Wednesday, April 26, 2006

tokyo time

took a trip to tokyo last weekend to meet my sisters. wandered around and looked at cool architecture. it's very inspiring and humbling. I am so uncool. in comparison to tokyo, beijing really has so so so far to go. here are some images.

Thanks to my travels and stint in korea, I also have a new grand sweeping generalization about east asian communication styles:
korean: polite, but direct
japanese: polite, but not direct
chinese: neither polite, nor direct

i expect a barrage of verbal abuse from people that know better.

I've also (thanks to gabe) discovered last.fm. how did I survive before without it? Just turn it on and it recommends and plays music based on stuff you already like. genius. everyone probably already knows about this. I'm just so painfully uncool (as demonstrated in tokyo) that I'm only getting to it now.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Sunday, April 09, 2006

aaaaaahhhhhhht

photos from this weekend's opening of timestamp. despite a technical glitch just before the opening, I think it went relatively well. (I'm kind of used to things breaking down at the last minute now. luckily it got resolved.)

Dashanzi was teaming with art fans this weekend as no less than 5 galleries had simultaneous openings on Saturday. Some nice things in the Long March Space as well as in the Marella Gallery where wang wei also has a show on. see pictures of his glass shadow box.

Grand pooh-ba of Dashanzi, Huang Rui, had a retrospective show at Chinese Contemporary Gallery where he did a performance piece which consisted of picking members of the audience to drink tea with. I didn't really understand what was going on. The only thing I could think was, "Wow, he's really going to have to pee in about 20 minutes."

Now I'm back in Korea, continuing what Jamie called my "monastic lifestyle."

Friday, April 07, 2006

Timestamp

I have a show that opens today...Come by if you are in the area.

<< Timestamp >><<时间印记>>
By Rania Ho 何颖宜

Long March Independent Project Space 长征空间 - 独立项目
Dashanzi Art District, Jiuxianqiao Rd 4#, Chaoyang District, tel:
64387107
朝阳区酒仙桥路四号798艺术区长征空间 电 话:010-64387107

April 8 - 30, 2006 2006 (2006.03.04-2006.04.30)
Opening: April 8, 2006, 4pm

<< Timestamp >> is an interactive installation that documents and captures
moments with a simple gesture. It uses strategically placed webcams in the
Long March Space to render visitors’ low-resolution images into the artwork
itself. Pictures are automatically collected once every minute from the
webcams and are sent to a printer suspended in the middle of the project
space. The low-fidelity images are etched onto thermal paper with a time
and date stamp and then pushed out into the air, allowing the picture to
float gently down to the floor. The burning of the image onto the paper is
reminiscent of scratching one’s name into fresh cement, or cutting notches
into a tree trunk; acts that leave a mark, an impression, a simple
statement of “I was here.” Over the course of the exhibition, this
evidence of presence accumulates in the project space and creates a
tangible record of people and events that passed through. Visitors
literally leave their mark on the work, and become a part of the evolving
non-linear narrative that remains.
http://www.longmarchspace.com/Independent%20Project%20Space/timestamp/e-index.htm

互动装置《时间印记》用一个简单的捕捉瞬间的动作,将时间与空间糅合在一起。在长征主展厅内安置若干个摄像头,为参观展览的观众们拍下分辨率极低的照片。每隔几分钟,这些照片的数据被发送至一台悬挂在独立空间半空中的打印机,摄取图片的详细时间和日期也同时打印在照片上。随后,这些低保真的照片徐徐降落在空间的地面上。这种保存画面的形式如同水泥上刻出字迹,或在树干上刻出凹槽,是难以磨灭的印记,是 “我曾经在这里”的宣言。为此,整个的展览阶段成为一段真实的空间与时间的记录,观众本身为作品留下了印记成为这段时空叙述档案中永恒的部分。

http://www.longmarchspace.com/Independent%20Project%20Space/timestamp/index.htm

www.longmarchspace.com
www.dancingtoasters.com