"Any resemblance to actual events, to persons living or dead, is not the result of chance.
It is DELIBERATE" (Costa-Gavras, 1969).
Today we are releasing our new project, POST-RACIAL (part one).
It looks like this:
COLL.EO, POST-RACIAL (part one), 2014
COLL.EO, POST-RACIAL (part one), 2014
It consists of several customized LEGO characters and accessories, juxtaposed to standard LEGO figures and vehicles.
COLL.EO, POST-RACIAL (part one), diptych, 2014
COLL.EO's 2013 project Grand Theft Vito was featured in a talk by Raúl Berrueco aka VJ Entter titled Art in the Age of Grand Theft Auto during the first edition of Lowtoy Festival Internacional de 8 Bit & DIY Electrònica de Barcelona, Spain, entirely dedicated to Game Art (pixel art, glitch, chiptunes and more). The even took place between September 25 and 27, 2014 at the Fundació AAVC Hangar - Emilia Coranty 16 Barcelona.
Grand Theft Vito is a modded version of Grand Theft Auto IV which allows the user to explore Liberty City in the guise of performance artist, architect, writer and philosopher Vito Acconci (b. 1940). As Spanish journalist pantallapartida writes,
"En este sentido es muy interesante Grand Theft Vito del colectivo COLL.EO, un mod para la cuarta entrega de la serie de Rockstar donde Niko Bellic es sustituido por una versión digital del poeta y artista Vito Arcconci. Con el nuevo avatar no vamos pegando tiros ni destrozando el mobiliario urbano con un coche, pero eso no significa que no podamos seguir siendo un elemento de agitación en Liberty City, aunque sea de otra manera. Esta modificación permite representar varias performances clásicas del artista neoyorquino, reclamando, en el proceso, lo virtual como un espacio tan válido como lo “real” para el discurso político, poético y la protesta social." (pantallapartida)
COLL.EO, Grand Theft Vito, 2013.
Video: 1 minute gameplay footage from Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar Games, 2008). Soundtrack: An excerpt from Vito Acconci/Acconci Studio: Interiors. Buildings. Parks. (2004) by Julia Loktev (b. 1969). Voice over: Vito Acconci.
COLL.EO's project was documented in a book published by CONCRETE PRESS. Simply titled Grand Theft Vito, the book provides additional insights into the production of the piece.
LINK: Grand Theft Vito - performance
LINK: Grand Theft Vito - book
LINK: Lowtoy Festival, a review (in Spanish)
PRIVATE! COME IN!
Artists investigate privacy as an issue, a right, and a casualty of the digital age.
COLL.EO
KG Greenstein
Harris David Harris
LA Art Collective (Eder Cetina, Paul Wehby, and Tiffany Trenda)
Gordon Winiemko
at Spare Change Artist Space, a place for contemporary art
within the financial planning offices of Rhodes & Fletcher, LLC, 465 California Street, Suite 838,
San Francisco 94104
Artist Reception: October 10, 2014. Exclusive VIP reception for clients of Rhodes & Fletcher, LLC begins at 5:00pm. Public reception begins at 6:30pm
Today, September 11, 2014, we are releasing our latest project, De Todos Modos, consisting of ten interactive layouts. Each layout is made of wood, plastic, and glue. The plastic component features appropriated LEGO Architecture models and Micro Machines planes.
Some of he Micro Machines planes
Appropriated LEGO Architecture
Each sculpture incorporates a wooden movable gear that allows the plane to slide from left to right:
The wooden dial
The ten layouts are:
Pisa
Paris
New York
New York II
Washington D.C.
Seattle
New York III
London
Dubai
Chicago
Today we are releasing our latest project, Watch An Unstoppable Seventh-grader Become A Hero With One Question.
COLLEO, Watch An Unstoppable Seventh-grader Become A Hero With One Question, 2014
It consists of one layout featuring President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s miniatures, several 3D printed drones and satellites in resin (RQ-9 Reaper, RQ-1 Predator, X-47B Pegasus, USA-214 Satellites), wood, metallic sticks, paint, and glue. The layout's size is 14 x 10 x 8 inches (L x H x W).
Our project Oro en paz y fierro en guerra is currently on display at The Art Gallery at San Francisco State University. The show If Elvis Presley Was The King, Who Was James Brown? will run until September 25, 2014.
To celebrate the outing, we are releasing today the concluding artwork in the series, titled Some Gentle People There, also known as the Master and Servant dialectic.
It looks like this:
COLL.EO, Some Gentle People There, 2014
This particular piece was inspired by the following passages in Enrico Moretti's latest book, The New Geography of Jobs (2012) published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt:
In general, job opportunities in the U.S. labor market as a whole have been concentrated in high-skill, high-wage jobs (professional, technical, and managerial occupations) and low-skill, low-wage jobs (food service, personal care, and security service occupations). Job opportunities for middle-wage , middle-skill white-collar and blue-collar workers have declined sharply. [...] Jobs that today look more like art than labor will eventually become commodified, standardized, and mechanized— they will lose their luster, and their numbers will start to shrink.
When I visited the latest high-end handcrafted cloth maker to open near the Levi’s factory, the irony of the situation was inescapable: in the same place where only twenty years ago undereducated Hispanic women used to cut and sew Levi’s garments, there are now dozens of overeducated young white people cutting and sewing similar products. [...] This is a world in which the iPhone is designed and engineered in Cupertino by Chinese or Indian PhDs and native American workers are the waiters, carpenters, and nurses who support them.
In short, enjoy your next disruption.
The full series, including Some Gentle People There, can be seen here.