EbR 02016.10.05

EbR 02016.10.01.0001

The sole cloud in the sky

Iceland: northern lights replace street lights in Reykjavik

Thank you Reykjavik, this is an inspiring act.

Chicago, in 02017 for the Leonids, I expect the same thoughtfulness. Better yet, we should take one night a month to black out the city and all look skyward...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/30/iceland-northern-lights-replace-street-lights-in-reykjavik

Touchdown: Rosetta probe lands on comet 67P ending 12-year mission

-- Its precise fate will never be known, because Rosetta is now switched off for good and there are no telescopes on Earth powerful enough to see it. “We won’t know, because we turn off when we touch the surface,” said Professor Mark McCaughrean, a senior science advisor at ESA. “This is space, anything can happen out there ... Rosetta and Philae were always intended to be site specific sculptures, communicating to any other life forms that come across them that we as a species are advanced enough to make art, to understand the theoretical and critical complexities of the readymade. Their scientific work is a lovely bonus inherent in their beauty as readymades for space.”

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/30/rosetta-probe-lands-on-comet-67p-ending-12-year-mission?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

Tippet Rise, Montana

In July, I had the pleasure of visiting the newly opened Tippet Rise, a sculpture park and performance space several hours from Bozeman, Montana, near the town of Fishtail.  The 11,000 acre ranch is dotted with a handful of large installations, with more planned for the future.  It's an extraordinary space and landscape, and inspiring to see other sculpture gardens grow.

Inverted Portal by Ensemble Studio, 2015

Proverb by Mark di Survero, 2002

Beartooth Portal by Ensemble Studio, 2015

You can hike between each site, but since each sculpture is about a mile away from each other, a guided van tour was a great way to go.  I was lucky enough to take a tour with one of the Tippet Rise videographers and his mom visiting from the east coast.

Deux Discs by Alexander Calder, 1965

Along with being a site for large sculptures, Tippet Rise has a some extraordinary performance spaces.  Throughout the summer they host visiting musicians and have indoor and outdoor shows.

Domo, an outdoor performance space by Ensemble Studio, 2015

Oliver Barn, visitor center and performance space.

Thinking Ahead --> X21

For Earthbound Moon, we try to stay steadfastly focused on the future.  We try to imagine what it is we have to do now to create the future world we want.  I recently came across a fantastic project, X21 REQ, by writer JH Phrydas that is focused on a similar goal:  what is required of us right now?  The website, x21req.tumblr.com/, contains a selection of responses from artists and writers that take the topic on.  Check it out!

Checking in on EbM member Jon Whitfill

EbM member -- and before that the artist responsible for Keystone and Switch in Evanston, IL -- Jon Whitfill is currently in the  midst of raging away on two commissions. The bookwheel above is for a hospital in Dallas, TX, USA that I like to Pokemon I Choose You Memorial Hospital. That is not it's actual name, though.

This lovely metalwork, calling to mind the microverse and the macroverse, and what-the-hell the multiverse, too, will be installed out front of the Texas Tech University art building this summer. Lovely. Congratulations, Jon!

Take a few minutes to be inspired by our good friend marcella faustini

Pay a visit to SFMOMA's blog, Open Space, to drink in the first post by our good friend and sometimes collaborator, marcella faustini.
marcella kicks off her series of conversations with artists by sharing some of the notes, research, and inspiration for her discussions. She describes it thus:
"the somewhat frantic organization, full of links (that will neatly open for you, in a new tab. so go ahead and click) and imagery, mimics to some extent my process of going about compiling information and inspiration for these talks. they also function as the preface to the narrative that connects my (hi)story to the ones i will be encountering through these talks."
An artist whose conversation with marcella I look forward to is Morehshin Allahyari (image above)

– in order to expand its own fictional lines of terror, isis has taken to salafism, an ultra-conservative reform movement which vouches for the implementation of extreme islamist beliefs to the point of self-annihilation. this can be observed by their ongoing destruction of their own historical visual culture. artist morehshin allahyari’s project material speculation, offers a way to subvert the damage by using 3d printing and modeling to re-create these destroyed and thought forever lost objects: “The first series ‘Material Speculation: ISIS’ is an in progress 3D modeling and 3D printing project focused on the reconstruction of selected (original) artifacts (statues from the Roman period city of Hatra and Assyrian artifacts from Nineveh) that were destroyed by ISIS in 2015. “Material Speculation: ISIS” creates a practical and political possibility for artifact archival, while also proposing 3D printing technology as a tool both for resistance and documentation. It intends to use 3D printing as a process for repairing history and memory.”

Let us look at Martian clouds and weather

because we will be installing there in the 02020s...

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1426

Good morning, Earth

David Attenborough presenting a puffer fish sand mandala to start your day!

Long before most fine art did so, sand and butter mandalas deeply touched and influenced me. Their transitory and performative nature meshed with my understanding of music as an experiential art, not just auditory, but a way to address all of the senses, and to experience altered states. Thank you puffer for brightening my morning. (And special thanks to spouse Kelly for sharing it with me!)

Intorducing Cathy Hannah, Heidi Hove (not really), and EN-CTE

Do you know Cathy Hannah?

No?

Holy mackerel! That is crazy! Her zines and illustrations are so lovely and touching!

“Wait a second disembodied anonymous voice of EbM, how lovely and touching?” you ask.

Well, so much so that she is the first 2D artist we have commissioned to create an artwork for us. She is creating an 8 x 11” illustration which we will share with you in a few months. Exciting!

 (hey, that's me in that comic with Cathy!)

This alone would be big news, but this commission occurred the same evening that we received an email from Heidi Hove, the first artist EbM ever commissioned. Heidi just completed a residency in Brooklyn at the Stephen and George Laundry Line. She created this lovely piece for them. 

It was on display for a month. When it came down she offered it to EbM.
On this fortuitous night the EbM Permanent Collection was born.

And within hours our brain rust birthed its delicious twin the Earthbound Non-Contiguous Traveling Exhibition. What better way to mash-up EbM’s non-contiguous sculpture garden and our RIME museum exchange program than a non-contiguous traveling exhibition!

How does this newest monstrosity of an acronym, EN-CTE, work? Well, we are going to create a permanent collection of artworks. This collection will exist as a traveling exhibition, a non-contiguous traveling exhibition, however. Those showing the exhibition will receive one artwork at a time, or maybe just one ever, that is up to them. Imagine, if you will, a studio complex in DC, an arts center in London, a loft gallery in Oaxaca, a coffee shop in Minsk, a museum in Kinshasa, a container ship with an at-sea container museum, and the International Space Station all hosting a single exhibition, each with one or two heart-rending works of inspiring art.

It’s  coming soon...

My heart is all aflutter.

A Desert Compostion

Moments of contemplation while mixing concrete in the New Mexico desert.  The video is from the 2013 installation of Scott Oliver's A New Horizon.

Long lost Mark Rothko found!!!

While searching for treasure in a Charlottesville thrift store we stumbled upon a long lost Mark Rothko. The use of pink and aquamarine was previously unknown till now! Feast your eyes on Untiled #67... .