Ice Lens Photography by Matthew Wheeler
Matthew Wheeler took his first picture through an ice lens in response to a challenge by Scientific American and CBC calling on listeners to light a fire with a lens made entirely of ice.
Too easy by far – Matthew took it one step farther and started photographing the natural beauty of his surroundings through the ice lenses he made.
From Metafilter, a dense collection of great links (including video and audio) related to the great experimental animator and sculptor:
Len Lye: New Zealander Len Lye was a restless maverick – a pioneer of films without cameras (drawing directly onto the celluloid) and kinetic art (CD available through Atoll, sound samples here and here), and he was also quite handy with poems and inks. More about his Windwand and recently installed Waterwhirler on Flickr. Coralised open directory of short Waterwhirler movies here.
Get ye to The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick, scans of Crumb’s interpretation of PKD’s life-changing experience in March, 1974. It was originally published in Weirdo no. 17 (summer, 1986).
(If you consider yourself a fan of PKD and don’t know what the hell this “life changing event” thing is, then you really need to check this out, at least as a starting point.)
Tip o’ the hat to Hell’s Donut House.
Last week, NYC resident and Chicago expat Brendan deVallance held the Grand Opening of his new gallery, LMNOP…located in his cubicle at work.
I remember Brendan from the late ’80s when was an extremely active performance artist (more than 200 performances over about 10 years). And from my perch as tech director at Club Lower Links, where we hosted lots of performance art (among other things), he was definitely one of the very best in town — right up there with Julie Laffin, Cheryl Trykv, and a few others. He had a totally off-kilter, surreal, homemade, and usually side-splittingly funny aesthetic that often reminded me of a hyperactive kid in some small midwest town huffing spray paint, putting on shows in the back yard, and occasionally entering brief fugue states. Brilliant stuff.
Sadly for us Chicagoans, Brendan moved to NYC ca. 1994 and soon after that abandoned performance art. He did continue to keep busy though, producing some fine visual art and posters, starting a new band (Dead Gwynne), publishing Scraping Chunks from the Roof of My Skull (a magazine in trading card format), collecting discarded vacuum cleaners and now beginning his career as hip gallery owner.
One of my cherished possessions is a copy of a live recording by his group Misery Love Company from the second Battle of the Bad Bands at Lower Links, of which they were the reigning champions (tho I think that time they lost to Jerry and The Loogs). Memorable songs include “Stupid I Go,” “If My Brain Could Take It All In,” and the best version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” ever performed. Seriously.
(Man, what a great evening that Battle of the Bad Bands was. The emcee was the [thankfully] inimmitable DJ Lebowitz, a lunatic pianist who regaled us with “I Don’t Wanna Go to Bed Yet, Mommy,” a 20 minute version of his hit “Smoke, Suffer, and Die,” and a lovely rendition of “Holiday in Cambodia.” The whole show culminated with everyone chanting “Less! Less!” and piling all of the furniture in the club onto the tiny stage. Good times, good times…)
Hey hey! Ballard boasts what sounds to be a kick-butt new bookstore: Art Books Press. They say the shop “features both new and out-of-print art books with a specialty in contemporary monographs, ethnic art and one-of-a-kind artist books. Special order service available.” For out-of-towners (or the merely lazy), they also sell stuff online.
This is great news. Ballard certainly needs more bookstores, and every town would benefit from a shop like this. Also, I work near there, which means I have yet another convenient money hole for my bibliomania!
To give your eyeballs a real good time, visit the cabinodd web site. Mmmm…aaart…
UBUWEB — god’s gift to art freakazoids like me — is back online after a catastrophic loss of pert’ near everything back in late December due to some sort of server snafu (possibly hack related?).
This was especially discouraging to all concerned since the mighty UBU had only just finished the herculean task of migrating its massive (and ENTIRELY FREE!) online holdings from the University of Pennsylvania (whose network was apparently groaning under the load) to servers provided by WFMU-FM in New York (whose virtues I’ve extolled here previously). WFMU’s online presence took a hit during the same incident as well.
At the time of the unfortunate event, a notice was posted on the front page of UBUWEB indicating they were looking for a new home. But by all appearances, the fences have been mended and all is (I hope) well. Meanwhile, the WFMU blog made the fine gesture of posting a summary of recent additions to UBUWEB, which include audio and video selections from the likes of Adolf Wölfli (!), Antony Balch (with William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin), Maya Deren (her entire voodoo film, Divine Horsemen!), Derek Bailey, Eric Satie, a PDF of Gene Youngblood’s seminal book Expanded Cinema, and many other mind-expanding offerings equally deserving of your immediate attention.