly room for comparison > but still, it makes me miss her in new ways. I'm struck again by the courage > and energy it takes to do the kind of research she did into her own disease, > to hold the balance between realism and optimism. This is a very
Re: [-empyre-] Week 3 on empyre: Paul Vanouse, Amanda McDonald Crowley, Claire Penacost, and Heidi Kumao
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Paul thanks so much for sharing your insightful observations about Beatriz' early working process. I am also reminded about the appearance Beatriz made in Lynn Hershman's film Strange Culture about Steve's ordeal. You were in that too were you not? For those subscribers who may want to look at the trailer it can be found at http://www.strangeculture.net/ I am sure that our subscribers as would I love to hear more about the generation of the wetware hackers. I wrote in an earlier post that I was at that symposium at ISEA and I believe I have a videotape of the panel...will look for it tomorrow. But in the meantime can you share more about you and Beatriz' discussions and how you came up with the conceptual and practical parameters. It has been incredibly interesting for me to read so many times that at the heart of so many of Beatriz' collaborations a friendship or personal connection preceded. I am hoping you will have time to make a post or two more about all this. Thanks again. Renate -- Renate Ferro Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Cornell University Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office #420 Ithaca, NY 14853 Email: URL: http://www.renateferro.net http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net Lab: http://www.tinkerfactory.net Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre ___ empyre forum [email protected] http://www.subtle.net/empyre
Re: [-empyre-] Week 3 on empyre: Paul Vanouse, Amanda McDonald Crowley, Claire Penacost, and Heidi Kumao
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Many thanks to empyre for creating this space and then for offering it to Shani's friends and collaborators for the month. We are typically scattered and it is otherwise hard to find the means for a collective contemplation, celebration and mourning of a singular life, its coherencies, tangents and enduring enigmas. I for one will not be able to make the memorial in New York, as i will be on my way to Europe to work on various things. Thanks to all who have been posting. I have read and reread your thoughts and memories which make me feel a kind of aching fullness. I am learning many things about Shani and the ripples her work and life initiated. These posts also offer me perspective on my own relationship with her, and how it may have differed a bit from that of others. Although i was always keenly aware of how important work was to Shani, for whatever reason, our time together evolved into something less about work than about personal challenges and transitions. We never lived in the same place so our contact was episodic, brief, intense. And yet i seemed to catch her at times that she wanted to slow things down. Now that it's time to contribute something to the list i find it difficult; there seems to be a consensus that Shani would have wanted us to focus more on her work than anything else, but what i have to offer is of a more personal nature and i'm unsure of what i'm at liberty to disclose. I remember meeting Shani in some unknown year when she came to chicago with CAE and they came to our house to hang out for an evening. She was so young and vibrant and charming! In 2002 we collaborated on the Molecular Invasion installation at the Corcoran, though we were sort of in charge of different parts of that project, she on collaborating with the scientist (shoot, i can't find his name just now) and i procuring seeds and managing everything to do with growing plants in a gallery. From then on we would coincide at various events like the Next Five Minutes in Amsterdam where she and CAE were doing a version of Free Range Grains, in Paris on a panel at the 4S annual meeting, in Buffalo around the infamous case of the DOJ against Steve Kurtz, in Irvine at conferences. In 2004 we wrote a paper together exploring the effects of the Patriot Act on the sciences (Of Patriots and Profits, Radical History Review, Fall 2005, vol.93). We had some difficulty working out the terms of this collaboration (under a deadline of course), but one of the things i loved about Shani was that we could argue and even express fairly negative emotions but she got over the strife very quickly and didn't hold a grudge. I always appreciated her honesty and disinclination to let resentment simmer. I think our richest time together was when she talked me into going with her to the World Social Forum in Nairobi in 2007. I had been twice before to the wsf, once in Mumbai and again in Caracas. I wasn't going to go this time but Shani could be very persuasive. She arranged housing for us at the apartment of a colleague's family. We spent long days in sessions at the forum and long evenings on the porch of our borrowed (rented really) apartment just talking about everything imaginable. When the forum was over we spent a couple of days exploring wildlife parks in the area. I will look for photos. This was 10 days at a relatively leisurely pace. I knew about the Shani who was always in a hurry, but that is not the Shani i experienced. We talked about this pace, her feeling that she probably didn't have much time in life, and her desire for time to step back and contemplate. Since Shani died, i have been diagnosed with breast cancer myself. My case is so mild compared to what she faced that there is hardly room for comparison but still, it makes me miss her in new ways. I'm struck again by the courage and energy it takes to do the kind of research she did into her own disease, to hold the balance between realism and optimism. This is a very precise skill and she applied all her talents to the task; no doubt the research and knowing was a powerful coping mechanism typical of her way of dealing with all kinds of things. The last time i saw her was about a year ago. She had been through so much by then but her humor seemed to be the quality most in charge that evening. claire On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 10:54 AM, Renate Ferro wrote: > --empyre- soft-skinned space-- > Thanks to Antoinette and Brooke for being our guest this week on empyre. > > Antoinette your last post on some of the historical precedents > involving women and cellos was interesting. I am also reminded of the > various collaborations that cellist Charlotte Moorman accomplished > with Nam June Paik. A quick image search of the two artists brought up > a number of images. > Thanks so much for the post. > > This week on empyre we welcome Paul Vanouse, Amanda McDonald Crowley, > Claire
Re: [-empyre-] Week 3 on empyre: Paul Vanouse, Amanda McDonald Crowley, Claire Penacost, and Heidi Kumao
--empyre- soft-skinned space--Thanks Renate for inviting me to think out loud here about Beatriz, her work and her friendship. What occurs to me as I reflect back over fifteen years of our friendship are some of the big transitions in her art and life that she shared with me. I suppose this is the appropriate place to share some a few of these moments. I hope others find it helpful too. Around 2002 Beatriz and I traded videotapes of our work for teaching resources. At that time I was most familiar with her autonomous audio sculpture, the “Cello” project. (Thanks Antoinette for such nuanced musing about this project last week!) I'd seen it at a show at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in 99. I think it appealed to me particularly at that time because much experimental audio at the time was computer-generated and thus the mechanisms were often hidden. But seeing her tape I was excited to learn more of her more tactical work, like the “Swipe” project collaboration with Preemptive Media and the “GenTerra” project with Critical Art Ensemble. I can’t even recall where we were—Pittsburgh? Buffalo? Seattle? Nagoya?--but I certainly recall the conversation. Beatriz realized that in the tactical, political projects she had been fortunate to connect so symbiotically with collaborators. It was obvious that the projects not only had a social relevance, but also an undeniable urgency. Those collaborations would become defining points in her life’s work. Yet at that point, she was still personally drawn to more open, metaphorical interactive work as well. Beatriz was keenly aware that her work was at a juncture at which it was complicated to present the obligatory singular focus required for professionalization as an artist or to be most effective as an activist. It is an interesting point in a life in the arts, typically at a dynamic and inspired moment, where one realizes the possible directions one’s activities might take. One senses the possibilities, but also the limitations. Shortly afterward in 2004 we would find ourselves enmeshed in the Department of Justice’s speculative indictment of Steve Kurtz and Robert Ferrell. She, I, and eight others including Claire (who will probably discuss more this week) were independently approached by FBI agents a day after Kurtz’s now infamous detainment in Buffalo, N.Y., and subpoenaed shortly afterward. The subpoenas demanded our testimony before the grand jury as “subjects” of the investigation, so positioned that we might implicate ourselves and our friends in a distinctly Orwellian / KafkAshcroft-esqe scenario. We refused by invoking our Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The case dragged on for several more years, but the familiar DoJ tactic of isolating friends backfired and our trust deepened. Beatriz showed great resilience; she was living in California far from the epicenter of the investigation, but also far from the support networks forming around Buffalo. It was in the shadow of this case that Beatriz and I organized the “Wetware Hackers” biotech workshops at ISEA 2006 in San Jose. In hindsight it is also apparent that this is a moment for Beatriz at which she was again at an artistic juncture, geographically isolated from former CAE as well as current Preemptive Media collaborators she ventured back into independent projects using biosensors. She was surprised and not altogether happy with the press generated by her “Pigeon Blog” project at that time, which she thought was missing some of the most important political points about pollution control and citizen science, while it was overfixated on technical and animal-rights questions (subsequently in projects like “dying for the other”, she would explore this area on her own terms). As others have mentioned, Beatriz was critical of her own work and wasn’t satisfied if her work was simply lauded by the press. Paul On Feb 16, 2013, at 12:45 PM, Renate Ferro wrote: > --empyre- soft-skinned space-- > Just caught this. Sorry to Claire Pentecost for the misspelling her > name. My apologies. Renate > > > > On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Renate Ferro wrote: >> Thanks to Antoinette and Brooke for being our guest this week on empyre. >> >> Antoinette your last post on some of the historical precedents >> involving women and cellos was interesting. I am also reminded of the >> various collaborations that cellist Charlotte Moorman accomplished >> with Nam June Paik. A quick image search of the two artists brought up >> a number of images. >> Thanks so much for the post. >> >> This week on empyre we welcome Paul Vanouse, Amanda McDonald Crowley, >> Claire Penacost, and Heidi Kumao. Their biographies are posted below >> and welcome them warmly to -empyre soft-skinned space. I am hoping >> that all of our guests from other weeks will feel free to post as >> their
Re: [-empyre-] Week 3 on empyre: Paul Vanouse, Amanda McDonald Crowley, Claire Penacost, and Heidi Kumao
--empyre- soft-skinned space-- Just caught this. Sorry to Claire Pentecost for the misspelling her name. My apologies. Renate On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Renate Ferro wrote: > Thanks to Antoinette and Brooke for being our guest this week on empyre. > > Antoinette your last post on some of the historical precedents > involving women and cellos was interesting. I am also reminded of the > various collaborations that cellist Charlotte Moorman accomplished > with Nam June Paik. A quick image search of the two artists brought up > a number of images. > Thanks so much for the post. > > This week on empyre we welcome Paul Vanouse, Amanda McDonald Crowley, > Claire Penacost, and Heidi Kumao. Their biographies are posted below > and welcome them warmly to -empyre soft-skinned space. I am hoping > that all of our guests from other weeks will feel free to post as > their schedules permit and that any -empyre subscriber that is lurking > in on our conversation who knew Beatriz or was inspired by her work to > please post. For anyone missing the discussion thus far, the entire > conversation can be accessed in our archive at: > > http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2013-February/date.html > > Best to all of you. Renate Ferro > > Biographies > Week 3 > Paul Vanouse is a Professor of Visual Studies at the University at > Buffalo. and has worked in emerging technological media forms since > 1990. His biological experiments, electronic cinema, and interactive > installations have exhibited in over 20 countries and across the US. > His recent projects, “Latent Figure Protocol”, “Ocular Revision” and > “Suspect Inversion Center” use molecular biology techniques to > challenge “genome-hype” and to confront issues surrounding DNA > fingerprinting. > > Paul and Beatriz began their friendship at Carnegie Mellon in the late > Nineties, while Paul was a Fellow at the Studio for Creative Inquiry > and Beatriz was finishing her degree. They taught together at the > University at Buffalo, exhibited alongside one another in group > exhibitions, and organized panels and workshops together, including > Wetware Hackers workshop for ISEA 2006 in San Jose. Paul and Beatriz > have dialoged and collaborated for over fifteen years and she will be > dearly missed. > > Amanda McDonald Crowley is a cultural worker, curator, and facilitator > who creates media and contemporary art programs that encourage > cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration and exchange. Recent > curatorial efforts include Our Haus, the 10th Anniversary exhibition > for the Austrian Cultural Forum, NY. In late 2012 she did a residency > as a Bogliasco Fellow, working on curatorial research at the > intersection between art, food, and technology. Amanda is also > currently a Board member of the National Alliance for Media Art + > Culture (NAMAC) in the USA. She has been Director of the Australian > Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) where she made significant links > with science and industry by developing a range of residencies for > artists in settings such as science organizations, contemporary art > spaces and virtual residencies online. She was Associate Director of > the Adelaide Festival 2002 in Australia, and also co-chair of the > working group that organized the exhibition and symposium ‘conVerge: > where art and science meet’. Critical Art Ensemble were to present > their collaboration with Beatriz at that Festival. Alas, the Festival > wasn't able to support the performance. While Executive Producer at > ISEA2004 (the International Symposium for Electronic Arts 2004) held > in Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland, and on a cruiser ferry in > the Baltic sea, she finally met Beatriz who suggested that she > consider professional options in the USA post ISEA. Amanda told > Beatriz she would never move to the USA. 18 months later, when she > became Executive Director of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in New > York City, Beatriz commented "never is not a very long time in your > language it seems". When Amanda first arrived at Eyebeam in late 2005, > Beatriz, with Preemptive Media, were commissioned to develop Area's > Immediate Reading. Beatriz was also a member of the last residency > program cohort Amanda oversaw at Eyebeam in 2011, where Beatriz was > researching and developing her final projects Dying for the Other and > Anti-Cancer Survival Kit. > > Claire Penacost: Claire Pentecost’s work engages diverse > strategies—collaboration, research, teaching, field work, writing, > lecturing, drawing, installation and photography—in an ongoing > interrogation of the institutional structures that order knowledge. > Her work has long addressed the contested boundary between natural and > artificial, focusing the last fourteen years on food, agriculture and > bio-engineering. Pentecost was a presenting artist at dOCUMENTA(13) in > Kassel, Germany, and is represented by Higher Pictures in New York. > She
