Aaron Steffes

The Chairman, 2004 by Aaron Steffes. Check out his new website here.

Inna Babaeva (pt. 2)

I cannot stay here too long
2003, metal, fabric, video projection, dimensions variable

Part 2 of my interview with Inna Babaeva below...

Jon Lutz: In some of your earlier works, there is a certain amount of directness that bends toward the conceptual. At the same time, you are still dealing with experience and physical engagement, but on a larger scale. I'm curious if these works were more conceptually based than what you are doing now?

Inna Babaeva: The work I made at that time was definitely nodding to Minimalism in its scale, the simplicity of forms and the notion of an interaction with a viewer. It departed from the minimalist credo: "what you see is what you see" . Yet, by inducing light and video projection into sculptural structures, my work actually defeated that idea and replaced it with: "what you see is what you see, and then more". They were a combination of visible and invisible, tangible and ephemeral, real and virtual, literal and metaphoric.

JL: There seems to be a great deal of planning involved...

IB: In terms of planning, all these works were multi-step productions: maquette making, construction of sculpture structures, video shooting and editing, and solving the technical difficulties along the way. Everything had to be planned, because the lack of planning meant a failure. And the role of a producer/problem solver usually was the reward at the end. It was like building a house - to design, to build and to make it livable.

Lapse, 2003, wood base, video projection, 4' x 18' x 18'

JL: Was there a shift that happened a few years back that prompted your change in direction?

IB: Yes. It was a shift in my process. The long term space-demanding productions once were a source of fun, and then they became a source of frustration. They took a very long time for completion, and only a small part of the conceived projects were ever executed. Most of the time I didn't have a space to present the work, and many of these projects never passed the stage of a small maquette. The produced work was too tricky to document and often didn't translate well in the forms of photography or video.

What's left probably was a turning point in my work. It was still about sculptural space, but there was a transition to the utilitarian, less precious materials like copy paper and paper clips. It was also about changing attitude towards the art making process that became more spontaneous and more fun.

Lapse (detail)

JL: Since it is not exactly clear what is going on in works like Lapse through reproduction, could you explain what we are seeing? What is the content of the video component?

IB: Lapse is a large stage-like wooden structure with a 4 foot deep "well" opening in the middle. At the bottom of the "well" a viewer can see the video projection of a stormy ocean's churning waters. The source of the image is a ceiling-mounted projector pointed down. Because of the shape of the well, the illusion of a greater depth is created and the projected image seems further away. It contributes to a vertigo effect when looking down at the "water". The idea of the work was the displacement of the image from its architectural context.

JL: In a way, these works are more engaging and inviting, especially with the inclusion of architectural constructions and videos. Have you seen a difference between the way people react/interact to these and your more current work?

IB: They were meant to be interactive. Their scale was related both to the architectural space and to a potential viewer. I think they were more engaging because they not only occupied space but also demanded time to absorb the video imagery. In that respect, Lapse was my most engaging work. During the opening of the show people were sitting, talking and drinking beer on the steps of the structure and by the "well". I found it to be really cool - that space in the gallery had been transformed into a social hangout. Not being able to see this kind of interactive response to my current work is one the trade-offs in that transition.

On and on, 2001, metal, fabric, video projection, each cylinder 8' h x 30" diameter

In case you missed it...the first part of out interview here and Inna's website here. Also check out her work in Central & Remote.

J.D. Walsh at Anthology Film Archives

THIS SATURDAY: J.D. Walsh’s newest (and most ambitious) video, "Untitled RPG" will be included in a program of short films and videos as part of the Migrating Forms film festival. The program, Conjurer Visit begins at 8:30 at Anthology Film Archives. Other participants include: Shana Moulton, Stephanie Barber, EMR, Sabine Gruffat, Grey Gersten, Steve Claydon, Darrin Martin and Torsten Zenas Burns, Jacob Ciocci & Shana Moulton.

Get your tickets HERE.

Also see: Walsh's website and my previous posts.

Mark Schoon

Here's a sample of a great new work by Mark Schoon entitled Two Rooms. It's meant to be seen as a large scale, dual projection, so I suggest watching it on full screen. His process is not exactly what you think it might be, but I'll leave a note in the comments about that...more of his works here.

Harry Shearer

After a seemingly endless election period, Harry Shearer’s The Silent Echo Chamber, now at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, feels like the appropriate palette cleanser. While Shearer is mostly known as the voice of many Simpsons characters and for his various collaborations with Christopher Guest, it is less known that he has been exhibiting these videos of "found" live feeds since 1992. It's surprising how enthralling and fun it is watching television screens of public figures sitting, doing nothing while waiting to go on air.

The Silent Echo Chamber at the Aldrich closes on Feb 8. See my interview with Shearer below:

Jon Lutz: Your various projects really seem to compliment each other and bring something different to the table. The same could be said for The Silent Echo Chamber. Can you talk about the impetus to create this work? How long have you been making videos?

Harry Shearer: I had started collecting these images when I realized that we were in the first generation of humans where so much ordinary behavior of so many well-known people was being videographed, and that somebody should be collecting it, after which I nominated myself. So, at some point, it seemed interesting to assembled the images for public view, and the art world seemed the most congenial place to do it. I started with a show called Telesthesia, a word I'd like to think I made up, at the Fullerton Museum in Orange County, CA, in, I think, 1989. Then came Barney's windows in NYC in 1992 for the figures involved in the Democratic Convention in the city, then The Wall of Silence at MOCA's Santa Monica storefront, commemorating the OJ trial circus, and then a long pause before the Conner Contemporary Art gallery in D.C. invited me in 2004 to do what became Face Time, the immediate predecessor of this show.

JL: Do you see yourself as a “video artist?”

HS: I see myself as a guy who puts these shows together. The term "video artist" is relevant only in the sense that gives people a recognizable category into which to insert this stuff.


JL: Your long running radio show, Le Show, features your recap of the lesser-known, but significant news stories of the week. You approach the details of these stories with a dry mix of sarcasm, humor, and critique. With The Silent Echo Chamber, it appears that you have taken a more objective or contemplative approach. The biting wit is replaced with a powerful ambiguity that emerges while watching figures like Karl Rove stare blankly, James Carville fidget, or Joe Biden eat a sandwich. Is there any kind of critique here of these individual personalities or is it solely up to the viewer to come to their own conclusion?

HS: That's one reason I enjoy doing this in an art context: much more conducive to ambiguity, multiple meanings, or total lack of meaning, than the comedy/satire world, where you really care whether the audience "gets the point." There's much less critique intended here, although some may occur to some viewers. But I think, in terms of what these shows mean to me, they're much more about the contrast between TV as we know it-basically, to a large extent, radio with pictures--and the possibilities of a truly visual medium.


JL: Most of the figures are politically involved, but then you throw in people like Dr. Phil. Are your choices of subject matter colored by any personal experiences with these people or comments upon the entertainment/news business in general?

HS: Choices constrained by two factors: the ubiquity of these people, and my ability to access images of them.

JL: In one case, Ben Stein and Henry Kissinger are shown, at different times, on the same screen. Given that they bear some resemblance to each other, there is some evidence that you have done some subtle constructing and arranging for humorous effect. Is this deliberate or merely coincidental?

HS: I'm very scrupulous--or obsessive--about not editing or altering the videos. It's too easy, and then it's about me. Kissinger and Stein showed up on the same screen because neither of them is in the immediate current spotlight, a la the other folks, yet they both amuse me. And, of course, that's the Jewish screen.

JL: You have also appeared on cable news shows many times. Is any part of these about your experience of waiting to go on air? Is there an inside joke here or something going on that someone not familiar with television production might not know about these clips?

HS: No, as a matter of fact, there's no joke. Well, if there is a joke, I guess it's that never before in human history has so much valuable time been spent by so many "important" people sitting around doing nothing. That may be a distinctive mark of our era. Or of our (former) prosperity.

Ron Amstutz

Right Roads and Wrong Ways is the result of ten years of work for Ron Amstutz. His first solo show at Wallspace is centered around a video that is essentially a compilation of performances within self-constructed sets. These videos/performances are complemented by photographs that he takes during the production of the video. As for influences and references, the press release points to “structural film, Bauhaus theater, performance work of the 60's and 70's, video games and commercial studio photography,” but there are also nods to children's television, Duchamp, Charlie Chaplin, and of course, chair-wrestling. It's up until October 11.

J.D. Walsh

Out of Bounds (Generator), 1999

J.D. Walsh is based in Brooklyn, NY and shows at Solomon Projects in Atlanta. Check out more of his works at his website and see the interview below:

JL: Done in 1999, Out of Bounds (Generator) is interesting because it seems to embody many of the same elements that have been concerned with over the past few years. The ball is bounced and dictates a shape that is then cut out and becomes 3D in appearance. How did you come across a fascination with chance and they way that it can then materialize into something "real"?

JDW: I think my interest in chance stems from my interest in open-ended artworks. When someone is confronted with something that's incomplete, or something that has an open system built into it, it's the human tendency to try to complete it. In this case meaning is generated partly by the viewer, but is predicated by choices that the artist has made. It's the old story of when people read whatever meaning into vague song lyrics, mid-60's Dylan for example. That strategy in lyrics is kind of a given today, but must have seemed radical at the time.

JL: Is there an initial influence from Cage and Duchamp here? Are you looking to expand on their chance experiments or to find another use for them?

JDW: I should probably say now that many of my works don't involve chance at all, but rather the adjustment of an ambiguity/meaning ratio. Out of Bounds (Generator) is a good example of this. It's not a chance operation, but a partial-chance operation - the chance parts are edited to have the effect I want.

Regarding Cage and Duchamp, they were initial influences for me. For the longest time I thought Cage was the perfect artist. But the classic contradiction in Cage is that as much as he wants to remove his own taste from the equation, his taste is evident in the structuring of the work, even in the initial decision to use the I-Ching or whatever chance procedure he uses. Nothing just "happens". I feel like maybe I'm more comfortable working within this contradiction; in fact I like it. I'm always very aware of my own tastes when working, and I really like the idea of "tuning" meaning. On one level I think I've been trying to see if I can get away with using perception as the content of my work.

Hallucinations (and the real), 2003-2004

JL: Considering this notion of "tuning" meaning, it makes sense why Hallucinations has a more systematic bent. In a way, you have begun to look at each layer that we found in Out of Bounds (music, the ball/chance metaphor, and the shape that develops), separated them out and recapitulated these sources. Could you explain the process involved in the work and how it changed?

JDW : Well around 2001 I got really into the possibilities of writing my own computer programs as a way to open up the work a bit. But at first I could only do certain things, like have it place something in a certain location, or determine the scale of something, etc. Composition-related things. But at some point I wondered if I could get a system going that would choose entire images for me, images that I had not chosen, that I hadn't seen before. So I wrote a kind of image-search engine. This was the basis for Hallucinations.

JL: Technically, what is actually going on in Hallucinations?

JDW: It's actually two programs running side-by-side. One takes an account written by Albert Hoffman, the scientist who first synthesized LSD (who coincidentally died yesterday). The account is written in the first person, explaining the experience, which was essentially the first acid trip. The program selects one sentence at a time and displays it for a random duration. The other program enters the sentence into the search engine and grabs an image (and a found sound) and displays it next to the sentence. The result is an ever-changing contextual shift.

JL: By titling these Hallucinations, aren't you proposing another kind of contradiction of perception, since these are 'real' images, created mechanically, rather than figments of the imagination?

JDW: The title comes from Hoffman's text, but I liked "Hallucinations" as a way of describing how we experience the internet, but I think you're right, it is a play upon how these real images can be unreal depending on the way in which we experience them.

Fade 1 (Book and Gum), 2006, silkscreen on wood and birch pedestal, 22" x 24" x 13"

JL: In the Slow Fade works, you began to use very recognizable sources (domino sugar etc…) that are seemingly hand picked. How does this image/source selection process differ from previous works? Since you are now controlling heavily what images, arrangements etc., are you then providing the viewer with this experience?

JDW: In that series, it's true, I wanted to work more with iconic imagery. I guess I felt like the loadedness of Domino Sugar, the Beatles (particularly Sgt. Pepper), the book, etc. gave me more room to play with perception, since everyone has pre-conceived ideas about what these things signify. I initially saw these things as static transitions, like an embodiment of the cinematic dissolve between shots, hence the title "Slow Fade". It's the moment where you can see two things at once, irregardless of space, time, setting, history. I guess the fact that the iconic objects have a history is why I chose to use them. So I suppose it is about the Beatles, Salinger, Dentyne Ice, etc, but the baggage associated with each must also be added to whatever it's (literally) connected to.

JL: Your newest work, Boy, seems to be a bit of a departure. there is no video component and no obvious borrowed image of something mass-produced. At the same time, as a whole it is a sort of shadow of a projected image and this group of people seem anonymous, nondescript. In the same way that the Slow Fade works become one ambiguous object, Boy doesn't "make sense". What drew you to this set of images? One wouldn't assume a narrative in the Slow Fades, but here there is a spark of a narrative function...

JDW: Boy, like the works in Slow Fade, comes about by choosing the right images from a large pool of appropriated images. This goes back the whole "tuning" concept - it's all about finding the right threshold between pointedness and obscurity. I'm not sure it has much to do with chance. In this case it does look like a narrative, but to me, alluding to narrative is just a way of referencing a different practice while meaning occurs in a more open-ended, non-narrative way.

I think in the newest work I'm relying less on decision-making systems and more on intuition. So I guess it is a bit of a departure. I suppose someone could chart some kind of tenuous relationship between chance and appropriation. But for me it's too early to tell.

Boy, 2008, silkscreen on wood

Aaron Steffes

Untitled (coffee cup), 2005

Mutated Turpenoid, 2004, oil and acrylic on board, 24" x 24"



Untitled, 2004, oil and acrylic on board, 24" x 24"

In and around 2004, Aaron was doing both narrative and experimental videos. He also created a body of paintings which featured pseudo-realistic distortions, pairing various objects that he found close at hand. He currently lives and works in Chicago, IL and is working on new video projects and drawings of popular fiction authors.