Bad at Sports » john cage http://badatsports.com Contemporay art talk without the ego Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:49:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Tuesday’s Video Pick | Variations V http://badatsports.com/2009/tuesdays-video-pick-variations-v/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://badatsports.com/2009/tuesdays-video-pick-variations-v/#comments Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:36:06 +0000 Meg Onli http://badatsports.com/?p=10197

This past weekend the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago hosted a three night performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. For this week’s pick we check out Cunningham’s collaboration with John Cage, Stan VanDerBeek, and Nam June Paik entitled Variations V.

Via Media Art Net:
“John Cage made «Variations V» in 1965 for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He and David Tudor settled on two systems for the sound to be affected by movement. For the first, Billy Klüver and his colleagues set up a system of directional photocells aimed at the stage lights, so that the dancers triggered sounds as they cut the light beams with their movements. A second system used a series of antennas. When a dancer came within four feet of an antenna a sound would result. Ten photocells were wired to activate tape-recorders and short-wave radios. Cecil Coker designed a control circuit, which was built by my assistant Witt Wittnebert. Film footage by Stan VanDerBeek and Nam June Paik’s manipulated television images were projected on screens behind the dancers.”

For more information on Variations V check out Media Art Net.

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]]> http://badatsports.com/2009/tuesdays-video-pick-variations-v/feed/ 0 In lieu of a review of ‘Several Silences’ at The Renaissance Society… http://badatsports.com/2009/in-lieu-of-a-review-of-several-silences-at-the-renaissance-society/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://badatsports.com/2009/in-lieu-of-a-review-of-several-silences-at-the-renaissance-society/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:57:26 +0000 Claudine Isé http://badatsports.com/?p=4959 …I’ll ask you to try this instead:

Go to your iTunes. Create a ringtone for John Cage’s 4’33″ (if you don’t want to spend money for it on iTunes, you can find a free ringtone for 4’33″ here).

Install that ringtone on your cell phone, and assign it to one of your frequent contacts. Keep it this way for at least a week (no cheating!).

That’s it.

The Hamza Walker-curated group show “Several Silences” closes this weekend at The Renaissance Society, so if you still want to catch it, best get there soon.

Installation view, "Several Silences" at The Renaissance Society

Installation view, "Several Silences" at The Renaissance Society

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]]> http://badatsports.com/2009/in-lieu-of-a-review-of-several-silences-at-the-renaissance-society/feed/ 0 Friday Clip Show http://badatsports.com/2009/friday-clip-show/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://badatsports.com/2009/friday-clip-show/#comments Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:08:17 +0000 Claudine Isé http://badatsports.com/?p=2346 Are re-blogged links the blogger’s version of the sitcom flashback episode? Uh, maybe, but in any case, here’s a partial and purely subjective roundup of the past week in art, culture, etc. in Chicago and beyond, via a whole mess o’ handy links, of course….

*Artists selected for the 53rd Annual Venice Biennale have been announced; find the list here.

*New City art editor Jason Foumberg has a nice recap along with some thoughtful analysis of last week’s “The Invisible Artist: Creators from Chicago’s Southside” panel discussion at the School of the Art Institute. UPDATE 4/4: There is some very interesting, enlightening, and pretty damn sharp back-and-forth going on in the comments section of this article by panel participants and others who strongly disagree with (or have misunderstood) Foumberg’s assessment of the panel and the issues it addressed.

*The mass firings of adjunct fine art faculty at Parsons The New School for Design: blogger Hrag Vartanian’s coverage has been some of the most thorough thus far. Check out his posts here, here and here as a start.

*Time Out Chicago writer Lauren Weinberg has a piece this week on the ways in which Musuems in Chicago and elsewhere are using social media.

*Big yawn: on the Twitter front, an update on @platea’s Twitter happening I blogged about a few weeks ago. UPDATE 4/4: NewCity reported on what happened during the Twitter Island project discussed in that same blog post, here.

*A huge Pose slideshow available on The World’s Best Ever.

*Tyler Green of Modern Art Notes provides an excellent, two-part summary of a rare Robert Frank public talk this week with National Gallery of Art curator Sarah Greenough; part one and two.

*Via C-Monster: The Architecture of the Drug Trade. A fascinating look at  the landscape of weed and the architecture of the grow house. Especially loved the comparison of the latter to Max’s bedroom in Where the Wild Things Are.

*Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City writes for The L Magazine on why Jenny Holzer is not the patron saint of Twitter in her review of Holzer’s Protect Protect Project, which originated at the MCA and is now at The Whitney.

*Via ArchitectureChicago: iTunes offering free download of the first movement of John Cage’s 4’33″.

* Get your art on at Chicago Artist’s Resource (CAR)’s Creative Chicago Expo tomorrow (Saturday) from 10-4. Workshops and Consult-a-thons galore for individuals and arts organizations.

*And finally, the hermeneutics of “pin diplomacy”: via Artnet Magazine, Madeleine Albright’s pin collection to be shown at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York.  Pins weren’t mere jewelry for Albright, they added a subtle layer to her diplomatic efforts.  She wore a bee pin when talks were getting pointed, a balloon pin when she felt hopeful, and a snake pin after Sadaam Hussein’s people called her a serpent. I’m so there!

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