Rian Kerrane‘s piece, Velvet Letters, covers two walls with an evolving tangle of letters/words that wrestles with red-flocked circles and leafy shapes. Visitors add their own significant words and phrases to a rolling list, and the new thoughts and sounds get composed and installed as the run of the show continues. Labor intensive interactive installation. If all of Letterkenny gets a word or two in, the wall will be a highly-figured near-black with the texture of text and its intersections. There’s still some space, so bring your words.

My short movie looks great on a framed monitor lent by the Letterkenny Arts Centre. (See this previous post for an even-more-abstracted variant of what’s being shown.)  The show is open to view right now. A wide range of people have come through and are amazed, puzzled, charmed, or caught off guard by Letterkenny’s most peculiar currently-showing movie. Everyone I run into seems to have something to say, which can’t be bad, and most seem to be productively befuddled, which is perhaps how the human mind evolves. It’s how mine does. I like this writhing flick. Hope you do. Stop by the opening and talk to us, and to the exhibition’s adventurous curator, Seamus Quinn (pictured).

In Odin/Odeon, Eric Waldemar takes a maximalist approach to a small installation space, assembling a piece of “visual chamber music” that combines an intricate arrangement of monoprints with tiny abstract video work. In ancient Greece, an Odeon was a type of small theater, designed for more intimate productions. The Norse god Odin, as the tale goes, hung upside down from the World Tree for nine days until vision and knowledge arose in his mind. In Waldemar’s studio, imagery is invited, awaited, then shaped as it emerges. In an art world that favors shrewd, spare concept and wry sampling, he persists in affirming the mysteries and depths of an open, exploratory work process that hangs between picture and nameless form.

A few more items for the RMCAD show in September. It’s been a busy few weeks – just back from California, off soon to Missoula, MT for an iron pour, with the end of the semester a little more than a week away. There’s also an exhibition coming up in Ireland in a few months, with a video piece from me and a lettery installation by Rian. ArtWorks in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, starting in late July. One recent surprise was an impromptu outing to see Jonsi with Carl at the Paramount. Keening, moaning, thundering Icelandic “post-rock” amidst a hyperintelligent, geeky, absolutely devoted crowd. Sheets of sound raining down like Ragnarok amidst grim, entrancing and/or silly animated projections. Teaching class the next day was a bit dreamy, with heavy eyelids, but I fooled ‘em, I think. My own music and sound projects are moving slowly along, but I’m mostly accumulating fragments. I know, I know – the desire to make something whole dates me, and it’s all about fragments in this metaposthistoricalprotoneodada environment, but I still plug along with my quaint 20th century notions in my post-solitary bailiwick. Working on a number of things. I just spent a few minutes helping set up Michelle Ellsworth’s show at MCA Denver and had another look at Bill Stockman’s drawings while I was there. More to say about that, I think. For now, though, back to work, with tomorrow’s class to prep for.

Over 1600 images on 111 sheets. This “block” is threaded through in a variety of ways to create three distinct pieces of animated visual music. This installation, which includes both video and still images, will appear as the centerpiece of “Time & Attention,” opening at Ironton on October 23rd. Esoteric secrets of abstract animation will be laid bare. Related drawings, prints, and cinema will also appear. Movie bits will appear on this site as the show approaches. Contact me to make sure you’re kept informed.