Bringin' my Beamer 05/04/2012
It's not the car type, but my light projection to the BYOB LA. For those that don't know, BYOB stands for "Bring Your own Beamer," and is a one-night exhibition that hosts artists and their projectors. BYOB has traveled around different cities all over the world. This Saturday night, May 5th, from 7pm-10pm will be another BYOB held at the MOCA Geffen in Los Angeles. BYOB was an idea by Rafael Rozendaal. He and Anne De Vries realized the first BYOB in Berlin. I'll be meeting up at the MOCA Geffen with a number of artists, including some of my fellow colleagues from UCSB: Chris Silva, Sterling Crispin, Rimas Simaitis, Tim Brown, Alex Bogdanov. The event has sold out, but perhaps I'll post up documentation of it sometime in the near future. Add Comment Artist as Community 05/01/2012
Last Saturday I participated in a roundtable discussion as part of the 37th Annual Art History Graduate Symposium. The theme for this symposium was, "Artist as Community," and so I presented a brief statement about one of the videos that I will soon be presenting in my MFA thesis exhibition. I figured I'd post my speech and link to my video below: "As an MFA graduate, I have been exploring the notion of place - rather, focusing on the idea that place is determined by how one relates to it. When I heard the theme for this symposium, "Artist as Community," I couldn't help but think of my journey these past two years: my research around the neighboring Isla Vista. The short video that I am going to present to you called, "Neighborhood Street," is a brief poetic fragment of images that were taken in IV. By recording layered inkjet transparencies and cut silhouettes from an overhead projection, I am presenting a re-imagined place, one that speaks to a more universal idea of neighborhood that stems from a reflection of a local community. https://vimeo.com/40474620 At this point, I would like to add to the conversation that art may not necessarily shape, but is informed by local culture and its attachment to place." This Friday, 3/16: Books + Prints 03/14/2012
As this quarter wraps up quickly, I thought I'd post this flyer about an upcoming student exhibition. A couple of grads and I were "volunteered" to also show something. There will be a handful of other culminating class shows taking place simultaneously throughout the evening. Put on your walking shoes and pace yourself along an art crawl on campus. CAA 2012 Annual Conference 02/26/2012
I got back into town yesterday evening after a long-winded journey in Los Angeles. Several of my colleagues and I attended the CAA 2012 Annual Conference the past couple of days, which was like your standard "meat market" conference of continuous networking, job searching, and professional skills advice listening. With my student membership & registration, I was given a badge to attend any of the concurrent sessions, which were a broad range of panel discussions and presentations relating to art history, practice, and teaching. Besides the book and trade fair, most of the highlights of the conference were sadly either outside of the conference realm or listed free of charge at the conference itself. There were a couple of interesting posters, which included the topic of "teaching pranks," courtesy of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Students that enroll in the school's first year-studies freshman seminar study stage pranks to "explore the social, political, ethical and artistic uses of the prank." 4"x6" cards with an image of students tabling in yellow t-shirts reading "UTK Urine Drinking Club" were left on the table as a take-away info card.  The above image is similar to the one on the flyer card, and is cited from the seminar page. As a grad student & MFA Candidate that will be finishing up the end of this spring, I'm still a little perplexed like most of my colleagues about "What's next?" after grad school. Our "exit strategy" has been on similar veins of applying to teaching jobs, residencies, or moving to LA. The CAA Conference offered some free emerging professional sessions, mock-interviews, and brown bag discussions, which seemed like good useful tools in listening to what one can expect in the real world after a graduate degree, learning how to approach a job interview, and basically getting one's shit together. Karen Atkinson, who teaches at CalArts had some things to say and promoted her website resource for artists, gyst-ink.com. She had a lot to say based on her experience. Some of things she discussed weren't really new, but affirmations of what to do. I also think this blog post from MFA grad student Daniel Tucker has some constructive proposals and advice of what to do after art school. Though he addresses undergrad art school, a lot of this is still pertinent to grad students as well. Groupworked 01/30/2012
 Last week I was part of a group show in Gallery 479 on campus called GROUPWORK, which was a collaborative effort among some of my colleagues and me: Alex Bogdanov Ryan Bulis Chris Silva Erik Sultzer Van C. Tran The intentions behind it had varied, but in all, the group had accepted that what happens in the space would be our group responsibility. Others were also allowed to experience being part of the group and contribute something, or help with exploring the gallery space with the existing (and constantly changing) materials at hand. Snacks and drinks were provided 24/7, and the gallery space was also open 24/7. Some photos taken by Troy Small can be found on the UCSB Dept of Art webpage. This has gotten at least a few of us to question the idea of Groupwork, and reflect critically on what sustainable models could be taken from this. More documentation will surface, most likely in a culminating loose leaf artist's book. Postscript: Here is an online version of a student written article from the campus newspaper The Daily Nexus. Mobile Shadow Theater: The Halloween Report 11/15/2011
 The mobile shadow theater was launched on the Friday night of Halloween weekend in IV. And there is still much to do! I think it was a good experiment, and I am working on refining the content of what I had presented in the theater. Additionally, I've been putting my nose back in the books to research more material and history, background in the areas of the history of IV, the history of shadow puppets, relational aesthetics, etc. Maybe I'll post up my notes sometime in the future. Anyway, recounting my experience from the launch, my students and I did a dry run of the show. We spent the previous Thursday and all day Friday beefing up the content and added more text to the visuals of what we projected via overhead onto the screen (see image above). One of my students recruited her friend who played the snare drum during our procession along Embarcadero Del Mar. A live music ensemble would be great and effective, and as it turned out, my speakers weren't loud enough and I need to find something that is more robust but still compact and portable for outdoors. I ended up performing until 1am and moved my theater a couple of times in the span of one block to try out different locations. My student helpers were either tired or wanted to participate in the IV Halloween festivities along Del Playa. I also promised their time, so after our 9:30pm dry-run I was on my own, but Kim Yasuda was with me and she was a great help in talking to some of the business owners around the block, and helping document me in action. I learned from this experience that being next to the sidewalk was hard competition for my show against the show of students in their Halloween costumes. My best performance was when I re-posted myself back at the Bagel Cafe. I was squished right next to the store front bordering Little Acorn Park. But it was past midnight and there was a long line of students going outside the cafe. While several costumed students sat out on the patio and ate their bagels, they tuned in to my show. To me that counts, and I think one of my best options while testing this experiment is working with the local food businesses that allow outdoor seating areas for people to take the time to sit, eat, and simmer down their alcohol blood levels. Another highlight included one of the homeless figures "Pirate" who walked along and stopped right next to me and my projector. He seemed taken back with the graphic image of him, and reminisced about his old hat. See the quick youtube clip down below. My theater and I turned out untarnished. It didn't get trashed or lit on fire and though a couple of walking wanderers stopped by to talk to me during my performances, I was left unharmed. A group of undercover cops had nabbed someone behind my theater while I was posted next to the parking lot behind Hempwise and "worked" behind me for a little while. That was slightly awkward, but they seemed nice to me and asked me questions about my project. I still believe that there is a place for the mobile shadow theater, and think the story needs to shift away from what it was presented. Since it's on wheels, I can move it to a different location and showcase what Isla Vista was and is to the varying audience of student residents, marginalized families, and the committed folks that have lived in IV for a long while. Thanks to those that came out on that Friday to see me at work, to my student crew that helped tremendously with me, Michael Schmitt for his "golden hands," IV Arts and the Friday Academy for their support, and thanks to all of the grads for their feedback at my crit. Voice: "Isn't that great?" Pirate: "That is wild!" (A belated post written on 10/17/11) This past weekend I traveled down South to do some research and obtain more materials for my current thesis work on my mobile shadow puppet theater. I reconnected with my former boss, Lynne from the San Diego Guild of Puppetry, who gave me some helpful insight on my materials search and provided a great number of resources. It was also the same weekend of the city of Carlsbad’s program Family Open Studios, in conjunction with the “World on a String” puppetry exhibition at the Canon Art Gallery located at the Carlsbad Library. Puppeteer Hobey Ford also performed one of his signature shows, Animalia, which proved to be a magical show for the families that attended.  Just before the Family Open Studios event began, I helped Lynne deliver a giant “blue man” puppet and set it up for Max Daily, a San Diego puppeteer. He strapped himself to the feet and spine of the puppet, holding the long tent rods of the puppet’s arms in his hands and walked around the library courtyard space. Parents and adults looked in awe while children gawked and stared; some slowly stepped forward and shook hands with the giant blue man. Other children kept their distance. “World on a String” is part of a much larger collection of Alan Cook, who has more than 2,000 puppets in his collection. He is based in Los Angeles, making this location one of the prime puppet resources available on the West Coast. One could see a variety of puppet types in this exhibit - string, hand-glove, and shadow puppets - from around the world and of different time periods. A mid-century Bil Baird marionette rocking horse was on display, as well as an early Punch and Judy set of hand puppets. The large, exaggerated creepy facial features of Punch and Judy demonstrates the use of stock characterization that was adopted by hand puppeteers in 19th century Britain.  My favorite was seeing the small handful, but ornately beautiful shadow puppets from Southeast Asia mounted against the wall. Most of these puppets were created out of animal hide, which I do not plan to use in my production of “Isla Vista Mythology” but can see how the translucent quality of the animal hide allows for color to show well against a shadow screen. Up until this point, I had not seen a Malaysian shadow puppet (center photo below). Its style was distinct, with simple, thick black outlines of a figure. I may want to adopt a similar visual vocabulary when I create some of my own shadows.    Later I watched Hobey Ford’s production of Animalia. It was a showcase of the different animals and creatures of the Earth, with its story revolving around a caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly. The audience was captivated by the beginning hook that Hobey performed using his patented pair of “peepers.” These are a pair of eyes that Hobey hitched onto his hand, and with various degrees of graceful body movement and hand gestures, he steered our attention in transforming the different animals he depicted. Later on we watched the creative foam hand and rod puppets that Hobey created for this production, as his ability to move them to look as if they were real were indeed realistic. This excursion proved to be a good learning experience, which takes me back to my current status of working-in-progress with my shadow puppet theater. How I plan to take the information I learned with me will unfold into a refined theater piece. This won't take an overnight turnaround, but I will have to undergo a three-fold process of honing and mastering the craft of making shadows, manipulating them so that these images come to life, and creating a theater environment. Marvelous is Coming to an end 10/31/2011
Marvelous Metaphors: Art as Visual Poetry C L O S I N G R E C E P T I O N I N V I T A T I O N After many marvelous moments, VAALA's Marvelous Metaphors: Art as Visual Poetry exhibition is drawing to an end. There will be a closing reception this Saturday, November 5th from 3pm - 6pm. The gallery will be open from 12 noon for a last day of public viewing. If you have not made it out yet, this is it! Trinh Mai | Christine Nguyen | Tammy Nguyen | Trinh Ponce | Dao Strom | Van Tran Thank you all for your support and to those who made contributions to VAALA's fundraiser campaign! VAALA Cultural Center: 1600 N. Broadway, first floor, Santa Ana, CA 92706 www.vaala.org Besides the closing of the Halloween celebration in IV, yesterday was the initial launch of the red ceramic party cup. For those that don't know, this is a sustainable twist of the party classic red Solo party cups that are ubiquitous at any party and especially around a college party town.  This isn't made of pansy plastic! This is a 16 oz. ceramic cup that is microwave and dishwasher friendly. And it's good for hot or cold drinks: milk, coffee, your choice of a stronger beverage, ... As much as you can play it cool and sustainable by finding one of these at say, Urban Outfitters for $14, you can save yourself a couple of dollars buy purchasing these local at various businesses in IV: IV Bookstore Coffee Collaborative Miss Behavin' Isla Vista Screen Printing IV Food Co-op  One of the charming highlights from these cups is the stamp on the bottom of each cup that reads, "Hecho Para Isla Vista." For the translating illiterate, this means: "Made for Isla Vista." This local branding is part of an arts initiative, "Party for the Arts," brought to you by the Friday Academy. The proceeds from your purchase of these ceramic cups will go towards funding student art projects in IV. Local news KYET came out and reported on the aftermath and effects from the Halloween partying in IV, but briefly highlights former student Raffi Lehrer's sculptural tandem bike with connected speakers in the opening sequence. He is also briefly interviewed about the promotion of the red ceramic party cup, with another UCSB graduate Sam Fretwell carrying a seller's tray of cups in her cute polka dot dress. Happy Halloween, everyone! Postscript - LA weekend 10/31/2011
 As many of you know, LA has a lot to offer in its wide range arts & culture programs. It makes sense to dedicate at least a day to have a walking practice of seeing and experiencing artwork. What I try to gain from these kinds of experiences is to be able to discern one or two interesting ideas and concepts and reflect on them further in relation to my practice. I carpooled with a few of MFA colleagues to Los Angeles during the first weekend of October, and like hundreds others, survived the nasty traffic on the freeway. This weekend marked the opening of Pacific Standard Time, a multi-city art program across Southern California. Many participating museums and institutions exhibited works relating to the complex history of artists and movements in mostly LA but other parts of Southern California from 1945-1980. Our first destination to the MOCA at the Geffen proved to be a good break from a lengthy car ride. Its featured exhibition, “Under the Big Black Sun,” showcased an extensive collection of works of 125 artists from 1974-1981. I got to see an older work of Eleanor Antin called "The Nurse and the Hijackers," (1977) where she used crude cardboard cut-outs of stock personas and created a video impersonating a terrorist threat inside of an airplane set also created out of cardboard. I saw a few of Ilene Segalove’s personal and feminist works that she made with "The Mom Tapes," (1974-78). The video snippets of her interviewing her mother for advice was in a way confessional, but it showed a speculative view on the customs of women growing up in two different generations in America. Also at the MOCA Geffen was a large room of Theaster Gates retrospective works. A large portion of these were sculptural forms with charged undertones of history, class and race in Chicago, IL. The use of decommissioned fire hoses coiled into a large circular object was a simple and elegant visual. The same could be said of his cross-sections of mortar and concrete, with fragments of crumpled rebar and glass layered in the carefully constructed pillars that resembled towers with exposed materials of deconstruction. Other works that stood out to me in the remainder of our trip were the Hammer’s featured exhibitions and programs. The Libros Schmibros Lending Library opened up a “branch” inside of the lower level gallery space next to the museum lobby. Yoshua Okon's video installation “Octopus” was also thought provoking: day laborers miming soldiers in a battlefield along the background of a Home Depot parking lot seemed politically charged. The next day we drove out to Culver City and viewed the Museum of Jurassic Technology and its neighbor, The Center for Land use Interpretation. We concluded our LA trip with a “walking practice” in Robert Irwin’s garden at the Getty, as well as walking around another PST exhibition and Bruce Nauman's "Four Corner Piece" (1970). Overall, it was a heavily art saturated weekend, but a few of these mentioned pieces got me thinking a little more on various methods of public and social practice and the specific use of context, site that enables for an investigation of the embedded. | Author
Van (rhymes with "fun") C. Tran ArchivesMay 2012 CategoriesAll |
RSS Feed