Photoshop Fridge Magnets

There is nothing as pristine and perfect as a blank surface. Paper, Canvas, or what have you. A blank space is solid in it’s principles of design. However when we encounter a blank space there is an overwhelming urge to leave a mark, a representation of self. Acting on this urge records an individuals presence on the surface, but also disrupts it’s  balance. One must work to reestablish a sense of order on the now marked surface. having said that, there is nothing more frustrating than a refrigerator, a blank surface that gets marked up by notes, photos, and other nick knacks, in an disorderly way. My instincts tell me to rearrange the magnets and photos in a way that makes an aesthetic sense. In some cases I’ve fantasized about being able to “select all” and “delete.” I appreciate the joke in these “Photoshop Fridge Magnets” from ThinkGeek.com. The virtual metaphor for visual organization, pokes its way into the real, reminding people to make sure their fridge is set to the proper color profile.

Underground Home in Vals, Switzerland

This Amazing elliptically-shaped underground house is a collaboration between the Netherlands architects at SeARCH and Christian Muller Architects.  See more photos here

Nikolaus Gansterer: Urban Alphabet

A temporary installation in Praterstern, Vienna, Nikolaus Gansterer’s Urban Alphabet uses maps of cities to stand in for letters of the alphabet (example E is for Edmonton) turning place into a layer of abstraction that meaning can be derived from.

Charles Hamilton Poetry Slam

I attended the Saskatoon Poetry Slam, at Flint, Sunday night; featuring Charles Hamilton. Charles has just returned from months of travel where he competed in poetry slams all over the United States and was part of the Saskatoon slam team that made a stir at the national competition in Vancouver.  The growth in Charles’ poetry can be measured in both the length of his Cat Stevens-like locks and impact of his insight. Charles’ keen sense of place, that can be found in poems like For Sailor Dan, translates well as he moved from the prairies through the southern states. Ask him what he saw on billboards as he drove, and you’ll get a killer poem.  Charles is circulating a small book of poems (self-printed) for sale (as seen in the background of the above photo.  Unfortunately there is no link to purchase a copy, so we’ll have to track him down like the paper boy in Better off Dead.  Talk is cheap, but living is not. If you run into Charles throw a few dollars his way.

Thanks for the photo Matt Stefanson

Brendan Lee Satish Tang: Manga Ormolu

Brendan Lee Satish Tang’s Manga Ormolu engages with the current culture of globalization by focusing on the adopting,pillaging and remixing of cultural objects. In the 18th century a vase from China was a hot ticket item for the aristocrat. They were fine crafted aesthetic items that contained all the mystery and intrigue of the “Orient” in a convenient package. I’m sure the Chinese felt differently about the vase, or perhaps more accuratly, I’m sure their feeling towards the objects changed once there was a Western desire for them. Tang’s inclusion of porcelain in his work places current globalization within this history of cultural mixing and imperialism, but for Tang, today’s globalization is accelerated. It’s adopting,pillaging and remixing at a rate worthy of a cybernetic being. A distinction worth making, as digital technologies play a large role in the acceleration of globalization allowing cultural products to seemlessly pass back and forth from one area of the globe to the other.Tang find his current “18th century porcelain in Manga and Anime, cultural products from the east that have spread throughout the West over the last two decades. The melding of the two creates a Globalized product. One that is about the material object (the physical vase)and the cultural ideas (anime, which has no physical form) that get passed back and forth, both passively and aggressively.

Tang’s work is coming to The Mendel Art Gallery in January as part of the show Sugar Bombs..

Michael Campbell

For the last few years Michael Campbell has kept a studio on a small West Coast island. There he would collect eroded pieces of iron, rock, wood, and other beach debris, crafting them into the flotilla of ships seen in Field Recordings of Icebergs Melting. Campbell’s vessels have a DIY, post-apocalyptic aesthetic about them. A sort of mishmash of Mad Max and Water World with a little steampunk thrown in. Working on an island and making references to global warming is kind of like working on top of a volcano and referencing explosions, but this is what makes Campbell’s work great. The ships have been constructed on a landmass that would be severely threatened by rising sea waters. However the bit and pieces of the ships have already survived the harsh treatment of the sea. They have a strong physical history, making them the ideal (symbolic) materials to construct transport vessels out of.

Subodh Gupta, Line of Control

Subodh Gupta’s takes the everyday life of India’s economic growth and increased materialist mindset (pots and pans) and dissolves their original meaning into globally recognized icons, such as this giant mushroom cloud titled Line of Control, shown at the 2009 tate triennial. The mushroom cloud is a fitting icon. It’s connection to American prosperity as well as American (and world)troubles(cold war)post WWII , lets it embody the difficulty of 2009. India’s economy has been growing rapidly over the last decade, but rise in GDP follows rises in carbon emissions.

Bernie Lubell: Origins of Innocence

Bernie Lubell makes intricate and interactive rube goldberg machines that make the viewer aware of the relationship they have with technology. Lubell shows you how the machine works, how they amplify the potential for work, and how they engage with the human experience.

” As visitors work together to animate the mechanisms they create a theatre for themselves and each other. By encouraging participation, touch and manipulation the pieces coax visitors to engage their bodies as well as their minds. The way that pieces move and feel and sound as you rock them, pedal, crank and press against them applies the kinesthetic comprehensions of childhood to the tasks of philosophy.”

photo via

Janice Weber: Magpie Eyes

Janice Weber’s BFA show, Magpie Eyes, opens today in The Snelgrove Gallery.The title is in reference to the collecting nature of magpies. Weber wants us to view the works presented as a collection of metaphorical “shiny objects” that’s she’s attracted to. However I think Weber has created something far more alluring than a collection of personal objects. While I have no doubt that the source of the objects is indeed the personal world Weber lives in,( similar to Karla Giffin’s MFA show) Magpie Eyes reads more like an investigation into simulation, specially with a musical slant. What one will soon note about Magpie eyes, is that their are no actual personal objects in the show. Everything has been meticulously fabricated by Weber in the form of drawings, photos and prints. The best representation of this is Weber’s gorgeous three-dimensional drawings of musical instruments. She has painstakingly replicated a Fender amp, a drum set, and a microphone in a way that is part paper craft, part sculpture and all awesome! I think of the Rock Band phenomenon, American Idol,and all the effort that goes into creating a “fake” musician or the personality/experience of being a “Rock Star” and see Weber’s show in relation to this. Weber has put an equal amount of effort into creating “fake” instruments, but not from a place of mimicry (Weber is an actual musician)but from a connection to the objects of her craft. Something we can all relate to, musician or not, as Personalities can be identified by the objects we keep around us, and the things we work on.

Reception for Magpie Eyes is Friday from 7:30-10:30.