My cup runneth over

Bildudalur, Iceland

At least that is what I like to think. When it comes to cups we've got one member whose is full of poison. I balance her out with a cup that runneth over with ambrosia. Together, I suppose, we are a half full cup sitting on a table, awaiting interpretation.

I'll leave that to you.

The bad news, I spoke with the leaseholder in Plainvew, Texas today, and we will not be installing Carla Duarte's piece there this year. We are postponed until 2012, at the earliest.
Fires are ravaging the area. Fireworks displays for July 4 have been canceled in all the surrounding communities. Two farms adjacent to our install have already burned. The risk of flash fire while we are out in October is far too high. (And here's a worrying fire near the community of Whiteface. This one is just North of our Bledsoe site, I think...)

We will focus on Scott Oliver's piece in Slaton, Texas this October. And we will spend extra time working in Bledsoe, Texas. Perhaps a fully cleared road and walking path from Farm Road 769 are in the offing. Along with a beautiful fence. We'll see.
The good news, we met with Scott and his pieces are coming along beautifully. We are insanely excited about his project in WaterSpace Plaza.

The other good news is that we are pursuing sites in Oaxaca, Mexico; Hjortdal, Denmark; and Bildudalur, Iceland in 02013. We have confirmed a site and install in Chania, Greece with the artist Christy Matson that year. Now we are moving forward with these additional international sites for 02013. I have begun initial research on Greenland contacts, to try and find an iceberg soon to calve. We hope to commission SF artist for this dream.
We will be in Oaxaca for a residency next year, looking for the right parcel of land.

Casa Colonial, where we will residency...

Finally, a reminder to everyone, our two sites in New Mexico for next year, are in conjunction with ISEA2012, and have an open call!

3x world building

3x world building, a photo by VIME on Flickr.

3x world building

ZOMG! Welcome is on Google Maps!

View Larger Map

Okay, so, this might be one of the happiest moments of my life! Heidi Hove's Welcome sign in Bledsoe, Texas is officially a part of Google Maps.

And, in the same sixty seconds that I received the Approval email, I also received my copy of Judas Crossing, a role playing module in which I am a character; and my copy of Gary Gygax's first edition Unearthed Arcana for AD&D.

ZOMG! World building world building world building!!!!!!

Welcome submitted to google maps as a point of interest

Questions for EbM

Is human history 'an endless list of unsustainable states'?

ISEA2012 Update

We just got the word that ISEA2012 is now in full swing!
What is ISEA?
"Founded in the Netherlands in 1990, ISEA International (formerly Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts) is an international nonprofit organization fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organizations and individuals working with art, science and technology.
The main activity of ISEA International is the annual International Symposium on Electronic Art. Selection of ISEA symposia is made by the ISEA International Foundation Board."
And it is an honor for EbM to say that we are partnering with ISEA2012 for both of our installs next year.
Here's the call for entries for our Los Lunes, NM and Moriarty, NM sites.

We also note with a little pride that the alma mater of four EbMites, CCA, is represented by the awesome projects, PLAND and Getting Off the Planet.

Member News: Confusion Bleue 2 & L'Albero delle Meduse

I don't just make art. Actually, I'm pretty new to art. Music led me a serpentine path here. And, truth be told, I see all my art projects as bands creating long-form performances. So, here's some happy news from that arena.

My improv jazz project with Nobu Stowe released this delicious cacophony, Confusion Bleue, in 02010. It now looks like we'll be recording a follow-up in late July, for another label. We'll be bringing back Ray Sage and Ross Bonnadonna for the album. With another player joining us in the studio, though, as yet, we're uncertain who that will be.

The album we recorded in 02009, L'Albero delle Meduse, looks like it will be released in Japan next year. That album features Italian reedman, Achille Succi; DC-based double bassist Dan Barbiero; and Baltimore's own Alan Munshower on drums.

an update on Heidi's latest project

EbM's inaugural artist, the ever-amazing Heidi Hove, posted photos from her latest project, Lokal Global Plan.

As always, she is an incredible inspiration to us. Here's a description of the exhibit, which she put together:

Ålekistevej is one of the places where Copenhagen melts into the suburbs and time seems to almost stand still. In May, Ålekistevej provides a stage for the exhibition Local Global Plan, which connects local and international artists with the area and the people who inhabit and frequent it.

Local Global Plan’s 13 artists will bring such various modes of expression to Ålekistevej as installation, performance, concept art, animation and participant-based projects. However, they all share a common interest in the local community, urban space, social relations and exchange, belonging and identity. The exhibition invites the participation of local inhabitants, business owners, associations and visitors in the questioning of how to relate to ones local neighbourhood in a time where internet and TV tend to make the other side of the globe seem more present than your next door neighbour.

Local Global Plan wants to bring art to where life is lived – the ordinary life at a thoroughfare in the heterogeneous neighbourhood surrounding Ålekistevej in Vanløse where welfare recipients and CEOs live side by side. Here, you don’t see much of the urban renewal programmes that have made the Copenhagen boroughs so popular. But do urban renewal programs present the only way to a good local environment?

The exhibition offers free admission to all visitors. During the exhibition period, there will be guided tours and an event programme proposing concerts, movies and debates about social and committed urban practices: the relations between art and life, public and private spheres, social and constructed environments.

speculative world 2

One of our many speculative ideas for Earthbound Moon is to commission an artist to transform an iceberg. The first artist that came to mind for this difficult but not impossible task was painter Val Britton. Her work is deeply related to geography and contour; to the way we read and interpret land. For a large scale work engaging geologic time, environmental change, and impermanence she seemed the perfect choice.

I mocked this image up in early 02010 to give a grant organization an idea of what an iceberg transformed by Val might look like. Sadly, the $100,000 budget we proposed was a little high for the organization. No surprise, the award they were offering was $10,000, and not knowing me personally, they perhaps found my claim that I could raise the other $90,000 in a few months amidst a planetary economic collapse a bit, shall we say, rich?
Whatevs, Val is now working on sketches and mock-ups. And we are re-orienting our iceberg research from Antarctica (expensive) to Greenland (also expensive, but a little more manageable.) Fiscally, Greenland is doable for $10,000, we believe. So, 02013, here we come!

Jonathan Whitfill - ArtTakesLondon

Jonathan Whitfill - ArtTakesLondon

speculative world

(A carbon nanotube space elevator rises from Earth to a tethered moon. This Earthbound Moon is publicly owned space, open to all humanity. Its surface is a sculpture garden, where original works mingle with replicas of the works EbM has seeded across the planet Earth, her original moon, the surrounding planets, the sun, asteroids, comets, lagrange points, and extra-galactic vessels. Our businees plan calls for this second moon to be placed in orbit in 02032. In this image the tethered moon is an oversized, hugely oversized, Sputnik 1. One of the arms reaches down to Earth as a space elevator, the others counterweight the moon.)

One of the greatest challenges of EbM is explaining our vision, which is transgenerational, and rather grandiose. We are trying, after all, to terraform a populated planet. Finding a succinct and accurate way to explain in words what this means, and why we think it is a laudable goal, is difficult.
Supplementing words with images is a traditional and wonderful way to increase comprehension. To that end, all of the members of EbM are trying to spend time each week creating speculative images that share our vision of what our future might hold. These may be images of future sights, dream projects, or different visions of the final stages of a terraformed planet. These may be manipulated photos, or paintings, or collage, or video, or maybe soundworks. Or, in my case, a scentwork (I'll be introducing a new perfume in Evanston at the EbM show accompanying our installation of Jon Whitfill's new works.)
Some of us may spend a year on a single image (Carson, how's that three panel terraformed universe in lush oil paint coming along?) Others, like myself, will photoshop images.
Oh hey, here's one of those now:

This is a speculative work I created to try and share our vision of how the inherent meaning of a fence can be subverted in a public space. It is a vision of what an SF garden we were negotiating with might look like if an artist were to "knit" the fence. This speculative image hints at the beauty, poetry, and intellectual engagement a great artist can bring to a public work.
With luck we will regularly be able to share these visions of the world and universe as we imagine it.

EbM in Temporary Art Review

Delightfully, EbM and Alex Clausen are the featured Site/Project Profile in the newest issue of Temporary Art Review.
Above, Alex discusses the Bledsoe site, before EbM was a gleam in his eye.

TTU friend Chris Taylor's Land Arts class in the NY Times

One of the folks we've had the honor of meeting in Lubbock is Chris Taylor, who runs the Land Arts of the American West program at TTU. We've actually corresponded with Chris more than met him. He was on the road with his class the last couple times we were in Lubbock.
But, featured in this NY Times article, Chris describes much of the wonder and passion EbM feels for the SouthWest, and for a vision of a planet terraformed as a sculpture garden.

From the article:
Mr. Taylor describes it as a “semester abroad in our own backyard,” and said he planned it to try to be as agnostic about the definition of art as the vast landscape itself is. “I define art as anything people have done on the land,” he said, adding that the West is an ideal place for such an approach. (“Arid lands are unable to hold secrets,” Mr. Taylor once wrote.)

He added: “I think there are important lessons here that are more than just art history lessons. Not to take anything away from art history, but this is more broadly about how we’ve shaped the land, and how it has shaped us.”