News from Wednesday, September 10, 2008 @ 1:00 PM, PSTAll night i slumbered without thinking and awoke with a blank, vast void within my skull. my mind being more like a well-used dishrag than a sponge, containing stains and residues of past acquired knowledge, was in such a state to refresh itself from the artesian springs of finger-dirtied pages read again and again. while soaking in a passage from Concepts of Modern Art (Richardson & Stangos, Eds.), i was struck by a passage describing Dadaist exhibitions which described the abhorrent, yet appealing, reaction of the throngs who flocked to see their work and the manner in which the non-art was displayed. it was nearly identical to my recent experience in visiting the Portland Art Museum - the current works being the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards.
the parallels were uncanny, aside from the fact that the NW artists assumed they were creating art and in that respect were maliciously deceptive - for the Dadaists never claimed that their exhibitions were art at all, and only the ignorant were so fooled to approach it in that context. on the other hand, that deleterious appropriation of the term Art quite caught me off guard, and i found myself insulted and demeaned like those hapless rubes of the 20th Century. obviously there is a faction of the public(?) who feel the current exhibit contains art of unqualified and deserving success - enough to present them with fantastic designations, like “Winner of the Arlene Schnitzer Award“, and laud them with bouquets of money.
i would describe the scene in detail, but i know you would soon grow bored with descriptions of the infantile artworks, assemblages of found objects, and installation pieces lovingly displayed in a glorification of stupidity and unrelenting self-loathing that people must find fascinating, and thus deceiving themselves, revel in their ‘understanding’ of art and the fabled aesthetic of ‘beauty’ or perhaps ‘creativity’.
And how many people do you suppose entertained themselves looking at the works without the slightest light of recognition leaking into the closed tombs of their minds; without realizing they were taking part in a supreme and sarcastic irony?
88teeth
[ Edited on: 09/20/08 ] | [ 0 ]
Leave a Comment »
News from Sunday, August 31, 2008 @ 8:19 AM, PSTIn this third post in our ongoing series on Creating DLa 23, we explore how the copious quantity of contributor content was organized and prepared for the project. Out of all the various steps involved with the production process, organizing and preparing content was perhaps the most time-intensive, tedious, and challenging task of them all.
After receiving a majority of the content for DLa 23, we found ourselves with well over 500 image, text, and multimedia files from no less than thirteen different contributors. Initially, submitted files were delivered via email, FTP and snail mail. Some documents were hand-delivered hard copies of the originals, which needed to be scanned, sized, formatted, cropped, and adjusted for proper digital print conversion. Thus the first step in the content-preparation process involved digitizing everything that was delivered in analog format. Fortunately, there was only a relatively small number of such conversions that needed to take place.
Once all of the content for the issue was ready to go in digital format, all of the files were lumped together into a single folder. Then, a separate folder was created, within which individual subfolders were created for the various contributors, along with several other administrative and production folders for the remainder of the content, notes, placeholders, secondary layout graphics, and so on. The final subdirectory structure looked similar to this:
_admin+_artopsy_artspace_cover_extraz_fonts_il-com_werdzbetzbhbwchiekofcugrahamjaypriorkalacakranimbusosseusperishseonaidthanecOnce this organizational architecture was in place, all of the files were carefully investigated and placed into the proper directory. Along the way, extraneous and duplicate content was consolidated or eliminated and missing content was noted. Once everything was in place, further organization occurred with the help of additional subdirectories designed to segregate, say, photographs from drawings and so forth. Thus, for DLa 23, content was organized first by artist and then by content type, as opposed to vice-versa. This strategy fits well with our production process and has been standard operating procedure for as long as I care to remember.
With everything neatly organized, consolidated, and streamlined into proper channels, it was time to begin preparing the content for the design process. Working primarily with InDesign for the layout, implementing a consistent, systematic, and logical convention for naming files is important to maintaining an optimized and streamlined digital workspace. Thus, before beginning with the layout, all files were renamed according to the artist, type of work, and numerical identity within the sequence. For example, after the renaming was complete, a contributor’s directory would look something like this:
perish-01_afro-smurf.jpgperish-02_bottomz-up.jpgperish-03_helium-compression.jpgperish-04_self-portrait.jpgperish-05_dimension-diving.jpgperish-06_magic-turd.jpgperish-07_midnight-noon.jpgperish-08_distraction.jpgperish-09_cold-boots.jpgperish-10_exoskeletal-bust.jpg..and so on. Once a solid file-naming strategy had been employed throughout the directory structure, a final check was executed and a backup copy of the entire archive was created. It should be noted that a comprehensive backup policy was exercised throughout the entire production and distribution process. Once complete, having everything organized and prepared for production equipped us with the information needed to begin planning and production, but before we could go there, all of the content needed to be formatted, cropped, and polished in Photoshop. With over 200 files to process, the fun had just begun!
Next in the Creating DLa 23 series: “Part 4: Photochoppin’”
Perishable
[ Edited on: 08/31/08 ] | [ 0 ]
Leave a Comment »
News from Sunday, August 17, 2008 @ 9:35 AM, PSTIn this second post in our series, Creating DLa 23, we discuss the process whereby submissions and other issue content were collected for the project. This may seem like an insignificant part of the process, but with copious content from each of the eight core artists, this was one of the most challenging aspects of the entire affair.
Once the call went out that Ron was orchestrating a new, full-size issue of Dead Letter Art, there was an enthusiastic response from nearly all of the core members. There were also five “guest contributors” interested in submitting content. Thus, within days of Ron’s announcement, content for DLa #23 began pouring in..
For past issues of DLa, we usually found ourselves with plenty of content to produce a 30-page zine quite easily. Not every member would always share content, but even so, we generally would find ourselves with a good two to six submissions from each contributor. After all the content was collected, we would then tie it all together with various thematic elements, words and imagery.
This time, however, things were different. This time, it was announced that the issue was to printed in full color, with plush softcover binding and the whole bit. As soon as members and contributors realized this, the content began to flow. After all, nearly every other issue we had ever produced was almost entirely in black-&-white. The opportunity to see some of our recent werks published in full color inspired many of us to submit much more than usual.
Currently, many of the core DLa members are located in different cities. We have Kalacakra, Sui Lan and Osseus residing in Seattle, ThaneC living in Portland, FCU keeping it real in Spokane (and currently, Saudi Arabia), and the rest of us chilling in Moses Lake. This locational disparity proved challenging throughout the production process, requiring us to resynchronize and streamline a reasonably effective content delivery and communication protocol. Relying on email, snail mail, FTP, and hand-delivered hardcopies (guess who), all content was eventually delivered, collected and organized.
Reviewing the content submission process, there were several things that worked well, and several things that failed to benefit the effort. The things that worked well (for future reference) involved setting deadlines, using file-naming protocols, and consolidating emails into a minimal number of threads. Things that would have improved the process include having contributors send all content at the same time, setting limits to the number of contributions, and pre-formatting as much content as possible.
Although the content collection and organization process continued throughout the duration of the project, within a few weeks we had received a substantial majority of the art, photos, words, and other content that would eventually appear in the issue. When it was all said and done, the content archive for DLa 23 topped 500 files, organized in more than 25 folders. This was far more content than we had anticipated, and the work of organizing and preparing the content had just begun..
Next in the Creating DLa 23 series: “Part 3: Content Preparation”
Perishable
[ Edited on: 08/31/08 ] | [ 0 ]
Leave a Comment »
[
FullScreen |
LetterBox ]