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PROJECTS 2000-2010
This archive focuses on my multi-year performance and installation projects, curatorial projects, and web works of the last decade.
Evidence of Evidence 2011is a research installation I did at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry with writer Ruth Coppens, as part of the 100/10 series of exhibitions. More info here and here, and also here and here. A limited edition of the show catalog is available from the ICI here.
Hangmen Also Die 2010is a performance-installation project with director Robert Allen commissioned that was first shown at the Laguna Art Museum in the OSCENE 2010 exhibition.
WISP (World-Integrated Social Proxy)is an intervention project in which I trained a real-world avatar of myself to test the limits of personal substitution in the professional sphere. First major deployment at College Art Association Conference, February 2010.
World of World 2009is a work I created for the Laguna Museum exhibition "WOW: Emergent Media Phenomenon" (July-Oct. 2009). It is a four-panel digital print totaling 2 feet by 12 feet. The idea was to explore the complicated relationship that develops between players and their avatars, but from the avatar's point of view. The piece includes an overlay of running text in the form of an internal monologue/dialogue of the avatar/player. Here are some pix and more info and a video of my artist's talk at the museum.
Chronovacuum 2009is a short single-channel video constructed from collected webcam imagery. It was included in the 2009 exhibition "Out of School". Pix, video, more info...
Rapture installations 2009were two different installations created from my 2008 Playing the Rapture project for the exhibitions "Mediated" and "Scalable Relations". Pix and more info...
Playing the Rapture 2008is an original performance work that examines American evangelical belief in the Rapture. It is structured around two gamers creating and beta-testing a new computer game about the Rapture, a project that leads them into conflict, confusion, and near despair. It premiered at the Baltimore Theatre Project in March 2008. Pix, video, more info...
Noxiterra 2008is an ongoing experiment in world construction and responsive narrative based on a miniature biome.. Pix and more info...
How Much Taboo Does Art Need? 2008
In May, I and my students participated as contributors to the Wieviel Tabu braucht die Kunst?" project organized by Ursula Endlicher, Ela Kagel, and Anke Zimmermann in Zurich, Switzerland. We had a live video/voice connection to the event as the "Universal Translation Service" whose motto was: "Our goal is perfection. We translate all languages with 100 percent accuracy, guaranteed." However, the real mission of the "Universal Translation Service," which featured a running commentary on the performance in Korean, Thai, German, French, and English, was to explore those pleasures of translation that exist once the notion of accuracy has been jettisoned.
Searching for Sebald 2007is an international anthology of original writings about the late German novelist W.G. Sebald and artworks inspired by his unsettling method of mixing text and images. I am an Associate Editor of this volume, as well as a contributor and its lead designer. Among many similar reviews, the Journal of European Studies had this to say: "The layout is generous and clear, the paper and illustrations are excellent, the structure is disciplined and subtle." Pix and more info...
Sebaldian projects 2007were a group of small editions and other works I created in connection with the publication of Searching for Sebald. Pix and more info...
Manual of Lost Ideas website 2007is an interactive version of a manuscript that originally appeared in the book Benjamin's Blind Spot (2001). The interactive version was published in the online journal Other Voices, issue 3.1 (May 2007). As the introduction notes, "This site offers an overview of what is presently known about the Manual, together with a sample of pages from the manuscript, including a number that have never been made public before.... [in the hope] that this will help facilitate further research on the Manual.
Demotic 2006is a performance work about American Memory, a single character whose many voices are woven together into a complex texture of language, sound, and music. It is an improvisation in which actors, avatars, and musicians create a kind of covert national anthem. Created in collaboration with director Robert Allen, sound artists Cuca Esteves and Jeff Ridenour, actor Tracey A. Leigh, and the Plaintext Players, it premiered at the Beall Center for Art & Technology in July 2004. A new version premiere had its East Coast premiere at the Baltimore Theatre Project in November 2006. Pix, video, more info...
ALT+CTRL 2004is a unique festival of independent and alternative games, showcasing the most innovative new concepts in computer games by independent developers, artists, and game modders. Not unlike the Sundance Film Festival, ALT+CTRL seeks to cultivate a vibrant, independent game community and highlight novel experiments in game design, game genres, methodologies, and approaches to game play. ALT+CTRL is a sequel to the ground-breaking exhibition SHIFT-CTRL (see below). I co-curated ALT+CTRL with Robert Nideffer and Celia Pearce. Pix and more info...
Galileo in America 2004is an experimental theater work about Bertolt Brecht's play The Life of Galileo, the FBI surveillance of Brecht during his American years, and the HUAC hearings. Staged readings of this work in progress for which I am the scriptwriter were held at the Goethe Institute L.A. and the Villa Aurora, Pacific Palisades, in October 2004.
The Roman Forum Project 2003is a mixed-reality performance work examining the American political scene between the postelection crisis of 2000 and the invasion of Iraq. Drawing on five Roman characters from the 1st century C.E., a time when Rome's republican government was under great strain from the stresses of building and maintaining a large empire, it critiqued America's vision of its role in the world. An ensemble work designed for nontraditional spaces, it is a kind of "media commedia" melding Internet technologies, video projections, and classical Greek and Roman theatrical traditions. It was created in collaboration with director Robert Allen, sound artists Cuca Esteves and Jeff Ridenour, the Plaintext Players, and a group of actors. A sequel to The Roman Forum 2000 (see below), it premiered at the Beall Center for Art and Technology in March 2003. Pix, video, and more info...
Reading Frankenstein 2003is a multimedia performance work about artificial life, recent research in neurological processes related to reading and perception, and Mary Shelley's classic gothic novel. It was created in collaboration with director Annie Loui and neurobiologist Jim Fallon. A half-hour workshop production of an early version of the work was held at the Beall Center for Art & Technology in May/June 2002. The finished work premiered at the Beall Center in May/June 2003. Pix, video, and more info...
SHIFT-CTRL 2000was the first major North American exhibition to examine how artists work with games, gaming, and related technologies. SHIFT-CTRL included a mix of installations and networked pieces, looking critically yet playfully at how games have been altering social systems as they emerge to occupy cultural center stage. The exhibition's three featured areas--Role-Playing Games and Shared Social Spaces; Evolvable/Emergent Systems; and World Hacks/Rewriting Existing Worlds--included work by such artists as Rebecca Allen; Perry Hoberman; RTMark; Mongrel; Eddo Stern; Natalie Bookchin; Negativland; Jodi.org; Ken Feingold; Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau; Grahame Weinbren; Lisa Brenneis and Adriene Jenik; Janine Cirincione and Michael Ferraro; Jane Prophet, Gordon Selley, and Mark Hurry; Lev Manovich and Norman Klein; and Eric Zimmerman, many of whom have been included in the numerous game art shows that have proliferated in the wake of SHIFT-CTRL. Pix and more info...
The Roman Forum 2000was a series of linked online improvisations and stage events centered on the 2000 Democratic National Convention and set against the backdrop of Imperial Rome. This neo-Vaudevillean exploration by 1st century Romans breached the boundaries between the Internet, the real world, history, and the stage to forge a hybrid work out of the differing perspectives of each. It was created in collaboration with director Robert Allen, the Plaintext Players, and a group of actors. Pix, video, more info...
Virtual Live 2000was a preview event for The Roman Forum 2000 that took place at Location One Gallery, New York.