Object lessons

I’m super excited to see this new documentary, “Objectified,” by the folks who brought us “Helvetica”… While I’m not invested in the topic as a designer or engineer, I appreciate anything that helps us focus on the meaning, creation, and reception of objects within a consumer society. It’s screening at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts later in June but alas, I’ll be out of town then. Have to catch it some other time in some other venue!

description:
“Objectified is about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s also about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability. Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential product designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. (2009, 75 min, digital video”

website update! Dublin show and more…

I just updated my website to feature my new exhibition “Unsolicited Fabrications: Shareware Sculpture” at Pallas Contemporary Projects in Dublin, Ireland, and 126 artist-run space, Galway. Lots of photos of handmade sculptures (all built on-site over the period of seven days before the opening, mind you!). The trip to Ireland was amazing and I wish I had more time to explore and see the city!

UC Berkeley commencement speech

I had the insanely amazing honor to be invited to deliver the commencement speech for the Art Department at UC Berkeley this year. In attendance were over 100 graduating undergraduates and a graduate class of six students. Along with their proud families and faculty members, it took place on a sunny day in the sculpture garden of the Berkeley Art Museum. I took the responsibility very seriously — this was the first graduating class after last year’s historic presidential election, along with a recession that is coloring the outlook of college students everywhere. I wanted to address what I see as a potential opening of sorts, a way to encourage and promote cultural capital in a time of faltering economic capital.

Following is a transcript of the speech…

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“Cultural Capital in a Time of Recession”
by Stephanie Syjuco
Commencement Speech for UC Berkeley Art Department, May 2009

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS class of 2009! It is an honor and a privilege to be addressing you on this day, at this lovely museum, surrounded by your friends and families, your faculty and the UC Berkeley academic system. We have all come together to express our deepest pride in your commitment to your artistic practice and your pursuit of a degree of high value. Graduates, look around you and know that we stand by you to witness this day, and that we support you in your future. As an artist and teacher myself, I look forward to seeing you out in that place they call “the real world” as a creative peer within the greater art community. Again, my heartfelt congratulations to you all!

We are living in tough times and you must forgive me if I choose to structure this commencement speech for the art department in the language of economics. Indeed, it seems both appropriate and inappropriate – how to link together what goes on within an artist’s private space of production with the outside world of recession, politics, and restructuring. At times these spheres of existing seem vastly indifferent to each other. But I do think it’s possible, perhaps entertaining, and I’ll attempt to do so in a way that hopefully opens a dialogue about what your future challenges may entail.

I will not repeat to you the facts and figures of the current economic situation, this recession with a capital “R”. These things you probably already know, but if you find yourself blissfully unawares, you may be in for a bit of a shock after graduating and entering the job market. It is a daunting task to face a future in which economic prospects seem uncertain and the art market is contracting. Sales are down. Museums and galleries are cutting back expenses, art programs are laying off faculty and staff, while nonprofit arts organizations, that golden support system and lifeblood of young artists everywhere, are squeezing their resources to make ends meet. The international economic art party as it’s been known for the past decade or so is OVER and the reality is beginning to sink in. It was a grand speculation, a bubble, a fleeting moment that piggy-backed onto a larger wave of globalized flows of money. Not anymore.

Conference: “Rising Tide: The Arts & Ecological Ethics”

I’m participating in this conference (April 17 and April 18) held jointly by Stanford University and the California College of the Arts. I’ll be presenting both my work and larger issues around the DIY handmade movement to talk about questions of capitalism and sustainable culture…

www.risingtideconference.org/

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This groundbreaking three-day conference is the first-ever interdisciplinary gathering to look closely at the relationship between aesthetics and the green revolution. Participants include artists, business and nonprofit professionals, activists, community organizers, scholars, faculty, and students. They are coming from the Bay Area and around the world to present new projects, books, and theories about creative work and climate change. Public policy is shaped by cultural habit, and the aim of the conference is to blaze new trails—to help push the green revolution to a tipping point.

Topics of the panels, seminars, and roundtables will include: a macro look at world politics and its relationship to art and design in a changing climate; sustainable, experimental materials that are newly available to artists, designers, and architects; the impact of green capitalism on society; an investigation of the future of culture in an environmentally challenged world; African American youth and urban aesthetics in the green era; remaking and rethinking cities, art objects, transportation, and human behaviors to encourage sustainable development; and an overview of the art and design projects that are most dramatically affected by environmental collapse.

Keynote speakers include the artist David Buckland, who in 2001 founded Cape Farewell, a charitable organization that pioneers the cultural response to climate change by bringing artists, scientists, and communicators together to stimulate the production of art based on scientific research; and Sheila Kennedy, professor of architecture at MIT and a founding principal of KVA MATx, an interdisciplinary design practice that explores relationships among architecture, technology, and emerging public needs.

Tech Tools of the Trade: Contemporary Media Art, opens 4/17

Just spent the day installing a large installation version of my “Grey Market (Everything Must Go)” piece at the de Saisset in Santa Clara. Along with a projected version of my three-channel video work, “Body Double,” it’s an exciting lineup of artists and it’s really wonderful to have a chance to show these works in new and larger ways–!

“Everything Must Go (Grey Market)” 2009, digital images of used electronics for sale on ebay and craigslist, mounted on foamboard and foam. overall 12′ x 12′ x 4′

Tech Tools of the Trade: Contemporary New Media Art
de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California
April 17 – June 28, 2009
Opening Reception: Friday, April 17, 6-8pm

http://www.scu.edu/desaisset/exhibits/Tech-Tools-of-the-Trade.cfm

This survey exhibition features work produced by Bay Area-based or Bay Area-rooted artists using new media—defined in the context of this exhibition as electronic, digital, or web-based. Organized into accessible thematic sections, the work in this exhibition explores the ways that technology has shaped our sense of selves, our vision, our bodies, and our world. The exhibition examines our cultural fascination with technology (including our continued faith in its benefits), our myriad uses of the internet, as well as the potentially troubling applications of technology in simulation and surveillance.

While the work in the exhibition features a broad range of conceptual and artistic approaches, all of it is unified by its multidisciplinary content. As a result, the exhibition has been organized around thematic areas that highlight the works’ connections to contemporary cultural and social phenomena: Biomorph, Identity, Web Repurposing, New Light, Hope and Promise, Surveillance, and Simulation.

Throughout history, artists have taken advantage of technological innovations, employing new developments as tools in their artistic production. Examples range from the discovery of photographic processes to the lost-wax casting process for large-scale sculpture. More recently, Ivan Sutherland’s 1963 invention of “Sketchpad,” a computer aided drawing program, is the ancestor of current image making applications such as Flash and Illustrator. The organization Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) was founded in 1966 to match artists and engineers for collaborative projects, which utilized electronic equipment and new materials such as mylar. With the refinement of raster graphics on the computer in the seventies, painting with pixels became another production tool in the artist’s toolbox.

The new media artists in this exhibition adopt current technologies such as online colonies and marketplaces, digital video cameras, and security x-ray machines to achieve their artwork. Some artists in the exhibition comment on technology with low-tech presentations, while others use sophisticated equipment solely to achieve their conceptual goals. As technology becomes more pervasive in our lives, the artists respond in kind – either as users of the technology, or as commentators.

Artists in the exhibition include Jim Campbell, Anthony Discenza, Rodney Ewing, Martha Gorzycki, Lynn Hershman, Sherry Karver, Nina Katchadourian, Scott Kildall, Andrew Kleindolph, Jill Miller, James Morgan, Deborah Oropallo, Trevor Paglen, Alan Rath, Jackie Sumell, Stephanie Syjuco, Gail Wight, and Christine Wong Yap.

This exhibition is co-curated by the de Saisset Museum and SCU Assistant Professor Kathy Aoki. Santa Clara University art history major Lauren Baines played an important role by writing all of the identification and interpretive labels for Tech Tools of the Trade. Guide by Cell interpretive content for the exhibition was developed by students in Aoki’s Art in the Computer Age course. Students in the course include: Jill Blake, Ashley Cook, Peter Dziuba, Katherine Fiedelman, Christina Flores, Whitney Fung, Molly Geisler, Millicent Jenkins, Katrina Liebl, Justine Macauley, Kelsey Maher, Kaitlin McKee, Morgan Michaels, Lila Miyamoto, Carolyn Nickell, Memori Otsuka, Kenneth Solis, and John Wrixton.

This exhibition is funded in part by the de Saisset Museum, a SCU Technology Innovation grant, and a grant from Arts Council Silicon Valley, in partnership with the County of Santa Clara and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Donate Better Art…

Donated to The LAB auction:

“Personal Protest (Catalyst for Change): Better Art,” 2009

The LAB 25th Annual Auction
Saturday, March 21, 2009, 6:30-9:30 PM
Live auction at 7:30 PM
Silent auction sections close every 15 minutes from 8:30 – 9:30 PM
$10-25 sliding scale admission (includes snacks and refreshments)
Purchase tickets in advance at: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/59667

Preview gallery hours: Wednesday, March 18 – Friday, March 20, 1-6PM (free admission)
Sale continues: Sunday, March 22, 1-6pm (free admission)

Art lovers, join us for our biggest fundraising event of the year. Incredible local, national, and international artwork will be available via silent auction with starting bids at $25 and up (cash, checks, VISA/MC accepted). Over 200 artists will be participating, including Mike Arcega, Leo Bersamina, Michelle Blade, John Casey, Ajit Chauhan, Joshua Churchill, Carolyn Ryder Cooley, Gail Dawson, Victor De La Rosa, Tara Lisa Foley, Matt Furie, Bryson Gill, Taro Hattori, Cynthia Ona Innis, Xylor Jane, Jeff Kao, Tom Marioni, Karla Milosevich, Paul Mullins, Trevor Paglen, Hillary Pecis, Genevieve Quick, Ed Ruscha, Casey Jex Smith, Kirk Stoller, Stephanie Syjuco, Heather Wilcoxon, and many more. This is a great event for both new and established collectors.

Handmade Nation snippets online!

Totally dorking out and going blah blah blah on different websites via the Handmade Nation movie… wow.

The Online Newshour
Juxtapoz online

Handmade Nation screens in San Francisco, 3/11/09

San Francisco Film Society Presents:
SF360 Film+Club: Handmade Nation
March 11 at Mezzanine
Ticket and Event information at www.sffs.org

SF360 Film+Club, the Film Society’s acclaimed social screening series, returns with Faythe Levine’s documentary Handmade Nation, following a movement of artists, crafters and designers that imbue traditional handiwork techniques with a punky do-it-yourself ethos. The film explores the burgeoning art community of indie crafters via interviews in the studios and homes of noted and independent artists. Levine also details how the Internet has spurred a once underground movement and how crafts have expanded to connect with the greater public through boutiques, galleries and fairs.

Lisa Congdon, owner of retailer Rare Device; Derek Fagerstrom, co-owner of the Curiosity Shoppe and the Craft and DIY co-editor at design*sponge; Natalie Zee Drieu, Senior Editor of Craft magazine; and Stephanie Syjuco, fine artist and professor; are expected to attend. Displaying and selling their work will be the following artists and vendors: Dutch Door Press, Diana Fayt, Cara Lyndon, Miss Natalie, Mittenmaker, Nous Savons, Sharon Spain, Woolly Hoodwinks, Zum, the Curiosity Shoppe, Little Otsu, Needles & Pens and Rare Device.

Tickets are $8 for SFFS members and $12 for non-members; must be 21+ to attend. Mezzanine is located at 444 Jessie Street in San Francisco.

For more information, visit http://www.sffs.org/events/films/film_handmade_nation.html

Exhibition photos from Houston show!

Huzzah! I finally got the first set of installation photos from my show at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, “Total Fabrications.” It filled 3000 square feet and had five different components. The show came down last Sunday and I am crying softly to myself about it. It was such an amazing experience and I can’t begin to laud curator Meredith Goldsmith enough for being so fabulous to work with

Works included:
–“Towards a New Theory of Color Reading (El Dia/Houston Forward Times/Manila Headline)”: a large billboard-like display of colorfield newspapers based on three Houston ethnic journals. Newspapers were free for gallery visitors to take!
–”Body Double (Platoon/Apocalypse Now/Hamburger Hill)”: a three-channel video work on LCD monitors
–“The Berlin Wall”: a “collection” of rocks from my idea of The Berlin Wall
–”La Maison Tunisie (After Charlotte Perriand)” and “Four Days Towards a New Modernism (After Charlotte Perriand)”: two shelf-like structures built of salvaged materials
–”The Village (Small Encampments)”: four photographic diptychs and a slide projector with 80 images on rotation

SFMOMA blog post: on DIY, Freecell, and more

I was invited by SFMOMA blog mistress Suzanne Stein to do a little blog entry on a portion of the “Participation” show that was up in the museum, specifically a commissioned project by New York design group Freecell. What results is a rumination on DIY, individual anarchy, and the question of “failure” within open-ended projects…

“On Letting Them Do It Themselves: Activated Anarchy vs. Designed Intentions”