Virtually Glassy

RealFlow test from TimmY on Vimeo.

The Post-Glass Video Festival 2010

Working Title: The Post-Glass Video Festival
Exhibition date and location: July - August 2010, locations TBD
Deadline for submissions: Jan 31, 2010


The Post-Glass* Video Festival will present works that explore unique relationships between digital video/film and glass, in light of the studio practice of a significant number of emerging artists.

We seek works that toy with phenomenology, materiality or social/personal experience of glass through video. For example, you may be working on an animation with clear glass subjects. Perhaps you wish to speak about the nature of glass through non-glass materials. Maybe you see something that is captured only through the tools and format of video. It is possible that your experience of a certain phenomenon is remarkably un-glass-like and evident only as a choreographed act in video. Or that the outcome of your artistic process builds an insightful or entertaining drama, best voiced through digital “film”.

In short, the relationship that you explore between these two media may be rational, personal, virtual, abstract, animated, narrative or process-based, as long as you have an understanding and appreciation for video as much as you do for its counterpart in material / phenomenon.

We seek works whose concepts may trace back to either the direct/mediated experience of glass or an active investigation of certain phenomena - optical, acoustical, olfactory, haptic, and yet, manifest only through the vocabulary of video. We seek self-contained video pieces, rather than documentation of ephemeral work unless it plays a greater role in the feature. Convince us. To this end, we also welcome proposals of new projects that you would like to make and that The Post-Glass* Video Festival could be a good platform for.

* This blog has more information about a “post-glass artist”.

To submit
Please email yukanjali@gmail.com with a letter of interest that introduces your project.
You may submit up to 3 works/ideas for consideration. Indicate whether finished /in-progress work or proposal in the subject line. In the main body of the email, include a brief description (upto 250 words) outlining the work - concept, narrative, elements, duration, methodology.If you are submitting a proposal, tell us about the video you would like to make. Attach image/video/sound files as needed, less than 10MB.

Please label attachments as follows: yourlastname_entrynumber_imagenumber.fileformat (eg. genius_01_03.mov for a movie file sent by Jane Genius in support of submission 1 and image 3 within that submission). Do not forget to list contact information at the bottom of your email to us.

We will contact you by Feb 15, 2010 to discuss details of curatorial support and a suitable timeline for the production of selected submissions between Feb and Jun 2010. We hope to make the post-glass video festival a travelling exhibit at various public locations. The venues are to be decided based on submissions received.

For more information and questions about the post-glass-ism and yukanjali’s last exhibit (How is this glass?), please join this blog or email us.

Les Instantanes by Julien Marie at Wood Street Galleries PA

The Berlin-based French artist who experiments with various forms of projection debuts in the U.S.A with "Matter and Memory" (through Dec 2009) at The Wood Street Galleries in Pittsburgh. I was fortunate to be able to witness two floors of his works. Completely taken by the artist's innovation with steel micro-balls acting as a material in slow motion (but in reality); indescribably moved by his ablility to empower the exhibit participant who moves blank paper pieces on a table to reconstruct a forgotten image through a projection.

Particularly relevant to this blog is the drama and ingenunity of "Les Instantanes". Kurt Shaw, art critic with the Tribune describes the work :"Filling the entire third-floor gallery, it seems at first glance to be a simple, three-part sequence of slide projections of images of droplets of water in reverse. But upon further inspection, the viewer likely will notice, when looking at the exposed mechanics of each projector, that each contains tiny glass sculptures on a constantly spinning wheel. Maire actually made these 1:1-scale glass reproductions, in which each drop of water seemingly falls and jumps back up out of a surface.
In effect, Maire has created a different kind of cinema -- creating sequenced images representing tiny, fleeting moments, out of something that is very tangible and real."

My own experience of the work was a simple sigh of admiration and sheer joy at witnessing the precious construction of a moment.

Image: Les Instantanes (1998) by artist Julien Maire. Credit: James Knox /Tribune Review.

Exhibition announcement

This multi-venue exhibition sponsored by the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes Region in Corning, NY at venues :
38 W Market St . 78 W Market St . 79 W Market St . 65 E Market St
Dates: June 10-13, 2009; 12 noon to 6 pm with a reception at 6-9pm on June 12, 2009

h o w i s t h i s g l a s s ? presents the unpredictable ways in which artists open our minds up to possibility of new relationships and forms that may underlie the realm of glass. Innovative, idiosyncratic, insightful and extraordinary, their methods and actions ensure our attention, curiosity and support. Here we profile an important part of the contemporary studio glass scene as artists are exposed to non-linear methods, modular tools and alternate ways of perceiving and utilizing glass.

Participating artists - Aimee Sones . Alexander Rosenberg . Amy Rueffert . Andrew Bearnot . Angus M. Powers . Anna Mlasowsky . Beccy Feather . Benjamin Bray . Bill Bahmerman . Bohyun Yoon . Carrie McIlwain . Helen Lee . Jin Won Han . Joel O'Dorisio . Justin Braun . Keunae Song . Min Jeong Song . Maria del Carmen Montoya . Naomi Kaly . Peter Garfield . Rebecca Cummins . Rika Hawes . Robin Rogers . Thomas (Ryan) Gothrup . Samuel F. Geer . Sean Salstrom . Solange Ledwith . Stefanie Pender . Stine Bidstrup . Suzanne Peck.

Light Sculpture by Sydney Cash

Bubbles: oil in water / air in glass

Oil in Water from Shawn Knol on Vimeo.

Traces of the molten state-by Etsuko Ichikawa

Traces of the Molten State from Etsuko Ichikawa on Vimeo.

Artist: W. Benjamin Bray

Modes of Departure(2008)
Video Installation dimensions variable

Sound from inside aircraft taxiing for departure is played from speakers situated in
forms resembling jet engine nacelles, while video volumes, each comprised of
images representing one of the five distinct periods of transience throughout
artist's life, are projected into the nacelles, where each reflects off of a mirrored
speaker cone and onto a nacelle's interior walls.  
The energy and feeling of departure affects the perception of reality.

Artist: Rebecca Cummins

"Shooting Stars", 2007
inkjet print on acrylic, 24H x 36W

Artist:Jessica Lloyd-Jones

A series of framed photographic prints:
Image 1
Photogram of light bulb and botanical roots. Developed from the presence of
electrical activity in plants and animals.
Image 2
The northern lights captured within a chemistry lab bottle filled with argon
gas and lit by the presence of electricity. The bottle evokes the mystique of
ancient magic and alchemy and the ‘chemistry’ of the earths’ atmosphere.
Image 3
Blown Glass anatomical model of the heart containing gas charged with
electricity.

Artist: Suzanne Peck

Sink or Swim(2007/8)
Digital video, Chlorine (variable dimensions)


A room-darkened and warm- reeks of damp air and a hint of chlorine. The
moving image on the wall features a woman’s body gliding through aqua water.
The atmosphere grows incresingly familiar as the chlorine smell intensifies and
passes, the air is thick. The woman is fragmented, here glides her back, there
a leg, a shot of both arms propelling her slowly through the water.
There are unfamiliar objects the woman is wearing, making sound in the water
amidst her breathing. Glass tubes surrounding her limbs, clinking against each
other, keeping her afloat.

Artist: J. Susie Hwang

Ritual Residue(2009)
Clay, body, video, glass (variable dimensions; min 12 sq ft floor)

A series of clay imprints (12-16 tiles, each 3 sqft max) are cast in glass,
thereby mapping the demographics, traffic, and populous of a certain hub.
The glass tiles will be placed in the four corners of a room , each labeled with
the sidewalk locations, ie: 21st Street and 8th Ave. Chelsea: New York, New
York.
Video may be a part of this process. The traffic may be recorded and
manipulated to create a subsequent video piece which may become part of
the installation.
Note: The artist is most interested in creating the tiles on-the-cuff using traffic
patterns in the city of Corning, the work thereby morphing into a sort of
guerilla ‘doormat’ project.

Artist:Stine Bidstrup

Sights and Sites for Corning, New York(2009)
Glass, water (variable dimensions)

A group of organic, blown glass blobs, will be placed without particular fanfare
or explanation into a public setting. When filled with water, they reflect
the surrounding environment upside-down, and are subject to ephemeral
phenomenological experience: changing light, the season, the angle of view
and so on.
The life of the work may be short i.e. removed by public authorities
or ‘appropriated’ by passers-by (taken home by people), or, be allowed to
exist in the public realm for a longer period of time, picking up the traces
of outdoor weather, eg. microbiological processes aided by sunlight causing
growth in the water, or evaporation that leaves traces on the insides of the
glass.

Artist: Stefanie Pender

Resonance (2007)
Video Projection (1 minute 53 seconds)

A voice sings at the resonant frequency
of the glass that causes the glass to
oscillate. The inanimate becomes animate when invisible sound waves create
movement within a static glass.

Artist: Solange Ledwith

Human Glass Wrap (2007)
Performance / video

This performance uses the body, wet newspaper and hot glass. The body,
encompassed by media, words, articles, and breaking news; the stuff in
our everyday lives that assist in forming who and what we are, is dressed/
wrapped with hot glass.
Ultimately, the roles of the materials are reversed: the protective skin of
paper symbolizes the bombardment of media and the subliminal toll that it
takes on the individual and the seemingly “dangerous” material (hot glass) in
actuality imposes no threat.

Artist: Sealen Sallee

Title options: * The Finite Possibilities of One: the biography of a cup.
* A Transcontinental Glass * I’m in a Long Distance Glassblowing
Partnership (or a simpler variant) * Re:blow (2009)
Glass, digital image/video (Dimensions n.a)

This project traces the dissolution or disappearance of an object, a cup,
made over and over again using the same piece of glass, as it goes back and
forth between the two artists. Preliminary ideas to present this work include:
* A photographic biography of the cup in the form of multiple exposure
photographs, and an ctual shelf which will hold only the final cup remaining.
* A book documenting all aspects of the project
* A collector’s set of postcards featuring the glass in its various stages of
transformation. Viewers may purchase postcard sets and continue to send
our glasses in the mail to friends and loved ones.
* An installation comprising all packing materials used iin the process.
* A video made by stitching together stills of the various cups so its demise
happening in time is visible.

Artist: Samuel Geer

Dervish (date n.a)
Mixed media (4’ x 8’ x 8’)

A bicycle wheel spins horizontally at the end of a motor-driven shaft mounted
on a cart. The machien is surrounded by removable walls and floor.
Molten glass is poured over the wheel as it rotates, causing the glass to
splatter and resulting in action-paintings on the walls.
The walls are removed and glass threads - frozen along their path while
spinning on the wheel - remain.

Artist: Ryan Gothrup

title n/a(2008)
video installation

Fifteen blown and painted glass basketballs are mixed with real ones, and
shot into a basketball net in a park. Seen as video, the viewer will not be
able to distinguish between a glass ball and real basketball until the (glass)
ball breaks. The video will play on several monitors (3-9) and the action
seen via multiple camera perspectives. A glass basketball may be placed on a
basketball rack.

Artist: Robin Rogers

Portals (date n.a)
Glass, sound, electronics (variable dimensions)

Up to thirty globes are disbursed throughout the gallery in clusters of three.
Each globe contains a speaker and a led light. The speakers emit sounds,
bouncing off of the glass’s surface and the leds light up in response.
As each pod broadcats a different sound, each gathered from the everyday
lives of collaborators, thirty viewers could be simultaneously having thirty
different auditory experiences from the lives of thirty collaborators.
The piece is controlled by a PC with multiple sound cards running software
that feeds sounds to the spheres.

Artist: Peter Garfield

The Grotto of the (Self-Reflective) Futurist Duck (working title) (date n.a)
mixed media with borken mirrored glass (n.a)

The shattered remains of an earthenware duck are dispersed into space at
the extremities of bits of wire, as if suspended in motion immediately after an
explosion. The duck emerges, mock-heroically, from a shattered sunset, beak
open, emitting its silent call.
The work in interested in the beauty of “dirty” glass, glass that would normally
no longer have a function or aesthetic.

Artist: Naomi Kaly

It’s not a book (date n.a)
Glass, digital projection, audio

Projected on a translucent glass, is a video of the artist, writing an English
text in the opposite direction of convention (i.e.right to left); When mirrored,
one’s own language becomes opaque. To decipher the text, viewers
use the ’rear’ side of the glass.
Charcoal sound confronts the unmediated material world of handwriting,
with the digital, intangible, modern version. Facilitated by digital tools, the
glass becomes a virtual page emphasizing the ephemerality of language.

Artist: Min Song

untitled (2009)

An experiment into the relationship between visual perspective
and the sense of time and space, the proposed work uses
images on glass panes as filters, and mobile lighting sources such as
sunlight. Viewers may choose and alter images by layering panes
of glass and manipulating light. Based on this action
and lighting source, shadows and reflected images
will appear on the wall behind the objects.
eg. Images of the sky at one location(cityscape) at several
time intervals(sunrise, day, sunset, night…) are etched on the
surface of flat glass. The animated light source re-creates
and dislocates the scene of the cityscape (sunlight with shadow).

Artist: Michelle Coelho

Pull me, stretch me, what does it say (date n.a)
Pegboard, elastic, ink, and staples (variable dimensions)

Words, phrases and poems, collected over a period of time,
are witten with ink on stretched rubberbands.
As the rubber band returns to its unstretched
condition, the text shrinks and may not be decoded
until the process of stretching the elastic is undertaken.
The artist proposes to collect information posted on
http://howisthisglass.blogspot.com/, the blog dedicated
to this exhibition. She will transfer text
from the site onto elastic bands.

Artist: Linda Diec

title n.a (2009)
Ice, mixed media
Packets of mundane materials are embedded in a large block of ice (roughly
2’ x 2’). These packets reveal themselves as time goes by. Some release
fragrances; some are mementos from past events; some may react with the
newly melted ice. The resultant water and contents are recollected. A video
camera and Polaroid documents a step-by-step progression of events for
viewers.

Artist: Keunae Song

The way of reading a space, #304 (Date n.a)
Installation with glass, speakers, projector

In a dark space, the sound of hearing something flipping away is
the only way to perceive the moment without being able to see
it source. Soon, the viewer encounters someone’s eye balls that
appear to be looking at the object creating the sound.
The viewer might follow the movement of these eyes to get the sense
of source. When one looks at the eyeballs close
enough, one can see the reflected images of the artist flipping
a tiny glass bead in a black space.
Upon exiting the installation space, a small white camera
- as though a miscroscope- shows the viewer a tiny glass bead with
the image of a person (whose eyeballs were projected in the space)
sitting on a chair in the middle
of the space, thereby, seeing what was missed from the disorienting,
illusory experience of the installation.

Artist: Keunae Song

Title n/a
Digital Video

The artist inflates a yellow balloon slowly using her breath. As the balloon
gets bigger, its walls become transluscent and resemble a glass-like
membrane. However, unlike hot glass, the balloon pops and all of a sudden,
the artist is left with nothing.

Artist: Justin Braun

Living Language
Blood, aluminum, stainless steel, gass

Part of the Living Language series, the work is comprised of glass plates
that are sandblasted and hold the artist’s fresh blood. The plates are held
in space by machined aluminum components and hand made laboratory
equipment.

Artist: Carrie McILwain+Solange Ledwith

Shed (2006)
Digital Video

The narrative of the video is centered on a girl attempting to relax
in the bath. This is interrupted by a surrealist emergence;
the water transforms into glass and overwhelms the girl.
Shed uses video and stop animation.

Artist: Joel O'Dorisio

Gold Rush (in progress)

Artist: Joel O'Dorisio

Gold Rush (2009)
Mixed Media, video(7x6x8ft)

Three 7’ x 4’ glass panels arranged in half of a hexagonal
pattern \__/ house a small tree that has been stripped of it’s bark.
On each frosted glass panel is the rear projection of one view of a
spring stream in a snow storm : Cold water will rush toward
the viewer, past the viewer, then away from the viewer.
Gold rush is currently being produced, and supporting
media will be provided as the project develops.

Artist: Jin Won Han

Dream Space (2008-09)
Performance / act OR prints (Variable dimensions)

A work table with a flameworking torch setup is in the middle
of a small room. A person is pulling long and thin glass canes
with the torch, and hanging them in the room. The action looks
like tedious daily labor--like hanging a curtain or
laundry that being hung dry. He/she repeats the action until the room,
filled with the clear canes, looks webby and ghostly.
The person stops when there is no more space to hang canes onto.
The person is stuck in the middle of the room, calm in his/her
private space. Then, voicing the opposite desire to
destroy it, he/she crashes the web to make a way
out of the room. If performed, the process of hanging will take
about 8 hours. The video will show a part of the making process,
the moment of entrapment, and the final escape.

Artist:Helen Lee

Tumbler
2009
Video Installation

Shot from a camera attached to a blowpipe, this video installation provides an intimate perspective of the physical acts of manual tedium that comprise the practice of blowing glass. The act of "turning" a pipe is foregrounded as the primary means of counteracting gravity—an activity as fundamental as breathing in the practice of glassblowing. Viewers have the opportunity to experience the action of turning a pipe in response to the video with their own bodies, which, in turn, alters the projected image, creating an analogous feedback loop.

Artist: Carmen Montoya and Naomi Kaly

Wonderbox (2009)
Wood, ground glass,
toys (8 x 10 x 1 ft)

A large poplar box with pristine golden finish is filled
with pounds of finely ground tan glass, resembling sand.
The sandbox is presented out doors, or in the gallery space,
inviting visitors to engage with it in any way they wish,
some may look, some may touch, others may refuse
it altogether. Ambient lighting, be it sky or bulb, accentuates
the glistening quality of the material itself.
People are invited to explore this unexpected
state of glass: ‘sharp’ as soft, ‘solid’ as granular.

Exhibiting Artists: Bohyun Yoon

Boundary (2007)
Mixed media, spotlights, screen
(Each mirror 127 x 56 cm)



Two mirrors that have slight textures
(male & female nude pictures)
on the surface reflect a spotlight onto
a translucent screen between them.
The two refractions from each mirror merge at
this screen if no one obstructs the light source. (Image 1)
However, if a viewer stands and blocks the light from
one side of the mirror, the image will project only
a male on the screen; and if the viewer switches to
the opposite place, then it will project only a
female on the other side of the screen.

This work is an interaction with the viewer’s
movement in the space; a person will engage in
both looking at his reflection on the mirror
and his projected image on the screen.

Exhibiting Artists: Bill Bahmerman

The aesthetic properties of glass-gloss or matte, reflection, refraction, glazed color,
fluidity of form-are explored in the virtual world, which transcends some of the physical
limitations of glass while retaining its beauty and essense.

The digital prints exhibited are all computer generated, either by algorithmic
3d or computer paint, and involve a close study of the properties
of glass, often unnecessary in the direct experience of working
with the medium itself

Exhibiting Artists: Carmen Montoya and Naomi Kaly

Honne and Tatemae (2009)
Performance with powdered glass for digital video

A wooden bowl sits on a simple gallery pedestal. It is filled with finely
ground glass, closely resembling white powder makeup.
Lighting amplifies thereflective attributes of the glass.
Behind, on the wall a large video projection
shows a body to which powdered glass is being applied.
The glass hides the true face and conceals feelings, desires
and motives. At the conclusion of the
video loop the woman is blank, unrecognizable.
Visitors are invited to wonder at the unexpected
consistency of this glass, the vagueness of transparency
and perhaps even the fluidity of human nature.