upcoming show

Mapping Caylus. Visualizations of place and mind. This exhibition shows typographic and topographic maps and videos of both place and mind, of location and history, of emotions and reactions. These works reflect location, history and the affairs of artist's heart. from a summer residency in Caylus France at Draw International

astrid kensinger almkhlaafy

Masangin

When i was in Yogyakarta, at the cellsbutton festival, venzha took me out one midnight on his scooter to the banyan tree square, south of Kraton. He said, close your eyes, tie this blindfold, now walk between the trees. i think i tried 5 times before almost making it. the idea is to make a wish, get through the two trees at midnight, and the wish comes true. I liked this space. there laods of wandering blindfolded wishers wandering off in random directions.

so the next night i went back and walked around the space with my gps. i circled the whole square, but not completely, had to leave a space for the wishes to escape. but in that one midnight night i caught the thoughts and held them and let them out again.

the two circles were partially in respect to the cellbutton team. it's their logo too. cellsbutton captures masangin. astrid embraces masangin.

The word “Masangin” originated from the Indonesian word : “Masuk diantara dua beringin” which means “passing through 2 banyan trees” in English. This is a myth in Java about the power of 2 banyan tree at the south square of the Kraton. According to the myth, one day the Kraton was attacked by enemies from the south side. To reach the Kraton, enemy soldiers would have to pass the two big banyan trees on their way to the Kraton. The soldiers would then lose their power after passing through the trees and therefor keeping the Sultan’s Palace safe. Today, Masangin is considered to be a game where people would come to the South Square and witness the two banyan trees trees while trying to pass through them blindfolded. If they succeed, then it is said that whatever they wished for will be granted.



one of the magic elements of Jojya is the cartography of the city. it's lined up on a sacred axis between Merapri and the sea, a mystical line that connects actual locations, including this banyan wish square.

re-emerging

Sometimes life gets in the way. Interferes and imposes a new schedule or a new set of priorities. Over the last two years I've been focused on a different form of creativity. Making my life humm, making sure balance, gracefulness and mindfulness were ever present. This took me away from this blog. But the time has come to re-emerge. So here. I'm back.

Although not posting, I have been living and making. Small steps into defining this new chapter. Yes vague. But yes, new chapter.

Perhaps the project that is the first of this new phase was the merapi red circle. A ritual for delineating my own space. The year before I married, in 1995, I climbed an erupting volcano, Mt Rinjani in Lombok. It is perhaps one of those experiences that ranks up in the top five of extraordinary. The volcano killed two people the night I spent up on the rim. They were on the other side, where the ash and rocks were being spewed. I remember the sound, the lightening, the intensity so clearly. It was transformative in that I felt awed and alive.

After the end of my marriage, I decided to climb another volcano. Although not fully erupting, it was steaming and spewing and erupted only a few months later. This one was Merapi, in Java. I went with meridel, she photo-ed, I climbed and gps-ed and made a little statement for myself at the top. A red circle of closure. A wish circle. A prayer circle. The action was meant for me alone. But it was performance and it meant finality.

red show

After my installation and solo show in november the majority of my research time has been taken up in compiling the grant into a submission. this was submitted at the end of march. in the meantime, my wonderful friend meridel, mentioned a call for an exhibition at the Center for Fine Art Photography, an exhibition titled red. So i sent in some imges form the adventures and performances in Xian, Huashan and Taishan. Not being a fine art photographer, when one of the photos i submitted was accepted, i panicked. How to mount? how to print? how to present? Paul was down the hall and graciously walked me through the language and logistics, the art and the nuances. So coming up soon, Straight Drop, Huashan China will be up in colorado.

up&down @ night & day

finally the exhibition is here, one week to go and things are coming together. have sound, videos, materials, a great venue, books, images, typographic elements. Have been working for 2 years on the project and for the last few months more on the production. there's an enormous amountof editing that has gone on. making a cohesive compact thing from two vast mountains and 2 enormous histories.

Preload-Honf and night & day

After becoming acquainted with the House of Natural Fiber (HONF) during the cellsbutton#3 media arts festival, and hearing that the group had members coming through singapore, I wanted to make a local connection for the group with the downtown venue Night&Day. On friday, August 28 members of HONF and international artists Marko Batista and Tengal Drilon performed within the bar sapce of Night&Day to an intimate crowd of academics and artists. Kelley was gracious and gave her space for the session, and the HONF team now have made an excellent connection in the city.

Tengal performed solo and also collaborated in an improvisational duet with my video. His spontaneous piano and sound performance had a fascinating effect on the video pieces, changing meaning and emotion. This type of collaboration is an area to further explore.

Marko Bastisto. video and sound

cellsbutton #3

The thrust towards new media arts in many of the Asian countries seem to be caught between two parallel and related trends – a) the need to develop culturally specific and located ways of engaging with and incorporating the new information, communication, experiential and biotechnologies; and b) the need to respond to the global imperatives that drive these technologies and their related artistic developments. While the media and technological developments in these countries indicate a constant juggling between these local and global imperatives, many of the media artistic developments in these countries pose interesting ways of reevaluating and significantly expanding the current discourses and practices in art, media and technology....(Gunalan Nadarajan)

....Now let us visualise a framework for this setting in which people resonate with media through simulating processes. I remember hearing the words intelligent interfaces, disappearing computer and smart environments for the first time at a conference in Sweden, Jönschoping. Bewildered I listened to academic researchers painting scenarios of strollers in the park being able to point at trees with their smart ( rfid/bluetooth enabled) watches resulting in... a screen rising up either from the ground or next to the tree. On that screen? ...information, data rather - about that tree. I'm sitting in my chair and look around me for smiling or laughing people, but nothing. This audience, top EU researchers and technical wizards, does not think this is ridiculous, strange, unnecessary at all. Instead, on the contrary what they see is open territory, a vast unknown adventure. Room to play. Yet I visualized a framework for this setting, grasping its radical
potential immediately- as that tree had always spoken to me, as trees do to people who feel as well as see and hear. Or towers for that matters, my towers. Do they not realize that what actually matters in this vast grid of affordances that overlays so called material objects is their potential? their imaginary? Unaware they raise issues of alchemy, of witchcraft, magic....(Rob van Kranenburg)

....One of EFP’s methods is to organise accessible, ‘hands-on’ workshops that allow the audience to share knowledge and explore different forms of artistic collaboration induced by technology. Furthermore, these workshops are based on a ‘Do It Yourself’ philosophy, which enables the participants to use, subvert and adapt technologies for the specific requirements of local communities. This perspective is examined in the ‘bricolabs’ workshops, for example.
Besides participatory authorship, another goal of the EFP is to stimulate a critical and reflective approach towards technology. What are the implications this new artistic practice for art, design and sciences for Indonesian context? In discussions and presentations, the aesthetic, social and philosophical context will be analyzed and debated in order to create a critical, practice based approach towards media arts in Indonesia....(Deanna Herst)

PARTICIPANT :

more than 100 Artists / Scientist / Activist / Researcher / Professional / Musician / Theorist / Local Communities from
Indonesia ( Jakarta - Bandung - Yogyakarta - Surabaya - Medan - Batam - Bali - Semarang - Pekanbaru - Makasar - etc)

+

Astrid Almkhlaafy / UK - US
Andrej Boleslavsky / Slovakia
Michal Marianek / Czech Republic
Mar Canet / Austria
Vladimir Todorovic / Serbia
Ondřej Skala a.k.a JTNB / Czech Republic
Darina Alster / Czech Republic
Alex Scraub / Netherlands
Jan Torpus / Switzerland
Rene TA Lysloff / US
Marco Batista / Slovenia
Varvara Guljajeva / Estonia - Austria
Peter Tomaz Dobrila / Slovenia
Deanna Herst / Netherlands
Marc Dusseiller / Switzerland
Tengal / Philippines
Somaya Langley / Australia
Dan Gregor a.k.a Initi / Czech Republic
Magdalena Peševa / Czech Republic
Alessandro Carboni / Italy

natural-fiber.com/cellsbutton/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=57&Itemid=79


- VENUE :

19 venue for 8 day program

natural-fiber.com/cellsbutton/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=58&Itemid=80


- SCHEDULE :

natural-fiber.com/cellsbutton/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=59&Itemid=81


- Featuring Presentation and Project on :

HONF - Fablab
natural-fiber.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=184:prosthetics-workshop-at-fablab-amsterdam&catid=85:concepts&Itemid=90

Indonesia Bricolabs 2009
cellsKIT
HONF - AKPRIND
akprind.ac.id/

HONF - INHERENT
inherent-dikti.net/?modul=bv&artikel=vicon/C48525D299C9


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HONF lab
the house of natural fiber, yogyakarta new media art laboratory
natural-fiber.com/