aspen comedy festival :: off the web

I traveled to Aspen to see my favorite sister perform in the US Comedy Arts Festival. She was funny (as always) and won the award for "Best Alternative Comedy." Hopefully that will lead to good things for her - she deserves it. I was surprised at how much industry was present -hbo, cinemax, agents, managers etc. I went snowboarding (of course), went to an after-party hosted by the Upright Citizens Brigade and snuck into a few shows including "Creation Nation" and "Off the Web."

I told Mr. Arcangel I would try to see his friend Chelsea perform while I was in Aspen, she was part of a show called "Off the Web." Basically it was web artists showing their websites at a comedy festival. Labeled in the media as "internet humorists" the websites were a bit funnier than the artists, no surprise, but the whole thing did feel a bit out of place until you factor in that industry was there watching for new ideas and new talent. The strange thing was it felt like the same thing I do in my class room, show an interesting website and talk about it. It turned out that I was familiar with all the sites they presented but it was nice to be able to put a face to a site. Anyway here is a list of who presented and their sites -so if you see something similar pop up in the entertainment industry you know where they stole it from.

Chelsea Peretti: Black People Love Us
what was the other site she did?

Charlie Todd: Improve Everywhere

Aziz is Bored

Jakob Lodwick & Ricky Van Veem:College Humor

visiting artist :: cory arcangel

Cory Arcangel is a digital artist from NY, read his web log and you will know everything.

Cory gave a performance in Boulder -he did a live remix/mash-up of guns n' roses. My sister (Kristen Schaal) was performing at the Aspen Comedy Arts Festival at the same time so I unfortunately missed Cory's performance but will post a video of it when it becomes available. I also had my Net Presence students attend and blog their reaction so I was at least able to read about it.
I did pick up Cory from the airport so I was able to have a great conversation about the digital art world and comedy, he mentioned he was into comedy and would have liked to gone to aspen. I mentioned that I was in a bit of postmodern depression ever since I started grad school and been exposed to great artists and art work. Inevitably, whatever work I create someone can always make a reference to someone who has done it before me. I told Cory that I was going to make a work that dealt with the concept of lossy compression using multiple generations of jpg imagery.
That was until I saw his version of Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast" recompressed as an mp3 666 times. Basically the same concept but done brilliantly and with humor. He replied that he had actually got the idea from something that one of John Cage's students (insert name here) did. He encouraged me to keep moving the idea forward.

Super nice guy that Archangel.

visting artist :: eleanor antin

Currently a professor emeritus of UCSD, Eleanor Antin has worked as an artist since the 1960's creating film, installation and performance. She moved from NY to San Diego in the late 60's and became sick of the trans-american commute that was required to still be active in the NY art scene. Her solution was to create her own art community by creating a series of postcards entitled "100 Boots" and mailing them to thousands of people from pooled art mailing lists. This example of an early virtual community garnered her a "following" and resulted in a show at the MOMA two years later.

I related to Antin's performance art as a precursor to the online persona. She invented alternate idenities and performed as them in venues (including the Venice Biennale) and public spaces. Her personas included the gender-bending King (her idealized version of the perfect man), the Silent Movie Director, the Ballerina (most wonderful female self) and the nurse (the most depressed woman she could think of). Although this work was considered innovative for the 1970's it is common in today's virtual communities to invent alternate identities and to act them out in the virtual space.

Antin's most recent work is a series of large-format "painting-like" photographs depicting life in Rome. Although there is obvious social commentary on Rome's empire, and correlations can be made to our US government today, overall I think the work is "fluffy." Which made sense after Antin admitted that she "loved the rococo" -which was arguably the most fluffy crap ever produced. I was disappointed that when asked, Antin said she would not consider mailing the Rome series out as postcards. Reasons against revolved around the same old rhetoric - they were meant to be viewed large, they are meant to be seen (AND SOLD) in an established gallery, yada yada yada. I just thought it would be a perfect ending to her art career since the community she created though the mail was what gave her a start.