e4c, 4Culture’s storefront gallery for electronic art is proud to present two media works by Longhouse Media.

Unreserved, is an intimate profile of Pacific Northwest artist and activist, Louie Gong (Nooksack, Squamish, Chinese, French and Scottish). In this documentary, Gong speaks about his artwork, a blend of Coast Salish with Vans, a popular skateboard shoe.  Raised in a rural farmhouse in Canada before moving to live on a small reservation in Washington, Gong grew interested in identity and “walking in multiple worlds.” Longhouse Media captures his fascinating story about how he developed this hip, contemporary artwork, which honors his Native roots.

Also featured, Two Worlds – Inside Out, is an intergenerational production made by mentors from Longhouse Media and youth from SuperFly 2010. Two Worlds – Inside Out shows young people slowing disclosing their identities  -  both contemporary and traditional. Young people use poetry, dance, music and sport to share their challenge of living in two worlds.

The vision of Longhouse Media, is to serve as an indigenous media arts organization that nurtures the expression and development of Native artists, drawing from traditional and modern forms of storytelling, cultural identity, teaching and inquiry, based in the technologies of today.

Photo © 2010 Longhouse Media, Unreserved (Louie Gong), Video (still).
Courtesy of Longhouse Media

Click here to view the embedded video.

In early August, a peer-selection panel chose 16 artists/artist teams from a highly competitive pool of applicants. From stop-motion animation to a narrative exploration of the Puget Sound by canoe, selected works represent a diverse sampling of electronic media. Projects will be presented as soon they have been adapted to meet technical requirements of the site, as early as October 7, 2010.

To date, 23 artist/artist teams have presented or are presenting from 1-5 media artworks on e4c. In addition, e4c has been included in Digital Fringe, an international animation festival based out of Melbourne, Australia. e4c was the only US venue in 2009.

SELECTED ARTISTS:

Julie Alpert & Andy Arkley — Seattle, WA
e4c will present a collaborative animation piece entitled, Round and Round, by this artist team. Their goal was to create a short collection of animations using things found around the house. Additionally, e4c will feature two animations by Andy Arkley entitled; Fifty Four Fifty and What It’s All About, music-based animations that supplement live performances of his band, The Brand Flakes.

Evertt Beidler — Portland, OR
e4c will feature several works by Beidler that focus on ideas around labor and repetitive behavioral patterns. Beidler writes, “What attracts me most to this location is that a significant portion of the potential viewers will be commuting to and from work, caring out routine activities during the course of their day.”

Tony Buchen & Jazzmean Goodwin — Santa Fe, NM
This long standing collaborative team will present a select group of experimental works using three-dimensional models to explore virtual realms on e4c. The videos represent ways of experiencing sculpture that are not pragmatically possible in the physical worlds.

Brit Bunkley — Jamestown, RI/Wanganui, New Zealand
For e4c, Bunkley has proposed two videos that are composite 3D animations with actual footage. By manipulating virtual and actual images, videos and objects are convincing and yet unsettling.

Drew Christie — Seattle, WA
e4c will present Fire, Fire, I heard the Cry, a short animated history of the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. The animation was created by making hand printed pictures from linoleum engravings. These engravings were inspired by historic photographs of the fire’s aftermath.

Lisa Marie Evans — Tucson, AZ
Evans will present an excerpt of an extensive text animation piece that displays varying thoughts as a test in how our perceptions of a physical space alter as we perceive someone’s thoughts.

Joseph Farbrook — Boston, MA
e4c will present two works by Farbrook: Cell in The New Body and Texture. These works explore alternative uses of text, displaying sentences as flashing single words, so that they cannot be read in the traditional sense.  As the viewer looks upon the words flashing, sentences form in the viewer’s mind as a kind of mental after-image.

Neal Fryett — Seattle, WA
On e4c, Fryett will present videos based upon simple gestures that are intensely focused on object-based events contained within the contemporary living space. These works use common, unconsidered objects as platforms for the projection of ideas experiences and questions.

Ben Houge — St. Paul, MN
Houge will adapt Shanghai Traces, a real-time generated video that is a meditation on Shanghai’s rapid change of pace in preparation for this year’s World Expo, incorporating items sold by street vendors who have been expelled from the city center during the event.

Miguel Jara — New York, NY/Bogota, Columbia
e4c will feature recently developed works entitled, In the Woods and Chex Eux. Both works are created from drawings on paper, which are then scanned and compiled as cell animation.

Britta Johnson — Seattle, WA
Excerpts from two recent works will be presented on e4c. Johnson utilizes stop-motion animation, sound and narrative elements to examine the benefits of a natural drainage system in Waterway and the tale of shipwreck victims going mad in Crashing Waves.

Dmitry Kmelnitsky — Venice, CA
Kmelnitsky will present his work, The City Unfolds. He writes, “With this piece, I ask the questions ‘Can we read a city like a book? Can its streets unfold before us like pages, inviting us on a journey of the imagination?”

Jonathan Monaghan — College Park, MD
Monaghan will create a new animation and adapt three others to create a 4-channel series that depict simple forms and elements, many that refer to symbols of institutional power, such as the bald eagle. However, everything is distorted as candy-like and surreal.

Anna Norton — Philadelphia, PA
Norton will present a selection of works from her series of time-lapse photography pieces that explore historical architecture as a container for time as it is defined and revealed by light. She writes, “The ephemeral quality of the light plays upon the structure and suggests a tension between historical time and geological time; the animate and inanimate; permanence and transience.”

Piper O’Neill — Seattle, WA
e4c will feature several of O’Neill’s stop-motion, animation works. Animations, made using found objects, drawings, cutouts, music and film clips from the past, O’Neill examines her own interested in themes of nostalgia and inherited histories.

Scott Schuldt — Seattle, WA
Schuldt’s View from the Canoe Project is a non-traditional documentary work that incorporates the artists reflections on nature and the attitudes people have about water. The work also demonstrates how the artist has been able to find a very real sense of wilderness in an urban setting.

Currently, fourteen artworks, by twelve artists are on display  from 7 am – 10 pm each day on e4c, 4Culture’s storefront gallery for electronic art. This summer a peer-panel will review and select new artworks for e4c. We have received applications from media artists working in diverse genres from across the US. We are looking forward rolling out new pieces in the early fall!

The artists listed below have works on e4c now. Come by 4Culture to see their work and visit their websites to learn more about current and upcoming projects.

Laurel Beckman
Scott Groeniger
Sabine Gruffat
Tomiko Jones
Noah Klersfeld
Margot Quan Knight
David Kwan
Tess Martin
Ann Oren
Kamran Sadeghi
Kenny Schneider
Ann-Marie Stillion

The following artists previously had artworks featured on e4c. We thank them for sharing their videos with us for one full year. Check out their websites to see what they’re working on today.

Tina Aufiero; Perry Bard; Thom Heileson & Wyndel Hunt; Stephen Hilyard; Salise Hughes; Bennett Morris; Heather Dew Oaksen; Relja Penezic & Victoria Jordanova; Gazelle Samizay and Robert Zverina

e4c has received generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts

© 2007 Salise Hughes, Shiny Things (presented on e4c during 2008-2009)

Hey media artists – don’t forget that we currently have a call out for media artworks to exhibit on e4c in the 10/11 season. e4c is 4Culture’s storefront gallery for electronic art – visible by foot, bike, car or bus to more than 20,000 people each day, e4c exhibits selected artworks from regional and national artists, on rotation, from 7 am – 10 am, daily.

Up to sixteen media works or media proposals will be selected for presentation through this public gallery for a period of up to one year. Due to the transitory nature of the audience, works between 1-5 minutes are desired. Media artists residing in the U.S., working in all genres are encouraged to apply.

The application deadline is Wednesday, May 26, 2010. Guidelines and applications, which include information about eligibility and review criteria, are available online.

e4c is located adjacent to Gallery4Culture facing Prefontaine Place South in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. e4c consists of four LCD monitors and two speakers mounted to face the exterior of the building that broadcast sights and sounds to passers-by.

Selected artists will work with the e4c program manager to adapt selected work for optimal presentation. The selected artists will also work with the e4c program manager to create promotional materials. Each selected artist will receive a modest honorarium to help defray expenses. The artists retain all rights of the works submitted.

For more information please email Heather Dwyer or call 206.296.8676.

This project received generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

© Margot Quan Knight, Sur face still

e4c is pleased to welcome work by Kamran Sadeghi back to our screens. Sadeghi’s new work, Pattern Recognition is an animated graphical score created in tandem with the music. Sadeghi writes “Each shape has a dedicated relationship to its corresponding sound, much like notes written on a stave. Each tick, pulse and tone is represented within a labyrinth of grids as it plays with our ear to eye recognition.”

Read more about e4c or stop by and see it for yourself…

© 2010 Kamran Sadeghi, Pattern Recognition, video stills

4Culture seeks media artworks for e4c, a storefront gallery for electronic art. Visible by foot, bike, car or bus to more than 20,000 people each day (seriously, we checked the stats), e4c exhibits selected artworks from regional and national artists, on rotation, from 7 am – 10 am, daily.

Up to sixteen media works or proposals will be selected for presentation for a period of up to one year. Due to the transitory nature of the audience, pieces between 1-5 minutes are desired. Media artists, residing in the US, working in all genres are encouraged to apply.

The deadline to apply is May 26, 2010 (5 p.m. PST) and application guidelines are currently available.

e4c is located adjacent to Gallery4Culture facing Prefontaine Place South in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. e4c consists of four, LCD monitors and two speakers mounted to face the exterior of the building, broadcasting sights and sounds to passers-by.

Selected artists will work with the e4c program manager to adapt selected work for optimal presentation. e4c utilizes software with a timeline interface, which is distributed through a network to the display monitors and speakers. The selected artists will also work with the e4c program manager to create promotional materials. Each selected artist will receive a modest honorarium to help defray expenses. The artists retain all rights of the works submitted.

This project received generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

image courtesy of Seattle Weekly

Click here to view the embedded video.

Four media artists share information about their work and about their experience exhibiting on e4c, 4Culture’s storefront media gallery. Artists include, Tess Martin, Heather Dew Oaksen, Margot Quan Knight and Rob Zverina.

4Culture seeks electronic artworks for e4c, 4Culture’s storefront media gallery. Visible by foot, bike, car or bus to more than 20,000 people each day, e4c exhibits  selected works on rotation from 7 am – 10 pm, seven days a week.

Up to sixteen media works or media proposals will be selected for presentation through this public, electronic gallery for a period of up to one year. Due to the transitory nature of the audience, works between1 – 5 minutes are desired. Media artists working in all genres are encouraged to apply. The deadline for applications is May 26, 2010.

Learn more about e4c and how to apply.

Tomiko Jones
Across Land and Sky
There Are Some Things You Cannot Forget

Tomiko Jones is a Seattle-based photographer, educator and independent curator. Her videos articulate small gestures performed within the landscape. Jones writes “Insects stand-in for human activity in frenzied pursuit, while a moth in a decrepit state tries to free itself from the last thread of a spider web’s hold. Set against the sky above, and the land below, these videos ruminate on a simple existence.”

There Are Some Things You Cannot Forget was created during a residency at The Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. It was originally shown as an outdoor installation at Theâtré de Mer on the Mediterranean Sea.

www.tomikojonesphoto.com

Margot Quan Knight
Sur face (Mirrors)
Sur face (Water)
Sur face (Paper)
Sur face (Fog)

Based in Seattle, Knight has exhibited photographic, video and installation work extensively throughout the United States and internationally. Interacting with everyday materials like water, paper, and glass, Knight drinks her own reflection, appears fleetingly on bubbles, and “prints” an image of her face on a window using the natural grease of her skin.  Knight writes “I was thinking about two things: the relationship between an image and the object in the world that it is “of” (in this case my face), and the relationship between an image and the surface on which it appears. That surface, so necessary for the image’s existence, seems both fragile and impenetrable, a barrier and an opportunity.”

Sur face was developed during a residency at 911 Seattle Media Arts Center. Also opening on April 1, 2010, Knight will be exhibiting new work at Seattle’s James Harris Gallery related to her interest in reflection.

© 2010 Tomiko Jones, Across Land and Sky, video still
© 2009 Margot Quan Knight, Sur face (Bubbles), video still

Coming soon! Dynamic new media works by Scott Groeniger and Kenny Schneider will be added to e4c’s rotation this March.

Scott Groeniger

e4c will feature Groeniger’s The Ping Yao Continuum, depicting a scene of daily life at a restaurant in the ancient city of Ping Yao. Played in slow reverse, the food comes out of their mouths and is placed back onto the plates. Tea flows from within the body and returns to the glasses. The simple ritual act of eating together at the same table is one of the most universal human experiences. This video, The Ping Yao Continuum, is meant to express this tension by exploring the domestic ritual of a simple family meal inside the transitioning city, capturing a brief moment in time; and then extending it in reverse in an effort to prolong the experience of the present tense and savor the moment as an isolated, universal, ritual experience.
http://elasticlimit.com/artwork/

Kenny Schneider

Originally produced in 1968, Schneider’s 1002 Rothko’s was created by hand drawing on 16mm optical negatives, using markers, ink, collage materials and 2D cell animation. In 2008, he digitally reprocessed the work as 1002 Rothko’s. Using the Watchout software of e4c, Schneider has choreographed these newly reprocessed cells into a dance across four monitors.
artistsregister.com/artists/CO201

David Kwan
Kwan has adapted his work SOLARIS, a series of sound-generated video projections for e4c. Kwan composes soundscapes from live radio transmissions, related to the electromagnetic waves that form the basis for the ordering of matter in space and that continue to permeate the environment. These soundscapes are fed through a customized video imaging system to reveal their inherent patterning.
www.davidkwan.net

Ann-Marie Stillion

Ann-Marie Stillion will present Eva Washington: sweet are the uses of adversity, a project that combines photographs, film and audio to examine and share the story of Eva Washington, a 76-year-old woman who lives alone on the streets of Seattle. Each monitor of e4c will portray different visual aspects of Washington’s life. Stillion writes, “Eva’s personal story is the story of millions of people around the world who find themselves living without shelter.”
www.arttrek.com

Learn more about both artists and e4c here.

SOLARIS, © David Kwan
Eva Washington: sweet are the uses of adversity © Ann-Marie Stillion, 2009

Sabine Gruffat: Video Animations

Gruffat’s four channel experimental video includes live-rendered computer animation and analog signal processes of early video. She writes, “In Video Animations, shapes and signals overlay and intersect each other. Production processes are fore-grounded to become the subject of the work: the manner by which technology alters the way we look at, listen to, and feel the world.”

Noah Klersfeld:
vehicles traveling in two directions behind a chain-link fence (R 1mo A)
smoke drifting in front of a concrete building façade (LA 9fo M)
snow falling in front of a red brick building façade (R 4mo A)
water undulating within a ceramic tile fountain (CB 3foM)

Klersfeld will be presenting four video pieces on e4c that represent his on-going series portraying modified urban landscapes. He writes, “My digital video work attempts to materialize time by using time as a design element for the creation of new spatial forms…It is my intention to have people consider time on an inch-by-inch basis rather than day-by-day.” Selections for e4c will include a series that uses the patterns of architecture as the geometric framework for dissecting and reorganizing the timing of vehicles, smoke, snow and water.

These new works join the ongoing rotation of work on e4c, currently featuring pieces by: Laurel Beckman, Ann Oren, Tess Martin, Heather Dew Oaksen, Tina Aufiero, Stephen Hilyard, Perry Bard and Bennett Morris.

Video Animations (still/detail) © 2009 Sabine Gruffat
Water undulating within a ceramic tile fountain (CB 3fo M) © 2008 Noah Klersfeld

Thanks to Salise Hughes and Relja Penezic for sharing their amazing work on 4Culture’s e4c. Their pieces will be taken out of rotation as we make way for new videos by Sabine Gruffat and Noah Klersfeld.

Come by 4Culture this holiday weekend to see Hughes’ Shiny Things, Everyone I Have Ever Known, How to Draw Clouds, and There Were Houses Here. Soak up Relja Penezic’s Fragments of Unused Time. As one visiting artist said about Penezic’s painterly piece, “This is stunningly beautiful!”

Laurel Beckman: New Vowels (4 times to feel you)
Ann Oren: Dollhouse
Public “First Thursday” Reception December 3, 2009, 6 – 8pm (Beckman will be in attendance)

Laurel Beckman, created New Vowels (4 times to feel you), especially for our media gallery. The piece consists of four animated characters (one per screen), whose typographic-like designs were derived from body gestures of classic clowns and street performers. The characters perform in first a relaxed, then hyperactive state. Just prior to the exhibition of her work on e4c, Beckman will present a free, public lecture about experimental media artists at Cornish College of the Arts on Wednesday, December 2, 2009. More details in our earlier blog post.

Also joining e4c this month is Ann Oren’s Dollhouse. Adapted for e4c, this multi-channel video features (in the words of the artist) “role exchange between professional and “reality” performers. Professional actors, thrown in virtual rooms, were asked to perform banal activities in a fake building under surveillance. The surveillance cameras go out constantly which forces the building’s tenants to trouble the concierge to come and fix them.”

Read more about both artists and e4c here.

2009 © Laurel Beckman, New Vowels (4 times to feel you), still/detail
2009 © Ann Oren, Dollhouse, still/detail

Kamran’s Kha Variations/Passing offers a visual representation of sound. The amplitude and frequency of the artist-created soundscape generates data that then determines the color, motion and depth within a digital graphics environment. The full duration is is 4 minutes, 20 seconds.

Rob’s 180 series, created for e4c, features curated thematic compilations of some of his microdocumentaries. Themes like Snow, Bird and Hammer, offer clips of everyday life that together, make you experience the ordinary in a new way. Each of the six microdocumentaries are 3 minutes each.

As we mentioned before, we have Oz-like powers over e4c. If you want to see these works without waiting through the whole rotation you can contact staff at heather.dwyer@4culture.org to let us know when you’ll be by and we can cue them up for you.

We’re excited to see Kamran’s new work  selected as part of the 2009-2010 season. He’ll be presenting those next spring. Thanks to Kamran and Rob for sharing their work with us this past year!

Photo: Kha Variations/Passing, Video Still, Courtesy of Kamran Sadeghi

Recently, Nancy Guppy and the team from Seattle Channel’s Artzone spent a day at 4Culture filming a quick segment about what 4Culture is (and does). They’ve posted it on their website, take a look!

A Moment’s Reverie and Gaijin/The Foreigner
premiering November 5, 2009

In conjunction with First Thursday, we are psyched to premiere the first new additions to the e4c lineup for the 09/10 season. Seattle-based animator Tess Martin will present two works adapted for the electronic gallery:

A Moment’s Reverie, a back-lit paper cut-out animation, which is a journey through a character’s thoughts and memories, triggered by the letters in her book. These same letters burn up in a tea cup, get shot, and hover in the sky, spelling out her most hidden desires.

Gaijin/The Foreigner, a piece using packaging from junk mail found in Japan in a clever cut-out animation following a chameleon-like character through a journey of change.

Tess Martin, A Moments Reverie (Still), Video Animation, photo by the artist

December 2, 2009, noon – 1pm
Cornish College of the Arts
1001 Lenora Street,
Room MC3-1

Join 4Culture and the Art Department of Cornish College of the Arts for a free, public presentation by experimental media artist, Laurel Beckman. Working in public spaces, Laurel explores themes at the crossroads meta-physics and science investigating perceptual phenomena, language, the built environment, and animal-human relations. Employing a wide range of media and distribution strategies, her projects often enlist commercial and civic spaces in her efforts to contribute meaningfully to the cultural landscape and to our understanding of empathy. She is currently an associate professor of art at the University of California Santa Barbara.

On December 3rd, during Seattle’s First Thursday Art Walk, Beckman will premiere New Vowels (4 times to feel you), a new work created especially for e4c, 4Culture’s storefront media gallery.

We have Oz like powers over e4c. If you want to see these works without waiting through the whole rotation. Contact us to let us know when you’ll be by and we can cue them up for you.

Thanks to Thom, Wyndel and Gazelle for sharing their work with all of us this past year!

Photo: Gazelle Samizay, Nosh-e Jan (video still)

For a short time, 4Culture’s e4c was the only North American host of Digital Fringe. Now a swanky venue in Vancouver B.C. is also showcasing this great collection of digital art – produced and curated by the Melbourne (AU) Fringe Festival. Hey Miami, New York, Toronto and Mexico City – don’t you want digital art on your screens?!

You may have learned from our previous post that Digital Fringe, a curated selection of media work, includes work from over 30 countries and are screened at e4c in concert with over 200 venues worldwide during the festival. Digital Fringe is produced by Horse Bazaar, a Melbourne experimental media bar. You can come see the works on 4Culture’s electronic gallery, e4c through October 30. All works are also available via the Digital Fringe website.

Photo: Courtesy of Digital Fringe