Prodigal Son Returns

Shocking of shocks, here I am back blogging after a seven month absence. My apologies to all two of you dedicated readers of the blog (thanks Mom). So why the delay, and what's up?

First, I am relocating - within the next month I shall be unemployed and on my way to Harrisburg, PA. Why? Wife got a great job, have to follow. So I'm back searching for new employment opportunities, a new house, and a new place to get coffee - I'll miss you, Stauf's!

I'm also in the initial phase of starting a new art project. As it stands, I'm trying to attract three or four collaborators to make some small art movies. Yeah, I know, that's a big step from a recovering lithographer. But here's where the idea is coming from:

1. William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. I liked Mr. Gibson's initial books, but have felt that as he progressed, his characters and ideas seemed less and less, I don't know, engaging. Well not anymore - Pattern Recognition marked a great departure from his former books in terms of themes, characters, and quality. I was quite taken by them. And one of the interesting ideas he came up with was "The Footage" - a series of film still released anonymously and silently on the web by a mysterious creator which then becomes a viral sensation. I loved the idea of it in general, and his descriptions of each individual "section" of the footage was hypnotic. Big surprise that this stuck in my head...
2. Podcasting. I am now hooked on podcasting. Radio on demand, subject matter on demand, quietly living on my iPod till I'm ready to consume. And now, the advent of video Podcasting makes the possibility of IPTV real for the mass audience. Now, what interests me specifically is that with a server and some bandwidth, you can start distributing anything to the public. For me, that means I could make artistic "things" without the need for galleries, frames, schmoozing at receptions, and all the other business that goes with being a traditional artist. Just like a blog, publish and see what happens. (Okay, with this blog, it's publish and see nothing happen, but that's as much my fault as any!)
3. Artistic Dissatisfaction. Ever since graduating, I've wondered about the role of traditional art in today's culture. As I've spoken before, just over a hundred years ago, exhibitions by the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, and Dadists could create protests or riots in the Paris streets. Now when is the last time you've seen a riot outside a gallery or art museum. The whole visual medium has been made a commodity, something to be bought or invested in, and thus removed from the popular culture. Now TV, Movies, and the Internet get one's blood boiling. This is why I've strayed into Digital Collage work. This is why I've experimented with this blog. And this is why the idea of making visual "tone poems" or short films interests me. It's today's language, not the language of "accepted" mediums.

So, look to some more news in the future. We're looking at both trying to create films and to create alternate commentaries of existing, influential films - a verbal way for all the collaborators to share ideas with each other and the public in general. Wish us luck!