The legendary Morton Subotnick visited the URBAN-15 Studio in February of 2013. Here is the encore of his performance. Earlier in the day he gave a workshop, touching on his workflow (such as using his Buchla synthesizer in conjunction with Ableton Live software), as well as a wonderful presentation of his life in electronic music.
Ordinary Windows was a collaboration between Ordinary Spaces and Jump-Start Performance Co. The free event happened on Friday, December 7, 2012, with two performances at 8 p.m., and 8:30 p.m. This unique site-specific work was a fashioned by performance artists Andrew Coronado, Sandra Dunn, Dino Foxx and Fabiola Torralba. My video is a little promotional teaser I shot during the Thursday night rehearsal. It gives something of a sense of what the piece was like. I particularly like how the camera takes on such a voyeuristic aspect. And though I have gotten soooo lax about using music I don’t have the rights to for these little ephemeral offerings, I just love how this odd track from Trans Am melds so well a sense of agitation with resigned languor.
This is another video I provided for Aaron Richmond-Havel’s peripatetic performance art birthday event at Hampshire College back in 2012. He asked if I could get our friend Pamela Dean-Kenny to lip-sync this somewhat saccharine song as though Pam was a drunken mother at her son’s wedding. Here is a lengthy (and partial) video documentation of Aaron’s grand event, “Penny’s Big 21: Rites of Passage and Pleasure.”
Instagram quickly became my favorite toy when I loaded it onto my iPhone a few years back. It took me a while to jump aboard the trend. I had spent so many years lusting after higher and higher resolution for digital images, that the thought of working smaller seemed so retrograde. But when some of my photographer friends showed me what they were doing on this platform–creating breathtaking images in miniature, with a cellphone, no less–I had to get in as well. This video is the first of several fast-moving slideshows I’ve made of some of my Instagram images.
This little clip is just some playing around during a trip out to Padre Island with some members of the Carpa production. The play had a fair amount of video projection, and we really wanted to shoot a scene with the ocean. So, before the light was just right to shoot our mermaid being returned to the ocean, I followed Shimi into the surf with my Canon 7D. This was basically my first visit to the beach as an adult. I never before understood why people thought it was so fun. But it is! Fun enough to risk my camera.
This cries out for some context, doesn’t it? A friend of mine, Aaron Richmond-Havel, was heading back to college after a summer break at home in San Antonio. He wanted to make a film with me to commemorate his upcoming 21st birthday. But he also wanted this short film to be used in a multi-venue evening-long performance art collaboration planned for his return to his Hampshire College campus. He wanted something in drag, along the San Antonio River Walk, and all very messy with cake and poorly-applied makeup. I decided to shoot both slow motion and regular speed. I like how this turned out. I did go a bit heavy-handed on the Magic Bullet color and vignette effects, but really, who’s looking at the post-production work? (For more Aaron, here’s a YouTube link to his commencement at Hampshire 2013 doing a dance number at the podium–I do hope that the wonderful Amy Goodman, who was the Keynote Speaker, was not only still in attendance, but seated on stage.)
I forgot how I was pulled into the project. I think it was through my friend Amanda Silva. She knew of my interest in the Hays Street Bridge. She had been doing some volunteer work with the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in issues of the gentrification of the downtown neighborhoods, and inquired if I might want to help out for this cause. I decided to make a short film. I should point out that this was a personal project, and other than receiving some documents from the Esperanza as well as the Hays Street Bridge Restoration Group, this was a film produced independently of any organization. I thought it best to create and eventually present this film as the work of a concerned citizen. I was lucky to have many friends help me on this. Most obviously (because they were on camera) Amanda Silva, and Marisela Barrera. The best thing about this little project was that I got to screen it to the San Antonio City Council in the City Council Chambers during a citizens-to-be-heard portion of their monthly meeting. Who knew they let people show videos? Well, now you do. I can add it to my slowly growing list of local venues in which my work has been presented.
I was thrilled when George Cisneros asked me to work with him on a project. His work crosses most all disciplines, and I find everything he does rewarding. For this project he’d been asked by the San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs to create an opening performance for the annual Americans for the Arts conference which was, this year, located in San Antonio. I was just a small part of this twelve minute piece which included the poetry of Carmen Tafolla, Native American drumming by Isaac Cardenas, singing by Bett Butler, keyboards by Ricky Hernandez, trombone by Ron Wilkins, drums and dancing by URBAN-15 ensemble members, live performance by actor Eduardo Garza … and film work by Erik Bosse.
It was an intense couple of weeks putting those twelve minutes together. For me one of the challenges was to create a piece to be projected as a four-channel presentation. And these were powerful, massive projectors. The piece was amazing. And, if I do say so myself, the video was stunning (thanks, in no small part, to the incredible A/V crew who pulled the technological bits together so effortlessly (or so it seemed to me)).
The piece was titled “So Now That You Know.” Above are two screen-grabs.