Gardner Post and I will be presenting a new 12 screen video installation piece, Go For Launch, a Celebration of Power, at the Center For Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe.

Listen to the KSFR radio interview from Santa Fe Radio Cafe from Tuesday, May 5, 2009.

GO FOR LAUNCH
APRIL – JULY
Opens Wednesday May 6, 6:00p
Gardner Post and Brian Kane are artists working with video and emerging technologies in large-scale performance oriented installation and media-activism. Their new work at Munoz Waxman will include an interactive installation using original uncut NASA footage from the first space missions. It is a commentary on the Space Race, and the competition to land on the moon that was a product of the Cold War, technological superiority, and the real fear on both sides that the other might place weapons of mass destruction in space, all issues that are particularly relevant to both the region and the current political climate.

DJsounds caught up with the US conceptual/video artist Gardner Post to talk about art + technology at the Remix Hotel, at The National in South Beach. The interview is followed by a trip to a nearby apartment to get a special, behind-the-scenes insight into what Gardner’s working on this year – complete with words from celebrity DJ Tom Laroc!

Gardner was in South Beach with his Baby Grand Master creation (an acclaimed DJ/VJ masterpiece, modestly tagged the king of ‘video instruments’) to collaborate with the New York-born, Miami-based hip-hop DJ Tom Laroc/United Content Providers.

DJsounds last spoke to Gardner in 2007 at the Optronica festival, so it was great to see his vision for Baby Grand Master-style video mash-up materialising in such full-on splendour. Enjoy the show.

Words: LRC

External links:
www.babygrandmaster.com
www.myspace.com/djtomlaroc
www.remixmag.com/remixhotel
www.nationalhotel.com

Extra special thanks to Mary Mc Caughey, Adrian Shaw, and Terri Parker for making last month’s Late at Tate event a wonderful evening.

While there, I also had the good fortune to see some amazing new work by the Russian art group AES+F, and meet some of the artists. I was truly impressed with their new work, and recommend their website to get a look at it.

Pictured here are Gardner Post and myself, along with Mary Mc Caughey, Francoise and Graham from Addictive TV, Stuart from Hexstatic, and MC Rebbe in a quiet moment after the event finished.

Thanks again for everyone’s help, and for more information on the Baby Grand Master, click here.

Photo credit Lisa Loco

Below are some pics from the show, as well as some render tests from the material which I presented.

The highlight of the night for me was when I looked to my right and there was Matt Black cutting up some of Xav’s cartoon set. That really made my day – thanks, Matt. Much love.

Photo credits: Lisa Loco

Rob. Half Bob, Half Ron.

This was the first color computer graphic I ever made, in 1986 at RISD. IBM PC/XT, 8 bit color, and output to 4″ x 5″ film with a Solitaire film recorder.

Praise Bob

A big thanks to Addictive TV, Amy Z, and everyone who made Optronica 2007 a big success. And to all the folks who came to see our show a the ICA London.

We had a great time, and were glad to meet so many super-xlnt people.

Addictive TV keeps getting better and better. If you get a chance to see one of their shows, do it! You wont regret it. Their stuff looked monumental on the massive Imax screen, and they played an amazing new remix of Willie Nelson’s “On The Road Again”. I think this one could be a big hit.

I also got to see two killer sets from Exceeda. I had never seen their set before. Fantastic stuff. Xavier rocked the house with his Phantom of Optronica set.

Peter Greenaway performed a spectacular live mix of his films in the Imax theatre.

And Coldcut performed a beautiful tribute to Robert Anton Wilson.

So, all in all, and wonderful experience.

Post and Kane in 3D. If you get very close to the monitor and stare at this picture for a long time, you will get an interesting effect.

Graham from Addictive

Exceeda, Addictive, VJ Anyone, Motorboy

Coldcut, Addictive, Brian Kane, Hexstatic

Peter Greenaway.

Ok, so now it’s out. My good friend Gardner Post and I are going to do a show in March at Optronica at the ICA in London. We’re pulling together some classic old footage from the dusty old archives, and mixing it together with some brand new material for a special one night show. I was thinking about calling it “Aged 15 Years”. But then again, I was thinking about naming my son Orange or Vector. And that went nowhere. Except that now he likes the name Orange, and even came up with a rhyme for it: Door Hinge. But I digress…

All thanks are due to the awesomeness at Addictive TV

—

Optronica presents for the first time in the UK, Gardner Post and Brian Kane from the massively influential, but sadly no-longer, pioneering American audiovisual act Emergency Broadcast Network (EBN). The duo will present a sharp-edged set of unseen EBN work mixed with some new material.

EBN was originally founded in the late 80′s by Gardner Post, Josh Pearson and Brian Kane, all graduates of Rhode Island School of Design. In the early 90s they pretty much invented a new standard in the culture of AV remixing, video scratching and audiovisual sampling techniques. Post was also heavily involved in the spectacular set design for the band, while Kane developed the first known VJ software called Vujak, with the charismatic Pearson also working as front man for the group.

Their modus operandi was to take cable TV broadcasts and remix them with a funky beat, often having the lyrics ‘sung’ by half-second sound bites cut together. They gained popular acclaim after their involvement with U2′s ZooTV Tour in ’92 and later released their video album “Telecommunications Breakdown” in ’95 on TVT Records.

After Kane had left the group, they were later joined by turntablist Ron O’Donnell and video effects artist Greg Deocampo. All the team still pursue personal projects and here, for Optronica, Post & Kane perform together for the first time in nearly a decade!

A special audiovisual treat not to be missed!

Resurrected from the attic of Grandma’s Labs, Mark Blank has unearthed part of the original “Things-o-contemplation” tablets.

Worth contemplating …

1986

I love this.

Not mine. Created by my friend Mark Blank. See http://www.surfinguitars.com/

I’d like to make a large permanent flat screen display with this image. Now thats art.

In the spring of 1987, a group of friends and i created a mural for the RISD Tap Room. This was entirely created with spraypaint and stencil.

I don’t remember everyone who worked on this, but I do remember that Alexandra Rohleder, Nicole Eisenman, Josh Pearson and Ben Carlson were involved.

This was a beautiful piece, and it remained up for 17 years. I believe that the school left a piece of it remaining when they refinished the tap room 2 years ago.

Good for the soul, bad for the lungs.

Ceci n’est pas Ted Koppel, 1991
part of an occasional series with Michael Oatman

Ben Carlson
The man

Here’s an image of Gardner Post, Josh Pearson, and myself goofing around at the Experimental Television Center in Owego, NY, from 1990. We stayed there for 1 week as artists in residence, and made some great work. They had all sorts of analog video synthesis hardware there, and a device called a “Wiggletron” which was apparently built for Nam Jun Paik.

Here are two images of Michael Oatman from our first taping of The Leisure Channel in 1987. Mike is amazing. And boy, I think we were just way too ahead of our time. Everything we thought was funny then has come true ….

Here are three of our original EBN images from 1991. These were created for the first Lollapalooza tour. During the tour, we sold the t-shirts and vhs tapes (what’s vhs dad?). And we “toured” in the EBV (emergency broadcast vehicle), shown here. Interestingly, I made the t-shirts with Shepard Fairey of Obey/Giant fame. We made them at his studio in Fall River.

“Tomorrow’s Defense Entertainment Today”

Here’s a copy of the original EBN poster which I created way back in 1990. This highlighted the Telepodium Launcher (TPL), which was built by Gardner Post and Josh Pearson. This was created for a local show, and unfortunately I don’t remember what it was. If anyone remembers, let me know. There was an extra layer of text on top of this image, but I can no longer open the original quark file on this.

Here’s a fairly shitty painting I did back in 1986 while at RISD. Well, it’s not that shitty. Ok, it is. But shitty in a good way. I like it. This was sent to me by my friend Mark Blank, who has kept it all these years. That’s a high school picture of his wife Robin in the painting.

Here’s a pic that my friend Mark Blank sent me recently from 1985 – back in the RISD days.

I met Mike Oatman at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1983. At the time, people used to confuse us for each other.

Mike and I have remained friends for a number of years, and continue to inspire each other.

Mike made a beautiful collage for the cover of the print version of Instant Classics, which I tiled and printed out on the Iris printer at Digital Pond in 1995. Attached is a picture of the image. This has been a popular piece in my house for many years.

Mike is at the top of his game these days, and is getting big shows in museums and galleries. I’m listing Mike Oatman a ‘buy’.