Catherine Galasso: Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice

When making your December plans, you might want to make the time to check the upcoming performance “Catherine Galasso: Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice” presented with the support of the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the San Francisco Film Society at the SOMArts Cultural Center.

Taking place December 12-13, Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice is a multimedia dance, theater and projected video program comprised of two performances created by choreographer, dancer and video artist Catherine Galasso. She combines the ephemeral qualities of performance with the illusive permanence of film and video in order to create cutting-edge and provocative narratives.

Her first piece, Simmer, a solo dance performance by Galasso, is a homage to Galasso’s father, composer Michael Galasso. Michael Galasso composed scores for several high profile plays and films, garnered a César for Best Original Score for the highly celebrated film Seraphine, and have appeared in many venues including the Guggenheim museums of New York and Bilbao. Michael Galasso passed away in 2009. The second piece, Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice is a critical, virtual journey through the psyche of Roy Sullivan—the real-life person who purportedly holds the world record for being struck by lightning: seven times. The work, featuring choreography by Galasso for four dancers, covers Sullivan’s many tribulations through elliptical narrative, humor and movement.

Enjoy!

For tickets and more program information, visit sffs.org <http://www.sffs.org/content.aspx?catid=8,38,271&pageid=1408>

Light Sculpture Contest

Lights are a huge part of the holiday season and in that spirit The 88 has invited ZER01 to partner around a holiday lightfest contest.  The competition involves reprogramming the light sculpture that’s housed on the front of The 88’s facade.  Anyone can enter; all it takes is a cell phone and an eye for design.  The winner will receive $100 gift certificate redeemable at one of 14 downtown restaurants or merchants.  Last day to play is December 16.  Click here to find how to sculpt light and win.

Imagining Spectacle with the LAB at Rockwell Group

It’s always energizing to get outside the office to scout out future sites for 2010 01SJ Biennial, and even better if I get to share the adventure with visiting artists. Last week Joshua Walton and James Tichenor from the LAB at Rockwell Group were in town for two days. Just enough time for us to go on a nighttime walking tour of downtown San Jose, meet with folks at the Children’s Discovery Museum, walk the catwalks high on the rotunda of City Hall, get a birds eye view of downtown from the 88 condo complex, participate in the small “meet and greet” reception ZER01 hosted for members of the San Jose Public Art Commission, and sample some Oaxacan mole at Mezcal on San Fernando Street.

View from the rooftop of City Hall Josh and James from the LAB at Rockwell Group looking out over San Jose City Hall Plaza

In case you haven’t heard of the Rockwell Group, it is a New York-based architecture and design firm led by architect David Rockwell. The Rockwell Group has been responsible for creating immersive environments in projects ranging from the staging at the 81st Academy Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles, to the newly opened Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, to the entrance installation at the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale. Cool stuff. And the LAB is Rockwell Group’s digital interaction design team who specializes in creating environments and experiences using digital technology.

It was great to have Josh and James in town—they certainly have a wealth of practical experience! Steve and I and the ZER01 team have been discussing venues for month now, but walking from site to site within a few days certainly made the Biennial plans feel more like a near reality as we imagined all the exciting possibilities to activate the public space of downtown San Jose. Stay tuned…

Tribeca All Access Call for Submissions

For those of you who are filmakers, we just got word about call for submissions from Tribeca All Access (TAA) – a program of the Tribeca Film Institute. The postmark deadline is Monday, December 14.  Check it out:

Tribeca All Access (TAA) is a year round networking and career development program of the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) that supports the work of filmmakers from traditionally under-represented communities within the industry by providing access to industry representatives looking for new projects in development.  Approximately 20 qualified directors and screenwriters will be selected to participate in one-on-one meetings with key industry players in addition to networking and learning from dedicated panels and comprehensive workshops during the Tribeca Film Festival.  Program alumni receive year-round support through TAA OnTrack, which includes educational panels and workshops; TFI hosted presentation screenings; promotional support for completed films; and the use of digital filmmaking and editing equipment.

Tribeca All Access is open to both mid-career and emerging narrative and documentary filmmakers.  Applicants are required to apply with a completed feature-length screenplay, documentary proposal, or documentary work-in-progress and must have at least one screenwriter or director attached who qualifies.  Projects may be of any subject matter, genre, or budget range suited for independent or major studio production.

If this sounds like something you’re interested in, apply online here.  Good luck!

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Wikipedia Nightmare

Silly me thought that a Wikipedia article for ZER01 would be a good idea.  After all, other similar arts organizations have Wiki pages.  Well, I’ve learned the hard way that its not as easy as you’d think – not by a longshot.  ZER01’s wonderful volunteer, Nidhi Srivastava, has been diligently working on our article for months now.  It’s been deleted at least twice (maybe three times) and it lives on now with many notes about how it needs improvement.  Frankly, we’re both baffled, especially as we’ve modeled the article on other arts organization pages. It hasn’t helped us one iota.  If you think you’ve got something to contribute about ZER01 and have a bit of  experience creating a Wikipedia article, I invite you to help us out. You can find out current page here.

ZER01 artist Cory Arcangel in Artkrush

Cory Arcangel: An Unassuming Mater of New Media by Paul Laster.

A cat playing the piano is funny, but a sequence of cats playing an atonal composition by Arnold Schoenberg is both brilliant and absurd. One of the latest works from digital artist Cory Arcangel, Drei Klavierstucke, Op.11 is a compilation of fragments from found YouTube videos that captures a variety of cats walking on piano keys, each producing a note. Edited together, they recreate a dynamic piece of modernist music.

Starting with a youthful interest in music, video, and computers, Arcangel has become the international poster boy for new-media art and has exhibited his experimental, witty works in galleries and museums around the world. At present, 13 of his hacked video games, altered feature films, and Internet manipulations are wowing viewers in a survey show at the Netherlands Media Art Institute in Amsterdam.

Read the full review from Artkrush.

Terry Riley: Pipe Dreams

Sage, iconoclast, cosmic seer, and musical alchemist Terry Riley returns to the Berkeley Art Museum on November 6 after some thirty-five years to start the Friday night “L@TE” series on a high note. The UC Berkeley alumnus, best known for kicking off the minimalist music revolution with his composition In C, has studied Indian classical music with Pandit Pran Nath, explored jazz with Chet Baker, and reinvigorated the string quartet ensemble via his collaborations with the Kronos Quartet.  Along the way, his enormously influential music has inspired three generations of composers across the world and provided the creative spark for rock bands such as Can and the Velvet Underground.

November 6; 9:00 p.m.

$5, free for UC Berkeley students, faculty, staff and BAM/PFA members.

Get tix.

Where in the world is Slayton?

That would be Dublin, New York and Miami. Here’s what he has to say about all this globe hopping…

Just returned from a whirlwind trip to Dublin and getting ready to head off to NYC and then on to Miami.

Dublin was a bit of double duty.  I was invited by Trinity College as the external examiner for Nathaniel Stern’s Phd. thesis, Implicit Bodies.  Quite a good work I must say.  Nathaniel who successfully completed this research-practice program did a very credible job of posturing a theoretical framework for the role of embodiment in new media art practice.  While in Dublin I also lectured at Trinity College Science Gallery on my work over the past 10 years with C5 Corporation and on my vision for ZER01.  There was also quite a good exhibition at the Science Gallery organized by Director Michael John Gorman and curated by Anthony Dunne +Fiona Raby titled What If…Future Form, Future Function.  The exhibition featured works by students from the Design Interaction Department of the Royal College of Art that examine various ‘design scenarios (corporate world) and utopias and dystopias (literary and cinematic worlds)’ inspired by science and technology.

The upcoming  trip to NYC is all about relationship building.  Doniece and I will meet with a variety of foundation and organizational partners we hope to see deeping their involvement with the organization and the 3rd 01SJ Biennial.   We will be talking with a host of individuals that can defnitely help think through some of the conceptual concerns and issues represented by our planned expansion into year-round programming including:  a  distributed model for an international research based residency platform, a youth leadership incubator embedded in ZER01, and a center devoted corporate creativity/cultural innovation.   All this translates to good company, coffee, cocktails and dinners.   Should be fun.

Then off to Miami to meet with Alberto Ibarguen, Pesident and CEO of the Knight Foundation – a very smart guy that I can’t wait to sit down with – and Dennis School, Knights Miami Program Director who’s also a winemaker, art collector and the real estate mogul who’s credited form much of South Beach’s transformation.

ZER01’s Jaime Austin to Present at Media Modes

Jaime, who is ZER01’s assistant curator and who graduated last spring from the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts, has had a paper accepted to the prestigious Media Modes Graduate Student Conference, which will take place on November 14 at New York’s School of Visual Arts. Of the 24 presenters, Jaimeis the only one from a West-coast school. The others are all current students or recent alumni from highly respected graduate programs in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.

We’re impressed! Go Jaime.

ZER01 Artistic Director co-curates new show at LABoral

The inimitable Steve Dietz continues to amaze us.  His newest project, Feedforward. The Angel of History, addresses the current moment in history where the wreckage of political conflict and economic inequality is piling up, while globalized forces—largely enabled by the “progress” of digital information technologies—inexorably feed us forward. The exhibition title references Paul Klee’s painting “Angelus Novus,” which Walter Benjamin famously interpreted as an “angel of history” transfixed by the wreckage of the past that is piling up in front of him while being propelled backwards into the uncertain future by a storm from paradise (progress).

Co-curated with Chritiane Paul,the exhibition opens this week at LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Spain.