pupa : performance photos

Here are some photos of my most recent performance, Pupa. 
I felt like it was successful- there was a good sized audience there and it was disgusting, harrowing, playful and pretty all at once.
It's my plan to build on this work....
There will be more flesh cocoons in the future. 

pupa : a performance at trocadero art space

I am currently contemplating a performance entitled 'Pupa' which I will be undertaking this Saturday.
During it I will be sewing myself into a cocoon made from cow stomachs. Its a performance that I've been seeing as a sort of transformative, healing type process. Its my ode to Carolee Schneeman's 'Meat Joy,' with the meat acting as an enclosure, a cocoon, a reassuring space. In 'Meat Joy' it always seemed to me that the performers were really getting sexy with the meat, that it was a real celebration of flesh. 



I suppose in my performance I'm anticipating that it wont be so much a sensual experience as me creating a sort of soothing, womb space for myself. To be honest, I think this is a work that's in its experimental stages..... So it's difficult for me to say exactly what it's about.
I am particularly noticing the smell of the tripe though. It really rather disgusts me. It makes me wonder about butchers, who must have all the meat juices soaking into their hands all the time. The smell of the innards and meat and stuff. It's abject.

low lives 4 : networked performance festival

I'm very pleased to have been selected to be involved in Low Lives 4, an international exhibition of live performances streamed worldwide.

Low Lives 4, the fourth installment in a series of annual international art events. Low Lives 4 will feature more than 50 live performance-based works over two days, each transmitted over the web and projected in real time at venues across the globe. The exhibition will begin on Friday, April 27 from 8:30-11:30p.m. (EST) and continue on Saturday, April 28 from 3:00–6:00 p.m. (EST).

Founded in 2009 by artist and independent curator Jorge Rojas, Low Lives highlights works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the potential of performative practices. The project celebrates the transmission of ideas beyond geographical and cultural borders, offering global audiences the opportunity to consider live performance in both physical and virtual space.

By featuring performances at numerous venues and broadcasting those works via online networks, Low Lives provides a new model for efficiently presenting, viewing, and archiving live performance-based art. The annual exhibition embraces low-tech aesthetics, such as low pixel images and muddled sound quality, to emphasize the raw quality of the broadcast and reception of the works.

Low Lives has found new momentum after presenting Low Lives Occupy! in New York City on March 3, 2012. Low Lives partnered with Occupy with Art and The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU to present a one-night-only festival of simulcast performances by 36 artists and collectives committed to the Occupy Wall Street movement. The well-received Low Lives Occupy! program offered new perspectives on the Occupy protests and expanded the reach of the movement by broadcasting to an international community.

“Over the past four years Low Lives has developed a platform that invites and enables artists, audiences, and presenting venues to "plug in and participate” from anywhere an internet connection exists,” Rojas explains. “Low Lives is not simply about the presentation of performative gestures at a particular place and time, it is also about exploring the potential of live streaming networks as a creative medium connecting performance artists with audiences around the world.”

Low Lives 4 is co-produced by the Brooklyn-based arts organizations Chez Bushwick (www.chezbushwick.net) and SPREAD ART (www.spreadart.org), as well as Colombian artist, Juan Obando (www.juanobando.com). The international 2012 festival will be conducted by Jorge Rojas from the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City, Utah (www.umfa.utah.edu).

Participating Artists

Austin Adkins | Regina Agu | Lindsey Allgood + Amy Luznicky | Emma Alonze | Mauricio Ancalmo | Angela Bartram + Mary O'Neill | Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte | Ruth Vigueras Bravo | Caryana Castillo | Khalil Charif | Matthew Thomas Cianfrani | Gina Cuntstruct | Elwin Cotman | Dance Troupe Practice + Luciana D'Anunciação | Ian Deleon + Kara Stokowski | Stephanie Diamond | Bados Earthling + The Wild Audio Society | Michelle Ellsworth | Ursula Endlicher | Tim Eriksen | Francesca Fini | Les Filles Föllen | Marcel William Foster + Dunstan Matungwa | Future Death Toll | Lawrence Graham-Brown | Alejandro Guzmán | Matt Hawthorn | Joseph Herring | Kanene Holder | James Holland + Alycia Bright Holland | Linda Hutchins | Rima Najdi | Samantha Jones | Igor Josifov | Nathaniel Katz + Valentina Curandi | Elizabeth Leister | Jonathan Lemieux | Gideonsson/Londré | Jonatan Lopez | Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen | Soukei Matsuo | MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art | Nataliya Petkova | Blatta Orientalis | Alexandre Pombo-Mendes | prOphecy sun | Stefan Riebel | Tara Raye Russo | Nuria Guiu Sagarra | Maximiliano Siñani | Jonathan Sutton | Étienne Tremblay-Tardif | Elinor Thompson | Robert Tyree + Andra Rotaru | Marcus Vinícius | A.G. Viva | Alyssa Taylor Wendt | Amelia Winger-Bearskin | Martin Zet |

Presenting Partners

Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art (Newark, New Jersey); Center for Performance Research (CPR) (Brooklyn, New York); Chez Bushwick (Brooklyn, New York); Co-Lab (Austin, Texas); Diaspora Vibe Gallery (Miami, Florida); Fusebox Festival (Austin, Texas); Grace Exhibition Space (Brooklyn, New York); Legion Arts (Cedar Rapids, Iowa); Little Berlin (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); Living Arts (Tulsa, Oklahoma); Mascher Space Co-op (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania); Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) (Portland, Oregon); Real Art Ways (Harford, Connecticut); SOMArts (San Francisco, California); Space One Eleven (Birmingham, Alabama): Spread Art (Brooklyn, New York); Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) (Salt Lake City, Utah); Alice Yard (Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago); the temporary space (USA/Japan); Yamaguchi Institute of Contemporary Arts (YICA) (Yamaguchi, Japan); Dimanche Rouge (Paris, France); La Maison des Artistes (Paris, France); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá (MAC) (Colombia); At The Vanishing Point (Sydney, Australia); Small Projects (Tromsø, Norway); Ateliers '89, Contemporary Art Institute (Aruba)

A live simulcast of the event will be streamed on April 27 and 28 at http://lowlives.net/home/

About Jorge Rojas. Jorge Rojas is a multidisciplinary artist and curator. He uses traditional and new media, as well as performative elements to investigate communication systems and the effect of technology on artistic production, social structures and communities. Rojas’ work and curatorial projects have been exhibited internationally. In 2009, Rojas founded Low Lives, where he currently serves as director, producer, and curator.

About Chez Bushwick. Chez Bushwick, an artist-run organization based in Brooklyn, is dedicated to the advancement of interdisciplinary art and performance, with a strong focus on new choreography. Since its inception in 2002, the organization has been acknowledged as a new model for economic sustainability in the performing arts, offering $8/hour subsidized rehearsal space, and thereby fostering the creation, development, and performance of new work. Chez Bushwick is also responsible for a number of performance programs that encourage artistic freedom, collaboration, and creative risk-taking. www.chezbushwick.net

About Juan Obando. Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Juan Obando received a BA in Industrial Design with a minor in Architecture and Urbanism from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. In 2005 he started the ongoing BZC Media Corporation Project (an international art unit based in Bogotá, with cells in Venezuela, USA, and The Netherlands,) and has subsequently been exhibiting throughout The USA, Germany, The Netherlands, Australia, Colombia and Venezuela. His work has been selected twice for Colombia’s “Salon Nacional de Artistas” (2008, 2010) and reviewed by different international publications. After receiving an MFA in Electronic and Time-Based Art from Purdue University, Juan currently works between Colombia and The USA and holds a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Elon University in North Carolina. www.juanobando.com

SPREAD ART is an artist-run creative incubator designed to foster new works through collaborations with artists and curators from around the world. SPREAD ART supports emerging artists through group and solo exhibitions, music events, and performance showcases. SPREAD ART provides opportunities for all kids and adults to explore their creativity and increase self-awareness through art. SPREAD ART assists artists and arts organizations to begin new art events or evolve existing events in their community. SPREAD ART looks forward to hearing how we can support your creative endeavors. www.spreadart.org

The work I plan on transmitting for this festival will be an extension on my Composition series. It is my hope to bring a staging of this work that will be hard hitting and visceral.



For more information and to watch performances from previous Low Lives please visit: http://lowlives.net/home/

'no thing after another' : acab collective

'no thing after another' was a site specific installation created by ACAB collective for Trocadero Art Spaces in Footscray. Drawing on the spatial landscape of Footscray, a work was created that merged video installation with sound art and found objects. Construction sites and vacant lots represent zones of transition common to the landscape of the western suburbs. These places exist on the periphery of our awareness, prompting a simultaneous attraction and unease in those that come across them.
'no thing after another' locates the viewer within a transitory space and aims to preserve the unique poetic identity of the current Footscray-in-transit.

Today we de-installed the work, which was a challenge in the 35 degree heat.The exhibition went well though, and I'm very thankful to all who came along to take a look.
For those that missed it, here are some photographs of the installation...

xo

acab collective at trocadero artspaces

Coming up soon is ACAB collective's new show 'no thing after another' at Trocadero Art Space:
Level 1, 119 Hopkins Street, Footscray 3011

Opening: Saturday the 11th of February between 4-6pm.

We would love to see folks there to have a drink and give us opinions on out latest work.
ACAB collective consists of Zinzi Cuntstruct, Ben Johnson, Nickk Hertzog & Gina Cuntstruct

If you can't make it to the opening, the show is open between the 8th-25th of February. Wednesday - Saturday 11am til 6pm.


‘no thing after another’ seeks the engagement of a hidden tableau visible through select peep holes which offer a view onto the changing spatial identity of central Footscray. Bulldozed lots and worksites are synonymous with the shifting urban landscape. These transitional zones allow things to pass and go unheeded, collecting in anachronistic fissures within the metropolitan cobweb. Outmoded, temporarily functionless places have an enigmatic appeal and simultaneous revulsion. The disjunction between our perception and the world reaches us on the level of affect. The mood of this awareness is uneasiness meeting the strangely beautiful; an awareness of poetics. ACAB collective aims to preserve the unique poetic identity of the current Footscray-in-transit.

ben johnson and nickk hertzog : residency

Ben Johnson and Nickk Hertzog of ACAB Collective held a studio residency at Blindside Gallery this summer. The resulting installation was created using materials from all over the city and the Nicholas building and explored the complex relationship between place and context in the studio. The studio echoes the logic of spatial peripheries - it is a complex and organic whole. To remove a garbage bag is just as incongruous an action as removing a painting. The work was indelibly linked to the edifice of the studio. Ben Johnson and Nickk Hertzog’s assemblages cohere into a sort of DIY post apocalyptic desert island, where accumulation and entropy have become implicit in the studio space.