PLEASE FORGET (EVERYTHING)

 PLEASE FORGET (EVERYTHING) … forgot to update my news feed … what a fantastic fall its been with the exhibitions in San Francisco and Kyoto being so well received. I’ll get to catching up over the Christmas Holidays. In the mean time, THANK YOU to absolutely everyone who has contributed and supported — this has been an enormously collaborative project. Thank You also to SETI Institute, OpenAI and Amano Company for your support. Imagine that the idea for a soon to be sentient parking meter placed in a Zen Garden could gain so much traction and enthusiasm. WOW.

Edge of Ai / Enlightenment

Debut Podcast on Edge of Ai. Beginning to speak publicly about the process driving what will be fall 2024 exhibitions at Heron Arts in San Francisco and Ryosoku-in Zen Temple in Kyoto. Feels wonderful to be emerging from the relative introversion and soul searching of the pandemic to share my findings. Thank You Eathan Janney and Jenny del Carmen for the invitation and for your superb interviewing / editing job. Thanks also to Djerassi Artists Residency, Dale Djerassi and Steve Michelson for hosting and videography. The Edge of Ai podcast is available on most streaming services.

Rock Art Expedition 2023 (10,000 Year Dream.)

Excited to be planning for three weeks in Santa Teresa Canyon and neighboring areas for part two of the 10,000 Year Dream / Baja project. February 2023. Received an anonymous grant of $10,000 to aid production of the work. Intending to 3D scan petroglyphs and expand upon the audio recording component of the vision. Looking forward to several special friends joining the expedition. An installation in progress.

Kyoto University of Art / Global Art Talk

How to Photograph Enlightenment (Pause translation) lecture tonight = Saturday morning Japan time. Kyoto University of the Arts / Ryosoku-in Zen Buddhist Temple. Psyched to move projects forward, even if remotely. Concept + ambition of the work(s) has grown to merge installation / AR / gamification / photogrammetry … with time travel and machine poetry thrown in for good measure. So looking forward to returning to Japan to study with Vice Abbott Toryo Ito. Shout out to all the friends and colleagues who I admire and so appreciate. ありがとう、2022年初頭にお会いしましょう

SE VENDE / One Bitcoin

SE VENDE series first collector Dean Putney with ‘Perfect Day.’ One Bitcoin exchanged. 05.31.2021 Excited and Grateful. Dean is a founder at Glowforge — an amazing success story — was at the factory in Mexico, came for a studio visit, saw the connection between my explorations, crypto-currencies, ideas about truth, ownership and Art. SE VENDE part one includes seven aluminum pieces at 6 feet tall and 14 smaller sketches at 24” square. Entirely hand made. Aluminum sculptures on a flat plane. Unlike much of my recent work these have no sensors, no electricity is required. They respond wonderfully to the crisp Baja light and are unaffected by UV. Proceeds from SE VENDE will underwrite the coming installation in Kyoto and upgrades to the studio. Looking forward to welcoming colleagues and friends in years to come. More on that soon. It’s happening.

Many Changes

News. Over a Year without an entry, but not for lack of explosive creativity and marvelous changes. Departed Japan in order to sell the New York studio, to return to work in Kyoto. But Japan has remained covid-closed so I traveled to Baja in December. Two weeks at Chip Conley’s Modern Elder Academy in El Pescadero on the Pacific Ocean led to understanding what an amazing community is aggregating there. Raw, sophisticated, and booming. Acted quickly. Purchased a former yoga studio called ‘Baja Zen.’ Needs work. Began a totally new body of artworks called ‘Se Vende’ merging ideas about ownership, capitalism, artifacts and ‘truth’ with the prospect of real estate on Mars — everything in Baja is for sale. Making things with my hands. Crypto is the rage. The cactus have been blooming.

COVID - 19 Kyoto Chapter

was transiting in Tokyo en route to China for University / Museum meetings when corona dung hit the fan. Decided to weather the storm in Kyoto. An amazing chapter has begun, with a completely new installation / book project well underway and an exciting job offer in process. May well live here a few years. More on that in due course. The entire arc of the sakura bloom has been a thrill to witness, with near zero tourism, streets quiet, temples serene. I’m staying on the second floor of a charming 100 year old house. Purchased a bicycle. Photographing and field recording like a demon, much of it at night. The 10th anniversary SETI AIR celebration and announcements originally scheduled for May have been moved to the fall. Instagram serves as my public journal. Very best wishes to you wherever you are.

DARK FUTURES SF / LASER / SETI AIR

An exciting week: just back from installing FIELD STATION 4 at the Beach Museum (KSU) followed by a LASER lecture at USF with Piero Scaruffi. Presenting ‘Remembering the Future’ tomorrow at DARK FUTURES event in San Francisco, and then naming three new SETI Artists and a new advisor on Thursday, November 21st. RECIPES FOR THE MIND is now available from MIT Press, AMAZON, and independent book sellers.

Recipes for the Mind - has arrived -

Advance Copies arrived yesterday afternoon by air freight. So Grateful for a strong collaboration with Terra Nova publishing teamDavid Rothenberg, Martin Pedanik, John P. O’Grady, Katrin Nielsen, Tallinn Book Printers in Estonia and of course our project’s generous Kickstarter supporters. Thank You All. The design choices of paper, varnishes, binding - all those traits quality books made by masters can excel at - conspired to make a book to be proud of. Something to hold. Check out those golden end papers, a nod to Shinto / Buddhist publications. Harvest season !! Taking the autobiographical fruit to markets and minds. 👽🙏🏻🌪first print run 1800 books💥@recipes_for_the_mind podcast narration / field recordings and ramblings in process. Kickstarter books and rewards ship in Oct./Nov.

Recipes for the Mind - Kickstarter Rewards -

Welcome !! Following are some of the higher end and special rewards for supporting this project.  I am selling my upstate New York studio of twenty years in order to move west, to be fully present at the SETI Institute. As such I am offering favorite personal pieces at near production cost. If you have seen something in a gallery or museum show that you might like please feel free to inquire. Your help is vital and incredibly appreciated. All proceeds go towards the book - which I am very excited about. You may sign up for these items and/or contribute to the Kickstarter campaign to publish Recipes for the Mind (click title for link to the artworks.)

1. CARBON black and white, Dennos Museum, Michigan (2009.) 47”x86” framed 1/5. $6500

2. CARBON color, unique. Center for Photography at Woodstock (2013.) 47”x86" framed $6500

3. CARBON black and white, “Edge of Vision” traveling show (Aperture, 2009.) 65”x47" framed 1/5. $6500

8. Field Station ‘Astro-Chimp’ on copper (2) $300

10. Field Station ‘Astro-Chimp’ on copper (4) $300

Kickstarter campaign link here

MIT Media Lab - BEYOND THE CRADLE - 2019

Beyond the Cradle: Envisioning a New Space Age @mitmedialab an inspiring three day conference merging technologists, astronauts, explorers, artists. Installed 3 pieces from Mining the Moon / FIELD STATION. ‘transient suppressor’ and ‘reforestation module’ showed for the first time. ‘wormhole generator’ was the new and improved version. Thank you Joi Ito, Sam Ting, Ariel Ekblaw, Xin Liu, Maggie Coblentz, Sands Fish, Tomas Saraceno, Daisy Ginsberg, Laurie Anderson, Jana Levin, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, JJ Hastings, Scott Kildall, Lisa Randall, Gershon Dublon, Adam Haar Horowitz - the Astronauts - and many more individuals for your enthusiasm, efforts and conversations. A most impressive facility and gathering.

Humpback Whales / Templeton World Charity Foundation

The study of animal communication challenges our ideas of intelligence and informs our search for life in the universe. Among the most fascinating of vocalizations are the songs and sounds of humpback whales. By studying these loquacious creatures, Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute aims to uncover the vast wellsprings of communications that exist throughout Planet Earth-and beyond.

Wonderful News. Dr. Laurance Doyle is the scientist I worked with on what became the first SETI AIR program artist / scientist relationship and subsequent installation: 'CODE HUMPBACK.’ Laurance, Fred Sharpe, and the team they are collaborating with recently received a Templeton World Charity Foundation grant to research the Humpback communications further, with an eye / ear toward communicating with ET. I’m hoping to be in Alaska with them next year during the research. Congratulations Laurance and Fred and lovers of all non-human intelligence.

The installation ‘Code Humpback’ debuted at the Bolinas Museum and is shown here (minute 1:30 - 2:10) in the FIELD STATION at MassMoCA : https://vimeo.com/201955953  

Time: the Shape of the Simulation

“Time: the Shape of the Simulation” Chinese Academy of Art Lecture for the New Media Department under direction of the excellent and generous artist and friend Wu JuHei. Over capacity audience, highly receptive, excellent Q+A session afterwards. Beautiful city too.

Future Folding / Wind Tunnel V 2.0 - Suzhou

Cha-Su are excited to be showing “Wind Tunnel: the Hongshan Experiment V 2.0” in the “Future Folding” exhibition at the Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum opening September 15, 2018. This in conjunction with the Beijing Today Art Museum’s “Future of Today” series. Includes an all new seven point sound work, in lieu of the seven custom industrial fans of the first iteration. Many familiar faces, excellent artists, curators. After the opening I get a couple days to explore and time travel in the fabled “Garden City” before heading to Guangzhou and Xian for lectures, field recording, gluttonous palette and mind expansion.

Xcelerator Show. Beijing Times Art Museum.

This is the first full museum show that Shaoyu Su and I have curated, including concept, titling, artist choice and installation management. Incredible line up. Great space. Psyched.

08.12 through 10.14.2018

Xcelerator harnesses the field of ‘New Media Art’ to simulate the explosive creation of worlds following the Big Bang. High energy particle physics, and the massively powerful machines made for this science, serve as metaphors. The Museum has been converted into a dynamic arena where 10 works, by ten different artists and artist collectives, collide with each other. Artists and scientists have long been world builders, accelerating cultural evolution. Here, the audience plays the role of protons in motion, charging the museum space to amplify the relational perception of the art. 

Xcelerator is a newly conceived exhibition-experiment, an on-going ‘research project’ that combines and energizes the museum, curators, artists and their audience in new ways. Xcelerator is iterative and dynamic. Every component provides a vital contribution to the whole. Each question answered leads to new questions, each experience begets the next. 

SONAR 25th Anniversary +D Lecture + Barcelona

Excited to be attending SONAR and SONAR +D. Amazing line-up.

https://sonar.es/en/2018

FIELD STATION V3. Akron Museum of Art Synapse lecture

Today Art Museum /Beijing / Wind Tunnel debut

Making our own weather !! Wind Tunnel: the Hongshan Experiment (installation) is the result of a dramatically rewarding collaboration with Chinese artist Shaoyu Su. The equipment was all fabricated and programmed in Tianjin at his Father's factory. This ambitious installation is now live, in the Today Art Museum wide .zip exhibition - which is a very strong show with excellent artists. Hello China !!

GARAGE INVENTORS / Hosfelt Gallery opening May 6, 2017

http://www.hosfeltgallery.com/index.php?p=exhibitions&id=318

Garage Inventors features a 30-year span of work by artists who exemplify the ethos of Silicon Valley in the form of the genius “garage” inventor.  Many of these artists have deep roots in the Bay Area, and they all channel a streak of “mad scientist” to experiment, discover, and innovate.  Yet their works are more than high-tech marvels.  Each of these artists harnesses their esoteric skills and knowledge to delve into existential conundrums and to explore the metaphysics of emotion, perception and consciousness.