Anyone that knows me knows I need no excuse to hightail it for the high desert, and the meta moment from the I-love-my-job department that found me considering an exhibition about the charms and symbolism and cultural ubiquity of swimming pools along the LA-Palm Springs sunny superhighway, while reclining next to my very favorite swimming pool in the world, the one at the Hacienda Hot Springs. Some of the artists in the exhibition were to be staying there as well, all of us in from LA for the occasion. Like I said, meta. Art imitating life. Crisp blue waters evoking oases. The desert oasis as a metaphor for respite from unforgiving pressures. Yes, I’ll do it, what a great idea! I love my job!

What I did not expect, but which was a terrific surprise, is that the show would more than live up to the hype, turning out to be so much more than fun-time, blue-water, bikini-clad, eye candy. The sprawling, eclectic, and ultimately quite profound exhibition provides a multiplicity of ideas to consider. No empty calories here — maybe just a guilty pleasure or two. But in fact Senior Curator Daniell Cornell has more than succeeded in branching from the thematic through-line of the swimming pool in a way that transcends the theme. By the end, viewers have considered architecture, abstraction, landscape, candid snap shot, studied portrait, lifestyles of the rich and famous from several generations of celebrities, evolving fashions, social structure, aspiration, ruination — everything you could want for a serious examination of our culture in the second half of the 20th century. No wonder it’s in the extended Pacific Standard Time family! Perfect.

Presenting opportunities for architectural aspiration and consumerist self-expression, as well as genuine pleasure, the private backyard pools, more public but still private Raquet Club and posh hotel pools, and the pretty public though ostensibly private apartment complex pools make for a pageant of sociological backdrops against which to take the measure of the world. Always at the dramatic heart of the image is the “oasis” — but this iconography contains a multitude of meanings.

A few subcategories of narrative made for what were to my mind the most emotional and insightful moments — aka the ones that made me realize I was going to have to think about this, take it all quite seriously after all, whether or not I was rocking the deck chair. David Hockney was, naturally, well-represented, but there were also artists who photographed Hockney’s pools — who photographed them because they appeared in Hockney’s paintings and drawings. For some reason, I find this idea appealing and hilarious. Maybe because it both sends up the originals with their decadence and fancy sparkles — but at the same time, it reinforces the compelling visual character that inspired Hockney to portray them in his work; and with, it turns out, extreme accuracy.

Gorgeous movie stars in bathing suits really never gets old as a subject for photography. But the frequent appearance of celebrities in the work of a number of different artists in itself diverse. The best do something more than spy, they speak to. A depiction of Jayne Mansfield being as cute as pie; a friend of Richard Gere diving into the water in a strikingly modern and near-abstract composition; and Liberace having a playful romp with a “friend” in the most amazing bathing shorts — those are my favorites of the movie stars. Oh yeah, there are also heart-breakingly adorable, naturally sexy, wet, naked pictures of Marilyn Monroe frolicking in a pool for a night swim. Those are eternal.

The classics of architectural photography, especially Modernist wizards like Julius Shulman, are well represented and as cool as they always have been. Ed Ruscha’s early mini-masterpieces “9 Swimming Pools” are blown up on the wall; but I have to say, they looked much better in the small book form in which they originally appeared. However his presence in the show was a must, as his work was at that moment signaling a generational shift to a time in art and society that courted cypher and satire, or at least irony. Other artists working around that time and into the 1970s also addressed the encroaching darkness ahead in the American economy. It was arguably most expertly documented and presaged in the work of Los Angeles photographer and photographic historian Loretta Ayeroff. Her images of abandoned pools, decaying architecture, lonely waters, bleached paint, and dry-scaping feel stolen, captured, and vernacular — like she had to trespass to get them, always on the lookout like a person with an obsession. One imagines her sneaking into the backyards of strangers or abandoned properties, camera around her neck, just in case. Her gift for stark angles, found views, telling objects, rich color, and oppressive light speak of leave-taking, furtive escapes, and the unplanned neglect of what was once a place of pleasant luxury.

This and other divergent threads of inquiry pepper the show, with a surprise around every corner. A fine selection of Bruce of LA “physique” photos (aka hot guys in tiny trunks and loose loincloths) is a popular destination, and deservedly so. The counter-culture skateboard stuff is really fresh, representing for a genre that only recently started getting the attention and respect its influence deserves — and reminding viewers that pools aren’t always pretty — and sometimes an oasis is less about water than it is about freedom.

For Immediate Release:
January 16, 2012

Create:Fixate Presents
I Art You
Ten Year Anniversary Valentine-Themed Art & Music Celebration
At Premiere Events Center in Downtown Los Angeles
Saturday, February 11, 2012

LOS ANGELES, CA – Arts organization Create:Fixate (C:F) celebrates 10 years of existence with its next exhibit I Art You on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at the Premiere Events Center in Downtown Los Angeles. C:F’s signature blend features vibrant artwork and music produced by over forty local artists, DJs, and musicians. The excitement begins at 4:00pm with a three-hour gallery preview.  The main event starts at 7:00pm and closes at 2:00am.  Admission is $15.00 before 9:00pm and $20.00 for the remainder of the night. Premiere Events Center is located at 613 Imperial St., Los Angeles, CA 90021. For more information, including an image gallery of participating artists works, please visit www.createfixate.com. C:F can be reached by phone at 310-590-7199 for other inquiries.

The evening begins with a preview of the exhibit from 4:00pm to 7:00pm. There is a $5 suggested donation during this period but kids twelve-years old and younger are allowed free entry.  Parents are encouraged to bring the whole family during the preview hours and take advantage of the Kids Kreativity Zone.  Overflowing with art supplies, the Zone provides a supervised space where youth can dive into their own expression while parents explore the exhibit.  While all ages are welcome during the preview, attendees must be 21-years old or older to enter after 7:00pm.

I Art You will be filled with Valentine-themed merriment:

• The Love Car Art Competition – a live painting face-off on a 2003 Nissan Sentra
LA’s favorite live painters take on a Nissan Sentra in an art competition like no other! Through a live drawing on the spot, each artist will be assigned a section of the car and then randomly assigned a rock song title - love ballad, of course - to paint their own interpretation of the song on the car!  They have two hours to complete their painting.  Who might the winner be?  The crowd will be called upon to express their inner art critic when their cheers are measured by our judges!  Participating live painters include some of LA favorites  – John Park, Christina Angelina, Max Neutra, and Michael Pukac.

• Valentine’s Day Card Making Station Open All Night Long – Adult Friendly!

• The Art of Romance: Singles Mingle – Guided by relationship & passion consultant Barry Selby
Barry is The Passion Consultant, and his life purpose is inspiring people to live authentic lives. The vehicle that most effectively expresses his purpose is his facilitation and guidance with singles and couples to have amazing relationships, living purposefully and authentically, and fulfilling their highest potential.  About to be released through Amazon, his new book, Rules of Romance – 50 ways to love your lover, is your answer to many questions.  Comprised of 50 powerful relationship and romance principles, it will inspire and give you food for thought and will show you how to have what you want (in relationship and romance), whether you are single or in relationship.

Create:Fixate Founder and Artistic Director Michelle Berc explains the Valentine’s Day theme… “For ten years, we’ve been loving Los Angeles with art, music, and all things creative. I Art You seemed like the perfect title to express this accomplishment of serving our mission and reaching this milestone.  And as always, I love using our event themes to inspire people to think about who they are and who they are becoming.

“I Art You focuses on appreciating the special people in our lives and how we can express our gratitude by giving a gift that is made with our very own hands. I teamed up with a dear friend, Jessica Viola, who helped write our theme, which opens up with the line “We are how we hold each other.” It continues to say “to understand another, selflessly, purely and with good intention is the fire that feeds the desire to give and to find new ways of expressing our love… True love knows the greatest joys are not in receiving as much as in giving.”  This Valentine’s Day, we want to inspire everyone to remember that some of the greatest gifts can only be felt by the heart and to touch those hearts with art!”

All participating artists along with high school students from C:F’s community partner A Place Called Home will be creating one piece of artwork that expresses the show’s theme.

As part of Create:Fixate’s community outreach efforts the organization continues to empower youth through arts education projects. For the first time C:F will join forces with A Place Called Home (APCH).  APCH is a safe haven in South Central Los Angeles where underserved youth are empowered to take ownership of the quality and direction of their lives through programs in education, arts, and well being; and are inspired to make a meaningful difference in their community and the world.

I Art You will feature the creativity of over twenty visual artists in the Optical Lounge, the evening’s visual feast, presenting a stunning array of painting, photography, multi-media, interactive installation, and performance art. Highlights include:
• Curtis Brooks, who is motivated and driven most by the materials he works with in the home improvement industry, uses sheets of acrylic and latex enamel paint skins to create paint sculptures.
• Brian Robertson bridges the terrain between abstraction and representation. One finds in his collaged paintings meticulous geometric patterning and a highly developed sense of rhythm and movement.
• Emily White works with code to explore the aesthetics of inundation. Her recent drawings exist at the threshold between control and chaos. She has exhibited, lectured and published on topics ranging from manufactured islands to the use of code in engineered textiles.

The Audio Lab, otherwise known as the music portion of the evening, completes Create:Fixate’s vision.  Highlights include:
• John Tejada – “LA’s own techno hero” – LA Weekly
• Silver Pesos – a blend of tropical bass rhythms, soulful Spanish & English female vocals, and West African guitar psychedelia
• Valida – as heard on KCRW’s The Lab, late-night Saturday’s
• Aimé – electronic artist/hip-hop beat-maker, occasionally likened to artists such as Boards of Canada, Ulrich Schnauss, Amiina and Air

Create:Fixate is an arts organization that has now completed a decade of serving the emerging art and music community of Los Angeles.  The organization is best know for its signature blend of art and music, along with thousands of art lovers and party goers in massive – and at times intimate – warehouse locations and alternative spaces on a quarterly basis.  Founder Michelle Berc curates, produces and hosts these ambitious group art shows that present creative beings from around the globe with an emphasis on the local talent of Los Angeles. The production team also includes Music Coordinator Andrea Giardina, and a core team of volunteers and dedicated advisory board members. Awe-inspiring painters, photographers, sculptors, and multi-media artists exhibit alongside an equally impressive array of Los Angeles’ finest DJs and musicians. Each event’s aural artists are poised to create a soundtrack for the night that transforms this from a simple art show into one of the city’s most anticipated art events.

Optical Lounge:

Annie Terrazzo
Annie Terrazzo has been creating mixed media portraiture for almost 10 years and has sold over 450 works of art in that time. “Detritus”, Terrazzo’s current artistic endeavor is made completely out of newspapers from around the world. Her latest series, entitled “Head Lines” will be completed  in January 2012. Her latest work, Power Lines had a very well received exhibition in Toronto, Canada in September 2011 at Communication Art Gallery And Toast Gallery. 6 out of 10 pieces sold in 3 weeks time. Other projects include “Art Is Trash”, born in 2001, which mainly focused on creating portraits made with objects found on the streets of L.A. at 3am.

Annie spends most of her down time in Los Angeles, but travels most of the year doing shows in other countries and collecting new newspapers. She is inspired by the likes of Ralph Steadman, JR, Roy Lichstenstine, strippers that don’t speak English, box tape and expensive champagne.

Art Weeks
Formerly an advertising Art Director for over 20 years, Art Weeks had always had a dream to one day quit the advertising world to become a full time artist, and in 2007 he did just that.  His work often incorporates graphic elements, patterns and precisely rendered shapes, an obvious influence from his former career.  Since then, Weeks has participated in over 60 group shows, including five solo shows, even having had the prestigious honor of being chosen to exhibit a painting at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Brian Robertson
Los Angeles based artist, Brian Robertson bridges the terrain between abstraction and representation. Within the artist’s figurative works, a convergence of disparate styles and technique combine to create a blended aesthetic. One finds in his collaged paintings meticulous geometric patterning and a highly developed sense of rhythm and movement. Robertson’s highly graphic and vibrant pieces – themselves a hybrid of processes – invoke a fusion of personal and referenced mythologies to create works of great emotional weight.

Curtis Brooks
Curtis Brooks is a southern California native and self-taught artist living in Santa Monica. A carpenter and house painter by trade, his work has evolved out of his twenty years of experience in the construction industry.  His wood sculptures and paintings, each with their own unique visible history, are inspired by and created with the left over paint, paint sticks, and scraps of wood used in his work as a home improvement contractor.

Donna Trousdale
Donna Trousdale considers herself more of a scientist than an artist – a scientist of Consciousness. She became interested in Sacred Geometry several years ago as a way to understand the fundamental structure of the Universe. Her paintings depict the Flower of Life and the Torus, which represent the underlying architecture of Conscious Vibration. It’s the geometry that naturally forms as Unity divides and expands itself. The sacred image of the Flower of Life has been found across the globe and its formation holds innumerable secrets to the mysteries of Creation. Its structure is a divine expression of L.O.V.E. – the Law of Vibrational Equilibrium. Trousdale has spent the last several years studying the dynamics of this Universal principle and has given talks around the world regarding the constant whole number solution to the Pi ratio, which was revealed to her while working with and painting this geometry.

Emily White
Emily White is an artist and architect working in Los Angeles. She graduated from Barnard College and holds a Master in Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Together with partner Lisa Little, she runs the design office LAYER. LAYER’s installations and buildings have appeared in the LA Times, Interior Design magazine, the 2010 California Design Biennial, the New Children’s Museum and the Skirball Cultural Center. White has exhibited, lectured, and published on topics ranging from manufactured islands to the aesthetics of inundation. She is currently on the faculty at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

Erik Abel
Born in Ventura County, Erik Abel is an artist inspired by the subtle dynamics of the ocean, ancient cultures, and patterns of the natural world. With over 15 years experience as a freelance designer, Abel has fused his curiosity of nature and design with his passion for surfing and the sea. Through his unique mix of acrylic paint, markers, and colored pencil, Abel’s pieces intrigue clients and collectors to explore their affinity for the environment and appreciation of visual balance. Abel’s clients include private collectors along with notable brands such as Reef, Patagonia, Billabong, and Oxbow. His work has been featured in Surfing Magazine, Fluir, Tide, Juxtapoz, PDX Magazine, Citizen LA, and Oddica.

Gus Harper
Gus Harper was born and raised in Santa Monica.  For the last eleven years he has worked full time as an artist.  His first show was at Ground Zero in Marina Del Rey and since then has shown his work in New York, Denver, New Orleans, Mexico City, and Puerto Vallarta.  His best known work is from the series, “Signs of A Benevolent Universe.”  His most recent solo show, Daydreams, the Awakening was at Gus Harper studios, which he maintains full time at 11306 Venice Blvd. (90066).  His art can be viewed at www.gusharperart.com.  The work on display at Create:Fixate is from the “Signs of Life” series.

Isabelle Alford-Lago
Originally from Santa Cruz, CA, Isabelle Alford-Lago came to Los Angeles to receive her BA from University of Southern California, and has since been working as a painter.  Her current work is distinctly defined by her Gorilla portraits, which are both oils on canvas as well as large public murals.  The Gorillas are a satirical representation of classic portraiture, using an unlikely subject to portray real human emotion and individualized presence.  Alford-Lago is now based in Venice, CA.

Jeremy Crabtree
Jeremy Crabtree’s paintings are made to evoke a comparison between the dreams when we sleep and the dreams of our waking existence. Behind the many layers of color and texture lie varying methods of communication felt collectively from moment to moment, or from space to time. He uses whatever forms of paint or plaster is convenient at the time to maintain the spontaneity felt in our daily lives. He lives and works in downtown Los Angeles.

JK Wasson
JK Wasson is a Venice-based painter and filmmaker. His current series explores the heart– it’s mechanics as a pump, it’s place within the body, it’s rhythms, it’s mood swings. He draws inspiration from his own heart’s struggle to balance order and chaos.

John Park
John Park is an artist and teacher living in Venice.  He received his training at the Rhode Island School of Design where he studied classical figure drawing, painting, sculpture and anatomy.  His current body of work is an attempt to reconcile these classical influences with the modern aesthetic of the New Contemporary Art movement.  The paintings themselves are executed in a public setting in front of an audience at the various galleries, clubs, bars and music festivals that serve as his studio.  He teaches drawing and painting at Concord Prep in Santa Monica.

Jon Measures
Jon Measures is a British artist, designer, and educator based in Los Angeles. Measures produces intriguing mixed media images depicting Los Angeles, and in particular, the East side of LA. These pieces often combine multiple views; slicing and dicing bits of the city’s rich fabric together. The images are usually digitally edited, and collaged together with painted elements. Paint is used to stylize or emphasize aspects of the photographic materials and to add texture and layering. Measures has described his approach to image making as a hybrid between painting, photography, and collage.

Kat Shoa
Kat Shoa is an artist, a world traveler, and a businesswoman. A self taught artist, she combines her art influences from late 19th century to early 20th century impressionism with her unique ink drawing style. As an art collector from around the world, she uses acrylic painting as her creative outlet. She’s a late bloomer who discovered her artistic talents in 2008 with custom portrait paintings, and quickly expanded to figurative paintings, trees, vines, and other subject matters.

In real life, she’s the Managing Director of The Directive Group, a management consulting practice providing strategic business services to companies developing products, services, and intellectual properties. She also sits on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Boys & Girls Club, a 60 year old nonprofit organization helping disadvantaged youth with education, sports, and citizenry programs. She has degrees in Computer Engineering and Executive Management.

L. Croskey
Inspired by vintage pin up art, design, and advertising, LC creates a world of imagination, a very distinct world of his own, an image that reflects a metaphor or fantasy or delusion, a false paradise. By using magazines and books ranging from vintage pin up to children’s books and numerous others, he takes these classic beauties and other collected images and places them in a modern design setting. Years of collected wrapping paper, wallpaper, scrap booking paper, and magazines are the materials LC uses to build this girl inspired world, luring you in to find out that the story might actually be saying more than what it may have initially alluded to.

LC’s art is a diary of emotions from his past and the lessons he has learned from these various, funny, sometimes dark relationships, and sometimes just good old fashioned sex.

Luis Sanchez
For his paintings, Luis Sanchez utilizes a number of mediums, including acrylic, dry pigments and stucco. His two-dimensional works are often noted for his masterful use of trompe l’oeil, leaving viewers with the impression that he has used photography, collage, or other techniques when he has only used the brush. His work seamlessly combines the past, present and the future.

Born in 1968, Sanchez lived the first ten years of his life in Mexico City with his family (a Cuban born father, a Mexican-Lebanese mother, and an older brother and sister.) He and his family immigrated to Seattle, WA in 1979.  He attended Cornish College of the Arts and the Academy of Realist Art in Seattle, WA.  In 2002 Sanchez moved to Los Angeles to pursue painting and sculpture full time. He exhibits in Los Angeles, Indiana, Chicago, Miami and New York.

Michelle Nielsen
Michelle Nielsen is a young Bolivian visual artist educated in San Francisco, Chile, and Mexico. Her oil paintings use a combination of narrative figuration and pop influence inspired by fashion and photography. Letting the canvas capture frozen moments in liquid environments filled with color and transparency, her latest work shows a different stroke of what her development as an artist can offer to the eye. Determined to stay true to her feminine sensibility, imagination, and sense of humor, Michelle’s artwork invites the spectator to enjoy the pleasure of looking.

Mike Russek
Mike Russek graduated with an MFA from Maryland Institute of Art in 2001, with a focus in sculpture. He started his own company,1028 Designs, in 2005. 1028 Designs is a custom design and fabrication facility utilizing laser tooling to create furniture, interiors and various products and solutions. Russek is also the co-owner and curator of d i a l e c t satellite gallery, a cutting edge mobile gallery which travels to special events and festivals around the country, showcasing works from established and emerging local and global talents.

Saul Escobar
An advertising creative during the day and conceptual artist at night, Sal Escobar originally from Puebla, Mexico, started his artistic expression in Mexico City doing videos and installations. In 2005 he moved to Los Angeles where he explores new techniques using recycled materials to create diverse objects. For his collection “Banderas” (Flags), he uses mixed-media to express the wear and tear of relationships and the confrontation of ideals where love is the battlefield.

Sean “Chango” Caffey
Sean Caffey came into the arts naturally with a painter for a mother and a jazz composer of a father. With a family full of artists ranging from photographers and graphic designers to fine mixed media artists, he was exposed to the raw knowledge used to create art.  At a young age, Caffey learned drawing, painting, carpentry, costume design and various forms of dance all before he entered high school.  Over the last ten years he has developed into a metal artist.  His latest permanent installation can be found at the Holy Cow night club in San Francisco where he integrated edge glowing fiber optics into his sculpture to make a dynamic lighting display over the DJ booth that pulses to life with the music.  As of late “Chango” has found perforated sheet metal to be his favorite material, the Moiré patterns from stacking the material allow for significant light and shadow play.

Sebastian Halmagean
Residing in San Diego, Sebastian Halmagean is an emerging artist whose education in art is rooted at the Watts Atelier in Encinitas, CA. His paintings can be defined as “snapshot narratives” that have a tale to tell… an asymmetric and riddled tale that is fueled by longings, nuanced by reverie, laced with a dreamy romanticism, and punctuated by a flare for elegance.

Stephanie Han
Stephanie Han emigrated to the U.S. in 1978 from Seoul, S. Korea. She obtained her MFA degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1999 and now pursues careers in painting and graphic design.  She exhibits all over Southern California and also works as an Art Director at a graphic design firm in Long Beach. She explores themes of loss and hope with her current series of abstract expressionist paintings.

Tari Karkanen (Video Projections)
- bio coming soon

Terry Hutton
Terry Hutton was born in London, England in 1960. With no formal education, apart from a long spell in Florence, Italy, and some junior college credit, he is self-taught. Undecided if this is an advantage or not, he works closely with a silent voice, many call it a natural instinct, or intuition. As a direct result of this, he is setting a new purpose, by veering away from representational work he’s known for, to peer closely into color and just sheer paint. There is nothing under the sun that has not been done before, so with this in mind, a new endeavor has evolved to let the paint sing louder then his brush.

Zig Gron
A performing musician (percussionist) born in Detroit, sound and rhythm are often integral components of Zig Gron’s films and videos, which he has been making for the past 25 years.  Fascinated with the way seemingly insignificant images can merge to form something more powerful than any individual part (the way a musical ensemble is the culmination of separate instruments), his work often results in complex visual graphics based on simple tropes, using time-honored compositional techniques such as theme and variation, repetition and counterpoint.

• Fashion / Jewelry / Crafts:

Irene LAVA Jewels
Irene LAVA jewels, a line of vintage-inspired beaded jewelry, was started by Interior Designer/Personal Shopper/Photographer Janet Grey as an antidote to a debilitating e-bay habit.  Thankfully, it worked out!  Named after her two grandmothers, Irene Jeanette Goldman and Leona Lava, each one-of-a-kind Irene LAVA creation is lovingly hand-assembled by Grey using a unique combination of vintage, czech glass, Swarovski Crystal, gemstone, rare, unusual and just simply SPECTACULAR beads from the early 20th century through current times. Gems include onyx, amethyst, labradorite, garnet, peridot, jade, aventurine and more.

Delevo Designs
After graduating from Columbia College, Deborah Vogt became a founding member of The Conjugate Projekt, Transamoeba Studios and The Chicago Art Department, participating in the creation of many collectives, multitudes of events and performance art installations throughout Chicago. She began creating her line of jewelry, Delevo designs, in the year 2000, even traveling to Bali to teach her stylized designs to the master artisans there. Upon landing in Los Angeles, she worked with several high end designers, and early in 2010 co-founded d i a l e c t gallery on 6th Street downtown. She now divides her time between curating and singing in her band, Early Bird Circus. Her jewelry is hand-crafted, elegant and simple, using fine woods, sterling silver and gold, precious and semi-precious stones and recycled materials to create universal and distinctive designs.

Luv Warrior/WittyKitty
Witty Kitty is all about fashion with flavor!  We are inspired by anything and everything Witty! Our “Kittys” also known as leather sleeves or fingerless gloves are all handmade, no two “Kittys” are a like!  Whether casually worn or dressy they complete any look! The buttery soft leather makes them so comfortable, and there is no thumb or finger cut-outs so your fingers are literally free! Our “Kittys” definitely qualify as a classic in the right wardrobe! Enjoy!

Viola Living Jewels
Jessica Viola is a botanical designer and the founder of Viola Living Jewels and Viola Gardens. For the past thirteen years, Viola has been cultivating her design portfolio and practice based on sustainability, whole-system solutions and artistic vision.  Viola Gardens was born nearly six years ago, specializing in permaculture-based botanical design, CA native plant restoration, drought-tolerant water-wise artscapes, edible gardens and organics.  Viola Gardens has worked with a large range of clients throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, both residentially and commercially.  Viola lectures on sustainable landscape design and permaculture at Santa Monica College, Venice Community Housing and Pepperdine University.  After many years of working in design, studying, stretching, exploring holistic living, traveling to South and Central America, playing music, singing, making art, creating gardens and teaching, Viola Living Jewels was born.  The collection features fashion-forward botanical jewelry; amulets of our wild essence.

Jenneration Fix
Jenneration Fix is a small company made up of two Jennifers:  two women who wanted to help the environment in their own way.  They aim to make a difference in the world by transforming rescued materials into art and supporting various non-profit organizations at the same time.  Jenneration Fix, in effect, makes a complete circle back into the community by taking potential pollutants in the world from businesses and individuals, creating fun and useful items and then donating a portion of their profits back into a wide variety of charities.  The crafty ladies use materials such as discarded fabrics and clothing pieces, leather, scrap wood, e-waste, warped vinyl records, corks, and plastic packaging to make art work, jewelry, purses and clutches, pet toys, clocks, greeting cards and other quirky and fun gifts!

(soy’-ka designs)
Natalie Sojka found her first elements of inspiration for this line at an antique shop in rural Pennsylvania. After seeing the unique blend of metal shapes and textures she was inspired to produce her current line of jewelry.  Her goal with this line is to give her clients something unique, sexy, authentic, and edgy to wear, as well as a conversation starter.  All pieces are handmade, one of a kind, and made from all recycled materials.

Audio Lab:

Silver Pesos
The Silver Pesos blend tropical bass rhythms, soulful female vocals in Spanish and English, and West African guitar psychedelia. Formed in 2009 by producer/instrumentalist Peter Brambl, singer Chloe Conger, and guitarist Robert Weber, the group’s debut album Born at Midnight features the single “Regresando,” which has created a buzz on and offline.  Currently based in Los Angeles, the Silver Pesos also feature jazz bassist John von Seggern, percussionist Jason Kadlec, drummer Krishnanda Adipurba and vocalist/keyboardist Joanna Ellis.

www.thesilverpesos.com For free download of album, enter: http://www.thesilverpesos.com/create-fixate

John Tejada (Palette)
Normally associated with his peers in techno from Detroit, Europe and elsewhere, John Tejada has embraced electronic music as a personal frontier, expanding on his formidable resume as a techno recording artist as producer and remixer, DJ, and label owner. With dozens of singles, remixes, some film and TV work, and contributions to sample CDs to his credit, this recent expansion has born a slew of tracks deeply informed by his uncompromised aesthetic honed over years of diligent production, which finds its roots in Detroit techno but references a far broader range of music, both in and outside of electronic music. His musically formative years were steeped in classical music, growing up in family of performing artists – his mother a soprano singer and his father a conductor – which then widened to include hip hop, DJing and finally, electronic music. www.paletterecordings.com

Valida (KCRW)
Dubbed by LA.com as “one of the most important figures in L.A.’s nightlife scene,” Valida’s steady rise comes from her uncanny ability to seamlessly blend a variety of music styles that include house, hip-hop, indie rock, b-more/electro, and some classic 80s, disco and pop tracks thrown in for good measure. Since purchasing her first set of turntables in 1998, Valida has straddled the music and modeling arena with skills and ease. Worldwide bookings have brought her musical eloquence to Winter Music Conference in Miami, Regine in Paris, Dragon-I in Hong Kong, Mystique in Kuala Lumpur, Budoir in Dubai, Nuphoria event in Tokyo, Candela Party in Puerto Rico, Organic Party in Mexico, Barbados and her native Bosnia.  She can be heard on air on KCRW (89.9 FM) in Los Angeles on rotating Sundays from 3:00 to 6:00am as part of their program The Lab. www.valida.com

HouseMates (Venice)
HouseMates are a DJ trio reigning from Venice Beach consisting of founders Jacob Vaynshtok & Aidan Ramos of Jacob’s List and Matt Xavier of Railyard Recordings. After a series of convivial Venice gatherings the trio continue to provide an indubitable source of thoughtful art and house music events at unique venues along LA’s westside.  http://facebook.com/housemates.venice

Mr. NumberOnederful (Cannibal Flower)
LC has been passionately spinning vinyl since 82’. Specializing in remixes, mash ups and covers. But what creates LC’s sound is the hip hop, lounge, reggae, trip hop, dance and some pop music mixed together to harmonize this DJ’s acoustic signature. A sound that has made him a vital piece of the musical group Bitter:Sweet, as featured on 89.9fm KCRW.  LC spreads his vibe and sound around to various events around LA such as, Cannibal Flower, Bacchanal,  at the Del Monte Speak Easy, L.A. Beatdown at the Henry Fonda, the Mar Vista Farmers Market every second and third Saturday of the month, and is the tour DJ for Shana Halligan formerly of Bitter:Sweet. But his creative spirit doesn’t end there. Out from behind the DJ booth, LC is a collage artist and also a co-owner and curator of Thinkspace Gallery and Cannibal Flower. If you like the vibe LC spins you can download mixes, contact, and book him at www.lcroskeyart.com

Santana (TruthSeekers Radio | KPFK)
Santana Westbrook is the host of TruthSeekers which airs Midnight-2am every Friday Night/Saturday morning on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles. The musical selections cover a wide range of genres from downtempo electronic instrumentals to soul and beyond. Santana also produces music under the aliases of BuddhaSupreme and Nexus102. The show can be heard on demand at www.truthseekersradio.org.

Aimé (Aimemusic ltd)
Los Angeles resident Fran Dominguez a.k.a. Aimé is an electronic artist/hip-hop beat-maker, occasionally likened to artists such as Boards of Canada, Ulrich Schnauss and the Icelandic band Amiina and French duo Air, for his more hybridized orchestral styles. Following the success of his first album Place Your Hands Over Your Eyes, that included accolades (Los Angeles Music Awards “Electronic Album of the Year” 2007) and diverse college and internet radio airplay, Aimé has since gone on to produce music for cable channels (Plum Television, Comcast Cable Programming), short films (“Cop” 2009) and has remixed the work of artists both mainstream (Radiohead, Minus The Bear, Gorillaz, Brian Eno & David Byrne) and underground (Pinklogik, The Dead Amps). A highly anticipated follow up album titled Times When I Know You Will Watch the Sky will be out in 2012. http://www.facebook.com/aimespace

Dj Sebiseb (SD Mixmasters)
Originally from France, DJ Sebiseb  brings European feels to her mixes. Her versatile skills on either vinyl or CDs lets her play different style of music to accommodate many different types of music lovers. She has started to incorporate her music skills into the music producing world. For more info, schedules and booking www.djsebiseb.com.

Theory Abstract (Deep funk records)
Theory Abstract is a 20 year experienced DJ coming from a strong family musical background. He has embraced many styles of music and incorporated them into his sets. He has appeared in small lounges & LA underground events to large clubs in Vegas. He has opened and performed with the likes of MAW, Osunlade, Mark Farina, Doc Martin, Nickodemos, Dj AM, MixMasterMike, Thievery Corporation, and the list goes on. He has collaborations with live bands such as the funk sensation “Kool In The Gang”, as well as the live nujazz project “Modern Groove Assembly”, with singer Sy Smith. www.mixcrate.com/theoryabstract

Charles Guilterre (Fallen Fronds)
Producer/DJ Charles Guilterre is a recent transplant from Brooklyn to LA. Best known for his Hump Wednesday parties in New York City’s East Village in the late 1990s, his electronic sound incorporates elements of lounge, experimental, electro, synthwave, heady house, and a hint of industrial, the latter heavily influenced by music from Chicago’s WaxTrax! label from the mid-1980s. He is currently concentrating his production/remixing efforts on his production team, Fallen Fronds.  http://www.facebook.com/guilterre

Christos Kedras (Kapa Music, SOAK Brasil)
Originally from Greece and based in Los Angeles, Christos Kedras is a globetrotting ambassador of music sophistication thanks to his ultra-unique music style. Kedras hand-picks the finest ingredients from all over the world: African & Latin rhythms, Disco/Funk/Soul grooves, Brazilian bossa, Jazzy brass & pianos, and dancefloor-adorned Deep House beats. He mixes these into unmatched music cocktails that caress the senses, move the body, and expand the mind. With DJ gigs in Europe, Japan, Brazil and several US cities, a radio show that airs globally, and a constant supply of high-quality productions, Christos Kedras is one of the most international Los Angelinos in the house/electronic genre! www.christoskedras.com

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For more information, images, or to request interviews, please contact Green Galactic’s Lynn Tejada at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.

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Tickets Available at the Door

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Special Thank You to our Contributing Partners!

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We are happy to announce that C:F was voted
LA Weekly “Best Art You Can Dance To – 2011″

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Please take a moment to cast a vote for
us so we can keep loving you with art and music!

As an aside, not for nothing is Lopez an expert marketing, production, and enthusiasm-raiser type of guy. The door to door service included a stop at his family’s stylish and fantastic coffee shop on Porter Street, Porter Junction Cafe, where even the iced coffee is hand-crafted and there’s a breakfast sandwich named for Elvis. So we got started on the right foot. Which was good, because I would have been lost without him from the second we got on the Freeway, and I needed the caffeine. Adventures into the unknown can be exhausting!

The Story of Sur is by definition, many things to many people — and none of it is what you might think. The idea for the name came to Lopez by way of a very non-art-world shade of cultural meme; which has to do with gang culture in our state prison system. It seems that the way incarceration works at the state level, is such that members of rival gangs often end up in close quarters. But there are different levels of “rival,” which include not only your local, back-home, day-to-day enemies, but combatants in a more epic, Northern versus Southern Cali battle that crosses generational lines. The idea being, that when confronted with a larger enemy, folks form united fronts, and nominal enemies from down the block become brethren. A temporarily more inclusive group identity is forged from fractious elements, and a common history embraced, at least on the battlefield.

So with that semiotic framework in mind (though no profound consideration of gang culture ensues) Miller and Lopex set about putting together an ambitious debut with an eye toward redefining what is meant by Latino culture in the Greater LA art continuum. In other words, to move beyond familiar tropes of Chicano painting and folk-based art to take a real look at the involvement of artists with Latino heritage in modernism, performance, politically active, and non-traditional art forms. The idea to locate the show in two college campuses and one community gallery was a meaningful one to both Miller (who teaches at Rio Hondo and runs the gallery there) and Lopez, who went to art school but, “Never saw any crazy shit like this in art class.” For him, simply providing access and exposure to an accessible avant-garde is a radical educational move. That’s why the Biennial’s buzz words are: Adaptation, Assimilation, Acculturation, and its directives are: Educate, Activate, Provocate.

The first thing you might have noticed if you were lucky enough to see the show(s) with or without benefit of a concierge and driver, is that there was no painting to speak of — a mural project, a few elements of large installations, but no just-painting paintings. Sculpture, video, installation, performance, even opera, sure. In other words, everything but painting, the logic being that’s the one thing people know about Latino art already, and the point of Sur was to take the discourse to the next level, to get beyond the stereotypes and expectations, and see the Latino art “community” and something that itself transcends community, and has its practitioners in every facet of contemporary art.

Among the most impactful of the pieces in terms of making this point, my favorite was an astonishing sculpture by Gustavo Godoy at Cerritos College, in which he demonstrated every bit of whimsy, folly, and structural complexity typically found in his room-size pieces, but in his version of miniature (meaning about the size of a dune buggy). Also at Cerritos were a huge mural by Castillo which used photography and drawing in a mammoth collage that was both similar to and entirely different from her normal 3-D and often site-specific sculptures; a video piece by Elana Mann featuring the singing of a 16th-century folk song about preserving private intellectual and spiritual freedom in the face of various types of social and economic oppression and persecution. Though not a Latin song — it’s roots are in

Europe, Persia and North Africa — it speaks directly to another kind of Sur Lopez had in mind, one which reverses the flow so as to explore the mutual mingling of experiences between and among Latinos in a global historical context, not just art, and not just in California, despite its clarified expressions here.

Also brilliant were coffin-based sculptures by Martin Durazo, photographs of himself peeing on famous museums by Ichiro Irie, both at Rio Hondo. In both cases for very different reasons, humor and genuine irreverence were paired up against institutional and art historical structures to create counterpoints of aesthetic experience that between them took into account both specific and general relationships to contemporary art, having to do with gender, race, and nationality without dealing directly with any of those things. Over at the third venue, the Bluebird Arthouse, Vidal Herrera’s low-rider coffin couch with its pink leatherette and gold-plated grotto, inspired by the artist’s perception that his culture was under-appreciated by its own heirs, ended the excursion on a high note. Across the board, a dark humor prevailed despite the deadly seriousness of the artistic practices that were examined, and I was left feeling that not only my functional definition of Latino art had been forever expanded, but so had my definition of Los Angeles as a city itself.

Create:Fixate closes out 2011 with an intimate holiday fundraiser hosted by Espacio in Santa Monica!
Join us for a festive and charitable evening as we raise funds for our 2012 nonprofit programs
for emerging artists and at-risk youth!

Click here for all the details and to purchase your tickets!

Please take a moment to cast a vote for
us so we can keep loving you with art and music!

Fabrik Magazine
Issue 14
October 2011

Create:Fixate Liberates Your Perception
By Dale Youngman

Michelle Berc is the Founder, Curator, Event Producer and Executive Director of the almost 10-year-old art and music phenomenon known as Create:Fixate. I caught up with her in-between shows to congratulate her on her success, find out what makes her events so special, and how, in these very difficult economic times, is she selling quite a bit of art!

Fabrik: You are coming up to your 10 year anniversary – Do you think the art scene has changed in that time – and how has Create:Fixate changed along with it?

Michelle: Absolutely! The LA art community is a beautiful thing, and I think over the years the artists themselves, and their energy, have been a major contribution to building up the LA art scene. We are living during interesting times, and creativity will lead us through this transition. After all, it is the creatives that think outside the box and this is what we need to move society forward. I believe Create:Fixate, along with other alike groups, are responsible for building up the energy around art in LA, and it’s because we make the exploration more festive. I’ve watched museums and several galleries start shifting their programming to include more festive events and I think this came from our influence and the other art events in LA. People are craving connection outside of their daily work lives as well as something beyond competitive activities such as sports or even sadly sitting in front of their televisions and computers. Bringing people together around art helps everyone relax more and opens up their minds and imagination. It is very inspirational and brings out appreciation for what others are creating.

Create:Fixate has evolved quite significantly over the years. To start, our productions have become much more professional since our grass root beginnings from my old downtown loft. We also have great structure in place with managing our large number of talent (which is huge when dealing with so many artists at once). Most importantly, we do projects and community outreach beyond our one-night exhibits. We’ve expanded over the years by hosting many educational workshops along with bringing art programming to high school kids and at-risk youth. One of my favorites is the incorporation of themes in our shows, which has become a regular in the last 5 years. I love using art and music as a catalyst to explore topics and ideas that are relevant to our times. I enjoy motivating people to think about who they are, who we are, and who we are becoming.  Hence our slogan “Liberate Your Perception”.

Fabrik: You always have terrific artists- how do you find them?

M: Version: Sometimes I find them and sometimes they find me, but I think more come our way through word of mouth from our participating artists and patrons throughout the years.

Fabrik: If you could give some simple advice to an emerging artist – what would that be?

M: Produce a lot of work and then edit down your selection to your strongest pieces, as well as organize your pieces into series. I think the majority of artists out there are weak in the editing process as they are emotionally connected to each piece of art and find it hard to let go of one in order to make a stronger exhibition.

Fabrik: Who is your typical CF attendee, your clientele?

M: That’s hard to identify because we attract all walks of life to our shows. Our crowd is very eclectic and I think most have a trend-setting mind, and are curious about the creative energy in our city. A typical attendee wants to know what’s new and what’s next in the LA art scene. Our largest demographic falls between 25 and 45 year-olds.

Fabrik: Is there anyone you admire in the LA Art scene, or anyone who has been a significant help to you and your cause?

M: That’s a hard one to answer… The obvious are the leaders in the current art movement over the years, as without them nothing would happen and the art scene would not be where it is today in Los Angeles.  The other obvious answer would be the Create:Fixate Board of Directors, all of whom have given a tremendous amount of support over the years. And I would love to mention art critic/writer Shana Nys Dambrot, who has supported us since the early days and now writes an ARTicle monthly series that is hosted on our website called “Urban Scrawl”.

Fabrik: Who are your key people and what do they do?

M: Andrea Graham is our music director and a bit of a co-founder as she has been by my side since day one. She curates and manages all the musical talent for each show. She is also a school teacher and helps drive our community outreach programs for teens and at-risk youth along with Janice Markham, from Vox Box Collective. As mentioned, the Create:Fixate Board of Directors are very active in decision making along with collaboration on the show themes and program development. Justin Edwards, who started off as an intern many years ago has now become my assistant producer / curator in crime and one awesome volunteer coordinator. It’s been amazing to see him grow over the years and become a driving force in helping us achieve each production. There are many more people I can mention but then we’ll have to write a book, as I have stories about how each has contributed. I may be the founder and the driving force behind Create:Fixate, but I certainly could not do this alone. I am very grateful for the amazing community around us.

Fabrik:Where do you see Create:Fixate in 5 years? What are your goals?

M: We are working hard on securing proper funding for all our programs. I would love to find us a permanent home… Perhaps a large building with a gallery, art studios, and a workshop area, where we can host classes and seminars on a consistent basis…. A place where the Create:Fixate community can interact with each other more often. I also have great ideas on redesigning our website to offer more online to the public.

Additionally, We already have quite a few gallery owners and curators that scout talent at Create:Fixate, but I would love to see more and more attend our exhibits. I still think a handful shy away from us because we combine art and music but may not realize that our format is respectful to both mediums and the environment we produce is very much a professional gallery setting that maintains an intellectual value.

Thank you Michelle Berc! I am more impressed with you than ever, and I wish you more success, more art sales, and more appreciation from the LA art scene.

LA Weekly
October 2011

Best Art You Can Dance To – 2011
Create:Fixate

The original and still the best, Create:Fixate is a bimonthly art and music showcase that’s been around for more than 10 years now, and is widely acknowledged as one of the most effective places for young/new-to-town artists to launch careers, and at the same time, for young collectors to get their feet wet. In addition to a spread of large and small curated rooms and outdoor areas of visual and performance art, you’ll find multiple areas flooded with sounds courtesy of the city’s most progressive DJ stars. It’s a nonprofit group, so audience participation benefits not only the artists and designers on offer and the walls and bodies of their collectors, but also the Create:Fixate family’s network of charitable and cultural outreach programs — making this one social experience that’s as rewarding for the civic-minded as it is for art lovers and people who like to dance with the lights on. 613 Imperial St., Downtown.; (310) 590-7199, createfixate.com.

—Shana Nys Dambrot

barmecidal: adjective: Giving only an illusion of something; unreal.
nescient: adjective: Lacking knowledge or awareness.
babel: noun: 1. A confused mixture of noises or voices. 2. A scene of noise or confusion.

So a couple of months ago, I went and saw this show at Paul Young’s gallery in the PDC. It was called <<<(((Mods & Hackers)))>>> Game Modification, Hacking, Patching Avatars and Code-based Practices within Contemporary Art, and it melted my brain and I’ve been obsessing over it ever since.

I was with my friend the artist Rick Robinson, and we were making a special trip to see the QR code stuff because of some things he’d been working on with street art and video projections. Also David Stone had just done this show at Charlie James Gallery. Ron English had been getting up to no good. Josh Levine had told me about his web show APP ATTACKS! THE QR CODE EDITION. The Cory Arcangel show was up at the Whitney.

Etc, etc. So I was prepared for nifty, but I wasn’t prepared for Paul to show me a sculpture that wasn’t really there. Daniel Franke’s “Sound Sculpture.” Is a work of art that exists in real time and in real space, but can’t be seen with the naked eye. You can only see it with a camera or computer — a digital lens that can decipher the series of large, printed QR codes that are all that adorn the walls. When you raise the screen, the piece appears. When someone walks into frame, you see them too, also right there. As you move the lens, it sees other pieces of code, and the sculptural object moves and you see other parts of it. It’s there all the time, in the same space that you’re in, but it lives in a parallel universe.

After that, I had a lot of questions for Paul about how I was supposed to deal with this insanity, and he was very generous with his time and ideas. I’m still not sure exactly how I’m going to handle this, but here are some of the more salient piece of our exchange over the weeks that followed, in which I struggle to understand, not so much the work itself, or even my personal experience of it — but rather, to understand how an evaluation of this work vis a vis my job as an art critic, was to be undertaken. As you’ll see, I’m having some trouble figuring out how to get past description and into evaluation and interpretation — in other words, I’m fine as a viewer, but I’m feeling daunted as an arbiter.

Hey Shana,
I’m sure you saw this article in the New York Times, which talks about the design show at MoMA. What is surprising to me is that this show, and the article, only focuses on how products—meaning industrial design pieces—are becoming increasingly interactive and thus, more intelligent. Yet it doesn’t talk about the revolution going on in contemporary art, where artworks can either “sense” a room or its viewers and change accordingly, or provide access to another, virtual world, which is far more radical and exciting than our own; a world full of real experiences and virtual objects.

Hey Paul,
I did see that, and I think I know why that might be the case. It’s like we started talking about it when I came to see Mods and Hackers — when it comes to design and technology, there are extant standards by which to evaluate innovations. Functionality, for example — what does it do and is it good at it? How are its look and purpose better or more modern or more delightful or sinister than whatever it is meant to replace. But when it comes to art, it’s not so easy. Like I was saying about that one piece you had — the sculpture that isn’t really there — that touched off an existential critic-crisis for me, because, you know, how the heck am I supposed to evaluate it, do my job as a critic, etc. without access to precedent or influence and without any familiarity with its materials. Should I go by sculpture standards, or video, or what!

I mean, is it generational? I’m nearly 40, and I’m tempted to just let it make me feel old and move on. But then again, I don’t know how to mix paint but I feel confident discussing paintings. So mere unfamiliarity with and/or fear of the unknown doesn’t fully explain it. I think it’s a challenge to my training in art history because it is without precedent in some sense. Do I judge that particular piece in the context of sculpture? Video? Performance? Drawing? Animation? If I’m reduced to mere description, I feel thwarted and irrelevant. If I try to force the work into an ill-fitting context, I deny its pioneering essence and do everyone a great disservice.

Hey Shana,
In terms of coaxing people to understand it, I’m constantly confronted by that problem! Those who have spent their lives learning about, and understanding, painting, sculpture and even installation, can have a lot of trouble understanding “new media” art. To them it’s utterly alien. Similarly, those who only know moving imagery through the movies or television, can also have difficulty in understanding it as well. For both I like to explain to them that the main thing is to look at it as an object. That’s all. It’s a thing that sits in a room or hangs on a wall. It just happens to be moving. Once you see it as a thing, or an object, you can come at it with the same conditions, values and prerequisites that you have for virtually any artwork.

Daniel Franke (who made that piece that wasn’t there) has devoted his entire practice to this notion of the “Post Simulation”, which is a term that Peter Weibel coined to describe our current age. What that means is that art has always been about a simulation of some kind, whether it’s the simulation of nature or an internal experience. And that simulation is the object—whether it’s a painting, book or movie. But with Post Simulation we can have “virtual objects” which do not exist in our world at all. At least not in our perception. But they can be experienced nevertheless.

Thanks Paul,
That actually made me feel a little better. Having a capitalized movement to refer to like “Post-Simulation” is just how I like it. But I’m still stuck on this idea of how to handle it as an art critic? How do I know if it’s bad, or if I’m the one that doesn’t get it? I don’t want to be the equivalent of the people who threw Impressionism on the garbage heap, I learned that lesson from Art History, too. I want to be on the right side of this. I don’t want to be too credulous or too skeptical. My job entails both teaching and learning.

Hey Shana,
I myself, have come to terms with some of these ideas by putting together <<<(((Mods&Hackers)))>>>. This new language of course, has to do with digital technologies, and specifically the Internet. I don’t think it’s overstating the case at all to suggest that the Internet may be the most profound change in our culture since the invention of the printing press. People are now saying that Second Life is the future of the web, and I believe that. I promise you, there will be a Duchamp of Second Life. So, as critics, artists and lovers of art, shouldn’t we be looking to the same area for artistic ideas? Duchamp asked, Can one make art that is not art? And of course, that has been the guiding principle for artists for nearly a century. Yet here we have artists who are either making works of art that do not exist in material form at all, or exist everywhere at once (on the web) for everyone to see simultaneously.

Yo Paul,
It’s so funny I’ve thought about that forever but maybe in a different way — thanks for sparking this memory — but in reading my Walter Benjamin I remembered all this business about the maker’s hand and the aura of the original. Now, whatever position one takes on those old-timey philosophies, we can no longer be certain that the idea of an original even retains its meaning. If something exists only online, then everyone’s laptop is an original — as distinct from an open edition which is still finite. Or are only the master hard-drives at the artist’s studio the original? Or am I the only one that cares about this kind of thing any more? Are questions like that themselves as obsolete as floppy disks?

In other news, I just got this press release: “Marco Brambilla, will screen his latest piece Evolution (Megaplex), a 3D video collage at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on September 9. This momentous event marks the first time, since the festival’s inception, that video art has been included as an “Official Selection.”

Are you stoked?

Shana! Hell yeah!! And I just heard about something that confirms my belief that the artists who are exploring new media are dealing with the most relevant questions of our age, and hence, in my mind, are the most “contemporary” of any of their peers. I just heard that you can now go to Google Street View (where you “walk” around any street in the world) and insert the avatar of your liking. More to the point, you can meet other avatars there and interact with them. Can you imagine? You can actually go to Berlin by logging in, where you can join your friends, shop, have coffee, talk, go dancing, whatever! I heard that this is still in the Beta stage, but the point is, it’s here!

Paul my dear,
Now I’m officially freaked out.