The Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin has a lovely garden. I would describe it as a little square out of the Gardens of Versailles; very organized and geometrical. I felt that when you visit the garden, you don’t visit it but you walk the grounds if that makes any sense. Same action, different verb and sentiment. I took some ph.ot.os.
Today I got an email that one of the photos is now included in an online guide to Ireland by schmap.com. That’s nice.
Last Thursday I experimented doing an interactive performance at ROOMS Gallery in Pilsen. I’d rather refer to it as a facilitation of something cool rather than a performance, since I did not assume a different persona. I handed the visitor little brass rods and together we built a pyramid. Here are some video stills.
[audio:wssam.mp3]
If you know this song, it probably brings a smile to your face. It is the song from the opening credits of “Wheels of Fire”, a skateboarding video from 1987. The song “What’s So Strange About Me?” is by a band called Eight Dayz led by Claus Grabke.
I had seen the video many times on VHS back in the day and when I came across it lately, I surprised myself with the amount of lyrics I remembered.
Some of the lyrics are unclear or make little sense; please comment if you hear something I missed.
Wherever I’m going they’re calling me a stranger they’re calling me a liar they’re calling me a gypsy.
Take away the children take away the work and savor my behavior, tell me by my smell.
savor my behavior, tell me by my smell.
What’s so strange about me I’ll go the same with you just because I am far away from home you say I don’t belong to you.
You want me to shine on my culture the things that I learned you want the total adaption the pride that I earned.
What remains is the question I’d like to ask you, as soon as I fit in, who are you gonna bring the bad things to?
They think they have a reason so they’re looking down on us but the fact they’re only using us as a bad excuse.
Savor our behavior, tell us by our smell.
Savor our behavior, tell us by our smell.
What’s so strange about me I’ll go the same with you just because I am far away from home you say I don’t belong to you.
You want me to shine on my culture the things that I learned you want the total adaption the pride that I earned.
What remains is the question I’d like to ask you, as soon as I fit in, who are you gonna bring the bad things to?
In my site Parking Spots, I always get more photo submissions in the summer.
This one was sent by Li Ping from Hong Kong.
ROOMS Gallery in Pilsen had a political science fair last month as part of 2nd Fridays art openings. The idea of the fair was to have a scientific experiment about a political issue done in a way a school science fair would be. I participated and made a presentation about an algorithm to carve states into congressional districts. In order to illustrate the algorithm, I used Lego pieces.
Texas was chosen as a case study because of the overt gerrymandering that took place there in 2003.
There was something about it in New City Magazine.
On Valentine’s Day I was at a fun party and at some point someone took out a camera. Some people posed for pictures, some more cameras were out, and the inevitable happened.
Almost any three people who pose together for a photo will at one point assume the Charlie’s Angels configuration. My photo is just one out of many. I started a Flickr pool to celebrate this pop culture phenomena.
