On June 16, 2014, Colleen Flaherty and I were invited to participate to an international workshop on GAMING, ART, AND CULTURE in Siena, Italy organized by Professor Pier Luigi Sacco and Nicola Tripet. The event took place in the Bibliotechina of Santa Maria della Scala, located in Piazza del Duomo, a truly outstanding venue.
The full presentation (text + images) is available here.
We are delighted to announce that The Streetviews of San Francisco (2014) is featured by BOOM. A Journal of California published by the University of California Press. The Summer 2014 issue asks "What's the matter with San Francisco?" Rebecca Solnit, David Lee, Rian Dundon, Rachel Brahinsky, Kristin Miller, Mark Hogan, Leah Reich, Annie Powers, Chris Carlsson, Celia and Peter Wiley and Stamen Design provide some answers, while Editor-in-Chief Jon Christensen and Managing Editor Eve Bachrach, play the role of the moderators. [The full table of contents is available here and the list of contributors can be found here].
What’s the matter with San Francisco is in many ways what’s the matter with our increasingly urban world. The challenges of inequality, mobility, livable wages, and affordable housing are cosmopolitan challenges, as are tensions between technology and culture. The new Argonauts, who take the wealth, skills, and connections forged in this new California gold rush to burgeoning cities experiencing tech-fueled growing pains in India and China and other countries, will also take the lessons we learn in the coming years with them, for better or worse. (Jon Christensen)
According to Rebecca Solnit, San Francisco is an "imperiled city" while Mark Hogan argues that the City must accept a radical change if it wants to survive. Meanwhile, Rachel Brahinsky concludes that "Reports of San Francisco's demise have been greatly exaggerated".
Google Mooning graces the cover of BOOM, while other layouts highlight both the ongoing fictions and frictions of the city formerly known as Baghdad on the Bay.
The new issue of BOOM will be officially unveiled next week. Here is a sneak preview:
BOOM. A Journal of California, Vol. 4, No. 2, Summer 2014
LINK: BOOM. A Journal of California (also on JSTOR)
Art critic, scholar, and curator Chiara Passa is curating the show SAMO© IS DEAD. PRESS PLAY at the Widget Art Gallery on iPhone, iPad and OS X between June 09 - July 10 2014. As Chiara explains, the “WAG" is a mini three dimensional, single room gallery that fits into people pocket that she developed for iOS and OS X devices. As she writes:
Every month, the “WAG” hosts a solo digital art exhibition related to the dynamic site-specific contest. So, the Widget Art Gallery works both as a sort of kunsthall showing temporary exhibitions and as a permanent collections museum because it conserves all the past exhibitions inside an online archive. For iPhone and iPod touch, just click here in Safari and choose: “add to home” and the WAG's icon will be saved on your iPhone. Do the same for iPad but paste this other URL, or download the widget version for Mac OS X dashboard here.
About the exhibition:"SAMO© IS DEAD. PRESS PLAY"
In 1978, a wave of graffiti appeared in downtown Manhattan in the form of wall texts about and or signed by SAMO©. Thirty six years later, the avatar of Jean-Michel Basquiat* is back with a vengeance and a spray can, doomed to replay the past, within the spaces of the WAG, the premier art gallery in Liberty City.
This is not appropriation.
This is GRAND THEFT ART.
COLL.EO, 2014
* No, not Oscar Murillo. The "real" Basquiat.
COLL.EO is a collaboration between Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti established in 2012. COLL.EO currently operates between San Francisco and the deep end.
LINK: Widget Art Gallery
Our latest body of work, GRAND THEFT SAMO, is now live:
A modded version of Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games, 2008), GRAND THEFT SAMO is an in-game performance, a series of videos (machinima), screengrabs, and digital prints.
GRAND THEFT SAMO is part of COLL.EO's ongoing Grand Theft Auto's interventions, a series of performances and artworks set within the virtual spaces of Liberty City, created in collaboration with Iranian modder Iranian modder Amir Ghoreyshi. The series includes Grand Theft Vito and Following Bit, both developed in 2013.
In Grand Theft Samo, the player wanders through the streets of an erszat New York under the guise of Jean-Michel Basquiat. COLL.EO has faithfully reproduced several SAMO's graffiti and embedded them onto the walls of the urban landscape.
The graffiti can be seen here.
Photographic documentation of SAMO's interventions is available here.
A series of video excerpts of SAMO's performance is available here.
COLL.EO is Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti
San Francisco, June 9, 2014
CHRIS BURDEN EXTREME RACING is our latest in-game performance.
COLL.EO, CHRIS BURDEN EXTREME RACING. 2014
We replayed Chris Burden’s experience of driving through Los Angeles (note 1) via Forza Motorsport 5 (2013), a videogame developed by Turn 10 for the Xbox One.
In 2011, the artist told filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman that he drives his BMW at an average velocity of 23.4 miles per hour through Los Angeles. We recreated the thrills and the excitement induced by speeding through Los Angeles County's freeways and roads at an average, burdensome speed of 23.4 mile per hour, under the guise of Chris Burden’s avatar. In fact, we drove a white BM1 M1 coupe for 29.4 minutes without ever shifting into second gear.
CHRIS BURDEN EXTREME RACING is COLL.EO’s first performance developed with Microsoft’s new console, the Xbox One. Previous projects, including CARJACKED (2012), were created with the aid of an Xbox 360.
On COLL.EO's website, visitors can see three video excerpts of the performance, including highlights and a montage of scenes from the East Route track of Long Beach.
To celebrate the release of CHRIS BURDEN EXTREME RACING, COLL.EO is introducing a new sticker in the ongoing FIGURINE (2012) series featuring the avatar of Chris Burden.
RANDOM PARTS is pleased to present
JETSONORAMA - Door to Door with COLLEEN FLAHERTY
and
KATHY SLOANE - Gardens, Garages and Garbage Cans
Aldo Walking Away, JETSONORAMA
Physician by day and artist by night, JETSONORAMA will create a location-specific artwork in collaboration/ assistance with Random Parts' artist, Colleen Flaherty in the East Lake neighborhood of Oakland, California. His intervention will be installed on a wall facing the Random Parts gallery and will become a permanent public artwork on the corner of 13th Avenue and East 12th St. in Oakland.
Repair Shop and Plants, Kathy Sloane
In Gardens, Garages and Garbage Cans, Sloane extends the traditional notion of portraiture to make a different kind of picture in her own neighborhood. She photographs gardens in makeshift pots and containers in front of old Victorian buildings and small apartment houses as well as inside auto body garages that proliferate in an area just east of Lake Merritt; a locale known for its vibrant diversity of immigrants and bustling small businesses. Its a neighborhood that on the surface appears shabby, but Sloane with this series of photographs, captures the beauty and spirit of a community. She gives the viewer a glimpse into a world that at first glance is a gritty concrete jungle but whose inhabitants see beauty in the unexpected and banal. In the words of the artist, these are photographs of gardens that proclaim “someone lives here, works there, who loves life and values beauty.”
JETSONORAMA
DOOR TO DOOR with COLLEEN FLAHERTY
May 17, 2014 - Ongoing
Opening reception: Saturday, May 17 12:00 - 6:00pm
artist talk from 1-2 pm
KATHY SLOANE
GARDENS, GARAGES AND GARBAGE CANS
May 17 - June 8, 2014
Opening reception: Saturday, May 17 12:00 - 6:00pm
artist talk from 1-2 pm
*On Saturday, May 17 from 11am-6pm is the 14th annual Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival at San Antonio Park, Oakland, CA (5 blocks away from Random Parts)
Random Parts
1206 13th Avenue
Oakland, California 94606
Hours: By appointment only and 11am-5pm during the weekend of June 7 and 8th for the 2014 East Bay Open Studios.
www.randomparts.org
partsrandom@gmail.com
(510) 415-8791
