I am creating a new project called  Art Criticism and other Short Stories, a box set of zines containing fanfiction about works of contemporary visual art.

The definition of fan fiction from Merriam Webster is: a fictional account written by a fan of a show, movie, book, or video game to explore themes and ideas that will not or cannot be explored via the originating medium; also written also called fanfic.

What happens if we apply this model to the visual arts? The Da Vinci Code for conceptual art, perhaps?

I am looking for writers to participate in this experiment -

I am looking for:

Fiction between 2000 and 5000 words

Fiction based on one or more contemporary artworks

A final draft by November 1^st, 2010

Playfulness & campiness are strongly encouraged!

I’m giving a brief talk this weekend at PDX Contemporary – details below….

Please join us this Saturday at 11 am for Regifting Economies, a short talk by Helen Reed. This is the third lecture happening in conjunction with Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen’s exhibition The Classroom, which is on view this month at PDX Contemporary Art.

In The Classroom, Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen present a new body of work that deals with the politics and aesthetics of education. Through the exploration of a variety of pedagogical tools and methods they have created a selection of objects and prints. From modular Mondrian building blocks to color analyses of literary classics there is something for every kind of student. With the current inflation of people pursuing higher education, despite its mounting cost, increased privatization and decreased rigor, it seems particularly appropriate to portray the classroom transparently as a place of commerce. Knowledge is valuable, but it is more valuable still to acquire the ability to transmit that knowledge. What we learn is less important than how we learn.

Helen Reed is an artist based in Portland, Oregon. Over the past 5 years Helen’s art practice has involved working with specific invested communities. During this time she has landed the first senior citizen on the moon, contacted Marshall McLuhan by Ouija Board, and coordinated a lesbian-separatist rave in the farmlands of Ontario. Her most recent project is Twin Twin Peaks, a 3rd Season of Twin Peaks, written and acted by the show’s fans. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at The Kitchen in New York City, Power Plant Contemporary Art in Toronto, The Portland Art Museum, The Seattle Art Museum and La Centrale in Montreal. Helen Reed holds a BFA from the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, BC and an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State
University.

This is one of four lectures happening in conjunction with Anna Gray & Ryan Wilson Paulsen’s exhibition The Classroom on view at PDX Contemporary during the month of July. Each Saturday a local educator will use the objects of The Classroom to present on a variety of topics including, but not limited to, fan culture, pedagogy, language and literacy.

Saturday, July 24th: Helen Reed
Saturday, July 31st: Barry Sanders

All lectures will be at 11 am at PDX Contemporary Art.

925 NW Flanders, Portland, OR

We hope to see you there!

I am writing a paper on documentary reenactments right now, and of course, had to include Jill Godmilow’s What Farocki Taught, since it is one of my favorite pieces of reenactment cinema of all time, in it’s dry yet incredibly potent form and it’s oblique challenge to channels of distribution.

Here’s Jill:

Hazel Meyer is a friend, an athlete, an artist, and a great inspiration to me.

She recently graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design MFA program. Here is an image from her thesis exhibition  Hyper Hyper:

Wish I coulda been there… in flesh, instead of on facebook.

If you google image search Condensations of the Social the first thing that pops up is this:

But I want to draw your attention to this:

Condensations of the Social, the show, curated by Sara Reisman, at Smack Mellon.

There is a lot of really exciting work in the show, including documentation of Touch Sanitation by Mierle Laderman Ukeles (legendary!)

I feel really honored to have participated as well, with six of my classmates, on a project called Let Knowledge Serve the City.

Exhibition Dates: June 19 – August 1, 2010

Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street, Brooklyn, New York

If you are in New York I recommend taking a look!

Portland State University MFA in Contemporary Art Practice Graduate exhibition tonight!

GROWN UPS | Opening Saturday, June 5 | 6 – 9 pm | @ Disjecta 8371 N Interstate

Incredibly sad news from Toronto today. I am reposting part of an article from Spacing magazine, introduction by Shawn Micallef.

you can read the whole article here.

Will Munro, 1975-2010: Toronto has lost a great city builder

Very sad news today. After a long illness that he fought longer and harder than any doctor expected, Toronto has lost Will Munro. Will was a cultural force in this city and helped change the way we think about Toronto’s geography and expanded ideas of where various communities are supposed to live and play.  Along the way he created new spaces for untold numbers of people (many of whom may never even knew of him or that he was behind the event or place they were enjoying). He was an artist; a volunteer; a community councillor; a DJ, an impresario; an entrepreneur; and a friend to many and civic glue to so many more.

Below is a review of the Affective Economies panel that I organized for the conference Open Engagement.

Review by Krystal South.

Left to Right: Helen Reed, Henry Jenkins (via Skype), Anna Snyder, Kara Helgren and Harrell Fletcher.

On Saturday, May 15, 2010 as part of the Open Engagement Conference in Portland, Oregon, five unlikely individuals met and spoke to these themes: the role of the fan and the connectivity of the internet in creating Affective Economies or “economies of love”. Led by Helen Reed, MFA student in the Art & Social Practice program at Portland State University, the other patricipants included educator and author Henry Jenkins, artist and head of the MFA in Art & Social Practice Program Harrell Fletcher and PDX Browncoats members Anna Snyder and Kara Helgren.

Jenkins gave a presentation on the role of the fan within the development of Web 2.0 and how convergence cultures centered around popular cultural references (think American Idol & Buffy) create affective economies in which an online community engages in cultural production in addition to their consumption. Within these social networks, often centered around science fiction programming, fans exist as experts and spread information regarding their topic widely across the web. This benefits television programs or film productions, but what compensation is provided to the fans for their help? Jenkins was extremely knowledgeable about these topics and had prepared a wonderfully nerdy presentation on nerds.

The PDX Browncoats use their mutual love of the Josh Wheaden/FOX television show Firefly (cancelled before the end of it’s first season and revived years later with a feature-length film) to raise money for Equality Now, which aims to end violence against women. Snyder and Helgren spoke of their initiation to Firefly, their inception into the world of fandom and the online community surrounding it, and their experience upon joining and becoming actice officers within the PDX Browncoats, and their charitable umbrella organization Serenity Now and The Signal, their self-produced (with assistance from online members all over the world!) podcast. It was evident that the community they are involved in utilizes the strength of their mutual love of a TV show to achieve greater good for both themselves and the beneficiaries of their charitable contributions.

Harrell Fletcher spoke about Learning to Love you More, a work begun in 2002 with Miranda July as an online project which assigned sentimental, insightful questions and assignments to the internet audience. The results were diverse, numerous and sweet–an archive of a “chain of empathy” that developed over time through the call and response of the artists and their audience. Fletcher spoke to the development of these kinds of ideas within his work, as well as the climate of a pre YouTube internet audience. The project culminated in 2009 with a book of the same name and the acquisition of the work in 2010 by SFMoma.

Questions from the audience connected themes between the presenters and  wrapped up a successful afternoon thinking about the role that fans and their technology play in our economies and societies.

design by Chris Lee