Nonsynchronous Five Times


Nonsynchronous Five Times, 2007 – 2008, three RGB filtered black and white Super-8 reels transferred to DVD, color, sound, total running time 6 minutes and 16 seconds

Nonsynchronous Five Times investigates the difficulties of making something straightforward. Three black and white Super-8 film cassettes were shot in single takes from a fixed position looking onto the top of filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu's grave marker In Kita-Kamakura, Japan. Each of the three takes was shot at high speed and with a filter for one of the three additive primary colors (red, green, and blue). Superimposed atop one another and colorized accordingly, the three elements should combine to create a singular color take; however, any deviations between the three pieces of footage caused improper registration and undulating color shifts. The objective of creating one color take was complicated by numerous factors: wind moving the tripod and camera, wind causing ripples on the water atop the grave marker, wind causing movement of the trees and their reflections in the water, as well as changes in light conditions from shifting cloud cover.

The soundtrack is the narrative backbone of the work, providing a real-time documentation of the process of shooting three film cassettes. We hear one cycle of Ozu’s gravestone being washed, the camera running at high speed, the camera being reloaded, and the camera filters being changed. This cycle occurs in the fall (note crows) and in succession three times, once for each of the film cassettes and its associated additive primary filter (RGB). The second sound element was recorded at Ozu's grave marker, yet half a year later in the summer season (note cicadas). Attempts to get clean recordings were often thwarted in both situations by sounds drifting into Engakuji Temple – ambulance sirens, trains, or people walking and talking.

At times, the three pieces of film footage come together briefly in proper registration and work in creating a singular image. As well, at times the sound of cicadas is indistinguishable from the sound of the camera filming. However, most of the time, the five elements that make up this film are in various states, ultimately calling attention to the film's constructed nature. The RGB composite image track is present only for the first three minutes of the film, after which the film proceeds as a soundtrack only - filming three cassettes took six minutes; however, the cassettes are superimposed, not shown consecutively and accordingly take up less than the actual filming time.

12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes


12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes, 2009, video, color, silent, total running time 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Book: 2009, bound 162 page hardcover book, h 8" x w 10"

12.9 miles, 24 minutes; 25.2 miles, 42 minutes; 18.8 miles, 54 minutes; 11.4 miles, 40 minutes is a 3 minute and 5 second video comprised of one hundred sixty photographs taken consecutively on Friday, February 20, 2009. The images were shot from a fixed position in the back of a car with a digital camera on full automatic mode. All images were made at one-second intervals by means of a timer and the images are displayed in the order in which they were shot with no editing, or retouching. The information at the beginning of the video denotes the distances and times between three different IKEA locations and the information at the conclusion of the video refers to the exact times at which the three IKEA images were made. The book version of this project was conceptualized, executed, and bound within the same day. This project is a collaboration with Anibal J. Pella-Woo.

Part Tool, Part Trap


Part Tool, Part Trap, 2009, Facebook, assorted artworks

Part Tool, Part Trap was an auction that took place on Facebook over three weeks during which I divested of all art works that I had produced that were still in my possession, as well as the ownership rights to works that were generated, but destroyed. All lots were free, open to the first person that claimed them, and shipped without charge to the new owners in Berlin, London, Cairo, and the United States. There were absolutely no terms to the exchange. All postings of object descriptions, images, negotiations, and correspondence by potential owners were systematically deleted at the conclusion of the project from oldest to newest postings, after which all information and friends were deleted.

The Plot is Very Bare (Berlin)


The Plot is Very Bare (Berlin), 2005/2009, fifty LightJet prints mounted to Sintra and Plexiglas, h 12.3825 centimeters (4.875 inches) x w 16.51 centimeters (6.5 inches)

Bereznitsky Gallery

The Plot is Very Bare represents a walk across a baseball field to the bench in the dugout of the Encino Little League field in Encino, California in the United States. Each photograph is taken from a position one step closer than the previous and the photographs are installed exactly one pace apart from one another.

Visitors to the 2009 Berlin installation of The Plot is Very Bare at Bereznitsky Gallery are invited to pick one of the fifty images, remove it from the wall during the opening, and take it home at the end of the night. As the evening progresses, the work will transition from being cohesive, to fragmentary, to absent. The image you decide on is yours with no attached conditions whatsoever.

Your choice will join you to the individuals who claimed the images to the left and right of your selection. You will become a part of an invisible line of people that are connected despite geographic distance. Additionally, this dugout is where the character Stacy from the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High loses her virginity to Ron Johnson, the audio consultant from the mall.

Excursions


Excursions, 2008–2009, written text, image with caption, offset printed publication. Image caption: Outdoor movie theater across from Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman’s house on Via Vittorio Emanuele, Stromboli, 2006

Excursions
is a written text that attempts to understand a sudden reversal of my compass’ polarity while traveling in Japan in 2008. Although the piece almost arrives at a conclusion employing the filmic backdrops of Yasujiro’s Tokyo Story, Roberto Rossellinis’s Stromboli, and Henry Levin’s Journey to the Center of the Earth for support, the piece is ultimately unsuccessful in providing a satisfactory answer for the strange geomagnetic occurrence.

At last I saw the figure of Hans as if enveloped in the huge halo of burning blaze, and no other sense remained to me but that sinister dread which the condemned victim may be supposed to feel when led to the mouth of a cannon, at the supreme moment when the shot is fired and his limbs are dispersed into empty space.” 1

The following thoughts, like limbs dispersed into space then reassembled, form a loose body – rudimentary, transformed, and not entirely unified, but something with the promise of a body nevertheless.

On Thursday, March 13, 2008, I used my small pocket compass to orient my map and myself when I emerged from the Shinjuku rail station in Tokyo, Japan. There are hundreds of exits from Shinjuku station and one can easily wind up walking in the wrong direction, becoming increasingly lost and bewildered if they are not initially pointing the right way towards their destination. As in the past, my compass allowed me to fix my bearings and quickly set me on the correct course. Two days later, while traveling south from Tokyo, I stopped in the city of Osaka to see the grand sumo tournaments. Again, I utilized my compass to adjust the relationship between my map of Osaka and the city itself; however, despite the alignment of the compass rose on the map and the compass held in my palm, I was significantly off course and getting no closer to the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium. Having become quite desperate after repeating the same, wrong route numerous times, I decided to walk in the opposite direction, concluding that my map of Osaka had somehow been printed in reverse. As I walked on this new course, the Osaka landmarks on the map quickly began to emerge in their appropriate places. I arrived at the Gymnasium and the entire matter disappeared from my thoughts as soon as the sumo bouts began.

Several days after my stay in Osaka, I arrived further south at my intended destination of Onomichi on the Inland Sea. Yet again, I encountered the problem of being significantly off course as in Osaka. I was investigating the city of Onomichi, looking for the different locations where the filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu shot portions of his 1953 film Tokyo Story and I repeatedly found myself getting terribly lost despite the use of my pocket compass. After retracing my steps back to the Onomichi rail station, I carefully compared my map with the station’s map. My map seemed to be exactly the same, so I aligned it properly according to the station map’s compass rose, and set out once again. Now, I navigated with ease to my desired sites and it gradually dawned on me that my maps had not been the source of the problem at all, but that there was something terribly wrong with my compass. Somehow, my compass had suddenly and enigmatically reversed its polarity during the previous days – north was precisely south, and south was precisely north. From my perspective, the world was now entirely upside down.

I sat for a long time in Onomichi at one of Ozu’s filming locations thinking about the implications of the world being unstable enough to abruptly invert. It was both odd, as well as comforting to be considering an enormous change such as a polarity reversal in Ozu’s own backyard, he being a filmmaker whose works are known for their fixed camera positions and methodical, steady nature. What event would be significant enough to cause a compass to rearrange its orientation? Would not such an event have enormous effects on transportation in the world and at the least merit a brief mention in the news? Additionally, what would the repercussions be for my personal life? While thinking loosely around these matters, I recollected that a compass reversing its polarity also featured in a book I had read a long time ago as a boy – towards the end of Jules Verne’s 1864 novel, Journey to the Center of the Earth.

The main characters from Jules Verne’s novel attempt to reach the planet’s core, entering the Earth via an opening in a volcano crater in Iceland. Then, at the end of the story after numerous adventures, they are ejected from the core on a wave of hot lava into a warm climate considerably different from Iceland. The chief protagonist puzzles over the changed environment and eventually concludes (after hearing Italian) that their previous proximity to the magnetized core of the planet affected the functionality of his compass, which had reversed, and that they were on the other side of the world. In fact, it turns out that that they had been expelled from the earth from a volcano on the Aeolian island of Stromboli, in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily, not back onto the volcano in Iceland. It was not precisely the other side of the world, but close enough in my book.

So far, I have not been to Iceland in my travels, or even remotely close to transiting through the inside of a volcano; however, I actually have spent time on the island of Stromboli where Roberto Rossellini made his film Stromboli in 1949. A few years earlier I stood on the island near the active volcano and considered the possibility of the explorers from the 1959 film version of Journey to the Center of the Earth – actors James Mason, Pat Boone, and Gertrude the Duck – being shot out from the volcano, out of their movie, and directly into Rossellini’s film alongside the heroine Ingrid Bergman. The science fiction of Journey to the Center of the Earth, in some ways a polar opposite of Rossellini’s hard edge realism, would form a bizarre amalgam; further, they even shared a legitimate geographic feature in the volcano. However, sitting in Onomichi, I could not piece together, cinematically at least, what the connections were to Japan and what this had to do with my compass shifting so radically.

Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story was made in 1953, Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli was made in 1949, and Henry Levin’s Journey to the Center of the Earth was made in 1959, so there was no commonality of production year to bring the works securely together, or even legitimately into the same mental conversation. Still, I thought, if only I could arrange for a screening of Tokyo Story at the library’s outdoor theater on Stromboli, at the base of the volcano and directly across the street from where Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman lived while filming, that would be a neat suturing and provide the third side of this filmic triangle.

Upon returning home to New York from Japan, I looked further into the mysteries of magnetism and was quite surprised with the answer from the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geomagnetism Program when they posed the following question on their website, “Is it true that the magnetic field occasionally reverses polarity?” The website then went on to say with great enthusiasm, “Yes, incredible as it may seem, the magnetic field occasionally flips over! Occasionally, however, the secular variation becomes sufficiently large such that the magnetic poles end up being located rather distantly from the geographic poles; we say that the poles have undergone an ‘excursion’ from their preferred state. During a reversal, between polarities, the geometry of the magnetic field is much more complicated than it is now, and a compass could point in almost any direction depending on one’s location on the Earth.” 2

This new information made me consider my situation quite differently. Who knows what would have happened when my compass flipped over if I had been seeking out film locations for Ozu’s Late Spring, made in 1949, or for his 1959 film Good Morning. Perhaps I would have encountered less complications, smaller variations, and found significant connections with Stromboli, or with Journey to the Center of the Earth. Nevertheless, I had been in Onomichi, Tokyo Story was made in 1953, and consequently the reassembling of dispersed limbs is not as straight as it could be, or, more truthfully, is not at all. Two lines have been joined, with the promise of a potential triangle in a distant, missing leg.

After Verne’s character emerged from the volcano’s halo of burning blaze and spotted the guide, he likened his feelings to the sinister dread of a condemned man just before “his limbs are dispersed into empty space.” If this character were to collect their senses and overcome their anxieties of the unknown, then ask the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geomagnetism Program “What causes the magnetic field to reverse polarity?” They would be confronted with the following answers:

First, “Nothing.”

Followed by, “The fact that the magnetic field occasionally reverses is simply a property of the continuous, on-going behavior of the Earth's dynamo.”

Then, lastly and most lovely, “There is no ‘cause’ per se.”

Notes:
1 Verne, Jules. Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Trans. William Butcher. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
2 "National Geomagnetism Program Frequently Asked Questions." (April 16, 2007): U.S. Department of the Interior/U.S. Geological Survey. .

日本から来ました。 日本に行ったことがありません。 上記のどちらでもありません。


日本から来ました。
日本に行ったことがありません。
上記のどちらでもありません。
I came from Japan.
I have not been to Japan.
I am neither of the above.

Curated by Stephan Apicella–Hitchcock
November 15 – December 19, 2008
Reception: Tuesday, November 18, 6 – 8 PM
Fordham University’s Center Gallery
Lincoln Center Campus
113 West 60th Street at Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023-7414

Including:
有川 滋男 Shigeo Arikawa, 康雅筑 Ya-chu Kang, 西村 明也 Akinali Nishimula, 志甫 和美 Kazumi Shiho, Eric Van Hove, Ben Washington

I came from Japan. I have not been to Japan. I am neither of the above. brings together contemporary artworks from six international artists that display differing relationships with Japan; however, this exhibition makes no singular statement about Japan, or implies that there might even be a cohesive Japan that the artists could speak about. The connections between Japan and this exhibition border on incidental – hence the title, which simply describes the varying levels of association between the artists and the country.

The works in this show are part of a larger exploration into finding a balance between the poles of stating and describing something overtly and leaving something implied, or unsaid. For example, a Scottish computer engineer working for the Toyota company explained to me in a doctor's waiting room in Tokyo that communication between the East and the West is not unlike an iceberg, where what is discernible, what is above water, only represents a small portion of the iceberg's actual structure.

Whether this analogy has any relevance to the dynamic of understanding between different cultures is a lengthy and problematic debate. Still, this concept is an excellent framing mechanism to consider the sculptures, films, and photography by Shigeo Arikawa, Ya-chu Kang, Akinali Nishimula, Kazumi Shiho, Eric Van Hove, and Ben Washington. Each artist demonstrates a superb understanding of their craft in realizing their pieces as discreet objects in front of you, while the conceptual aspects of the works are sufficiently receptive to support a number of interpretations. Maintaining a curious spirit while engaging with the works will allow the emergence of numerous formal connections, overlapping historical concerns, and latent conceptual associations between the pieces.

For additional information please email Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock at: apicellahit@fordham.edu
http://fordhamvisualarts.blogspot.com/
http://www.fordham.edu/visualarts/

北風は明らかに氷山から吹き出す。
A north wind blows, obviously off the icebergs.

Landscape Film (Shatana, Jordan)


Landscape Film (Shatana, Jordan), 2008, video, color, silent, total running time 1 minute and 14 seconds

Landscape Film is comprised of numerous short films made with a digital point and shoot camera as it is repeatedly thrown into the air and caught by the artist. The terrain of Shatana, Jordan is transformed from a static state through a series of pans and frenetic dives.

Untitled (with Kite)



Untitled (with Kite), 2008, video, color, sound, total running time 1 minute and 54 seconds

Collaboration is about having conversations and finding common interests. What better example than flying a kite with a friend and having a couple of beers on a sunny afternoon. However, the piece culminates with the kite’s camera filming a disaster. This project is a collaboration with Ben Washington.

Um Naji, Um Dani


Um Naji, Um Dani, 2008, fabric, thread, buttons

This project was a discreet, almost invisible collaboration with Um Naji and Um Dani (mother Naji and mother Dani), the two women who prepared the meals during my stay at a residency in Shatana, Jordan. I wanted to express my gratitude for their delicious cooking, so I commissioned them to design and sew a new set of clothes that they would wear to the open day of the residency. Despite the fact that we could not communicate linguistically, we spent a pleasant afternoon shopping for fabric, thread, and buttons. After purchasing the materials, I paid them 150% of their stated labor costs to ensure that they would make their garments with extra special care. I was not to be disappointed. When I saw them at the opening in their beautiful new outfits, I was enthralled – they looked like movie stars.

Yalla ya Bascot (Go Biscuits)

Yalla ya Bascot (Go Biscuits), 2008, written text in English and Arabic

In July of 2008, Toleen Touq and I participated in an artist residency in the small town of Shatana in Jordan. While we were being given the initial tour of the town, we heard and briefly saw a car go by in the distance with a speaker attached to its side. The car roamed through the hilly terrain, the speaker repeatedly broadcasting in Arabic the following phrase, "Yalla ya bascot!” (Go biscuits). We decided that this could be the basis for a suitable collaboration, so we started looking for the "biscuit man." Each day we set out and asked anybody that we encountered if they knew anything about the biscuit man. After our daily walks we would sit down and try to recount the people that we met, what they said to us, as well as the visual details of the scene. Gradually, he became a larger than life figure. After much searching, we eventually found him. The text of this piece is a recording of our pursuit, as well as an inadvertent portrait of the town of Shatana. This project is a collaboration with Toleen Touq.

http://www.itch.co.za/

On Tuesday, we started looking for the biscuit man.
We met three children on the road near the church.
One girl had a pink shirt.
One girl had a long neck.
The boy had a deep voice.
We asked them if they had seen the biscuit man.
They said that they had not seen the biscuit man.
They said that there is a shop nearby that sells biscuits.
They said that there was a truck selling watermelon.
They said that they do not know who the biscuit man is.
They said that they do not know when the biscuit man comes.
We walked further into town.

We met a man standing near his pickup truck.
He had a nice face.
He had a nice smile.
He had a gold tooth.
His hair was parted on the side.
We asked him if he had seen the biscuit man.
He said that he had not seen the biscuit man.
He said the biscuit man was from Neimeh.
He said the biscuit man comes every few days.
He said the biscuit man comes at noon, or sunset.
We walked further into town.

We met a man with a keffiyeh.
He had curly gray hair.
We asked him if he had seen the biscuit man.
He said that he had not seen the biscuit man.
We walked further into town.
We met a woman wearing a dark blue dress.
The dress had light blue and white embroidery.
She held Toleen’s hands.
She stroked Toleen’s hands.
She held Toleen’s face in both her hands.
She smiled sweetly to Toleen.
We asked her if she had seen the biscuit man.
She said that she had not seen the biscuit man.
She said that there are biscuits at a shop nearby.
She took us to the shop while holding Toleen’s hand.
She talked about Jesus.
She said that Jesus is in heaven.
She said that Jesus is our savior.
She took us to the shop.
The shopkeeper let us in.
We bought four chocolate bars.
We bought toffee caramel, cream wafer, vanilla wafer, and coconut.
We asked the shopkeeper if she had seen the biscuit man.
She said that she had not seen the biscuit man.
We bought two ice creams from her store.
We walked further into town.

We met a man at the end of a dead end road.
He wore a white djelabiyah.
He rested his left foot on the edge of the balcony.
He held a stick in his hand.
We asked him if he had seen the biscuit man.
He said that he had not seen the biscuit man.
He said that the biscuit man comes every few days.
He asked us to come into his home.
We walked further into town.

We met a woman with a dog.
She was standing in her yard.
She was hanging plastic bags onto her laundry line.
She spoke to us and said, “Come in my loves.”
We asked her if she had seen the biscuit man.
She said that she had not seen the biscuit man.
She said that the biscuit man could be here in one hour.
We walked further into town.

We met a man who was standing in his yard.
He was eating watermelon ice cream.
We asked him if he had seen the biscuit man.
He said that he had not seen the biscuit man.
He said the biscuit man comes every two weeks.
He said the biscuit man comes just once per month.
We walked further into town.

We met two boys who were sitting in a van.
We asked them if they had seen the biscuit man.
They said that they had not seen the biscuit man.
We said, “If you see the biscuit man tell him that we are looking for him.”
We walked further into town.
On the next day, we continued looking for the biscuit man.
We met an older man who was sitting on his porch.
He had long eyebrows.
We asked him if he had seen the biscuit man.
He said to wait while he went and got his son.
We asked his son if he had seen the biscuit man.
He said that he had not seen the biscuit man.
We walked further into town.

We met a boy with a red t-shirt on.
He was standing in his yard.
We asked him if he had seen the biscuit man.
He said that he had not seen the biscuit man.
His mom came out into the yard.
We asked her if she had seen the biscuit man.
She said that she had not seen the biscuit man.
We said, “If you see the biscuit man tell him that we are looking for him.”
We walked further into town.

We met two women sitting on the steps of a house.
There were three children playing nearby.
The woman on the right was wearing black jalabiya.
She was wearing a gold necklace with gold earrings.
The woman on the left was wearing a blue jalabiya.
The little boy wanted to play and fight.
The two women completed each other’s sentences as they talked.
We asked them if they had seen the biscuit man.
They said that they had not seen the biscuit man.
They said that the man with the gold tooth knew the biscuit man.
They said that the biscuit man only comes on Fridays.
We said, “If you see the biscuit man tell him that we are looking for him.”
She offered us some biscuits that she bought from the biscuit man.
She gave us a pink slip of paper from inside the biscuit box.
The slip of paper had the phone number for the biscuit factory.
Then man with the gold tooth drove by and stopped to talk.
The man with the gold tooth said that today he went to Neimeh.
He said that he did not see the biscuit man.
We walked further into town.

On the next day, we continued looking for the biscuit man.
We sat in the center of town with three children.
We waited for the biscuit man.
The man with the gold tooth drove by and stopped in front of us.
He said, “Goddamn this biscuit man – he never shows up!”
The little boy said that the biscuit man looks like a huge tree with branches coming out of his head.
The little boy said that the biscuit man is as tall as the street lamp pole.
The little boy said that the biscuit man’s car is as big as from the church to the red car.
The little boy said that the biscuit man’s biscuits are “this big,” while stretching his arms out wide.
The little girl said that today is Friday and the biscuit man should be coming.
The little girl asked her mom’s aunt about the biscuit man.
The aunt said that the biscuit man only comes once per week.
The little girl ran up to the house with the big picture of the king.
The little girl asked them if they had seen the biscuit man.
They said that they had not seen the biscuit man.
The little girl asked the woman near the red car if she had seen the biscuit man.
She said that she had not seen the biscuit man.
She said that the biscuit man used to come here every day.
She said that the biscuit man had not been coming since we started looking for him.
We walked further into town.
On the next day, we continued looking for the biscuit man.
It was afternoon when we heard the biscuit man.
It was afternoon when we heard his sound.
We heard his speakers in the distance.
The sound was getting louder.
We ran across the parking lot.
We ran further up the road.
We ran to find the biscuit man.
Then we found the biscuit man.
We found the biscuit man.
The biscuit man’s car was colored dark gray.
The biscuit man’s car had four doors.
The biscuit man’s car had a speaker outside the window.
The speaker was playing a song about his biscuits.
The biscuit man’s hair was black.
The biscuit man’s hair was pushed back from his face.
The biscuit man was wearing sandals.
The biscuit man was wearing pants.
The biscuit man was wearing a shirt.
The biscuit man’s shirt was the color of his car.
The biscuit man’s car was filled with boxes of biscuits.
There were boxes of biscuits and Turkish delight.
The biscuit man’s friend was with him in the car.
The biscuit man’s friend had on a purple shirt.
He sang the song about the biscuits that was playing from the car.
The biscuit man’s friend sang a song for the both of us.
We had found the biscuit man.
We had found him and his friend.
We had found the biscuit man.
We walked back to our home.

On the next day, we heard from the biscuit man.
Now the biscuit man was looking for us.

Ragged Right


Ragged Right, 2008, archival ink on acid free 74 pound polypropylene, h 12" x w 9"

Plot keywords from the Internet Movie Database for a 1979 film were carefully transcribed by hand; however, the writing became increasingly compacted and illegible as the transcription process proceeded, mirroring the increasing strangeness of the movie’s storyline.

Untitled (with Kite)





Untitled (with Kite), 2008, video, color, sound, total running time 1 minute and 54 seconds

After two weeks of unsuccessful attempts to fly home built kites made from garbage bags and sticks, we finally gave up and purchased an imported Chinese kite from a nearby store in Irbid, Jordan. The first flight was a tremendous success; however, the small video camera attached to the kite was mistakenly turned off just at launch and turned back on upon landing. There after followed four kites, all of which would fall apart in a relatively short span of time. This process of continued foundering was interspersed with days marked by a total absence of wind, which is highly unusual for the town of Shatana in the North of Jordan. The second successful flight was to be the last, as the kite string broke and the kite flew off on its own according to the wind. The video camera recorded the snapping of the kite string, the collaborators in pursuit of the renegade kite, and the kites’ journey across the landscape to its final resting spot. This project is a collaboration with Ben Washington.

A Very Slow Rhythm


A Very Slow Rhythm, December 8, 2007, 12:02 PM – January 12, 2008, 12:13 PM, printed balloons (watte kudasai - pop, sutte kudasai - inhale, atarashii fuusen ni iki wo haite kudasai - exhale into a new balloon), pin, locker, Tokyo Shimbashi Station Karasumori exit 4, underground level B1F

Off the Record, curated by Eric Van Hove, hijacks the X-CUBE© locker system which allows multiple users to exchange packages by using a touch screen and their cell phone numbers as digital keys. The curator places the artwork, invites the first person to the exhibition by registering their cell phone number, then the invited viewer uses their cell phone to unlock the locker and view the work. The next person is invited by registering a new cell phone and in this manner the exhibition travels out into the world.

For A Very Slow Rhythm a balloon was blown up with a single breath of air in New York City, mailed to Tokyo, and placed in a locker in Shimbashi Station along with 25 empty balloons and a pin. Once the international journey was complete, the focus of the project became the transference of the single breath of air from visitor to visitor. After popping the balloon, participants breathed in the previous donor’s breath, then filled a new balloon with their own exhalation. Used balloons slowly accumulated in the locker forming a record of the communal breathing – a simultaneously anonymous, yet intimate exchange. At the conclusion of this project, the last balloon was returned to New York and the original breath of air was reclaimed after being shared by numerous individuals.

Looking Southwest towards Midal al-Ataba from the Northeast corner of Shari Khulud and Shari al-Azhar...


Looking Southwest towards Midal al-Ataba from the Northeast corner of Shari Khulud and Shari al-Azhar, Seventy consecutive 30-second takes with a Cannon S70 point and shoot camera, 2007, video, color, sound, total running time 34 minutes and 55 seconds

Part performance, part traditional street photography, and part objective surveillance film – a domestic point and shoot digital camera was utilized to shoot seventy consecutive short films from a stationary position on a Cairo street corner. The camera was held at chest level pointed in the same southwest direction for each of the 70 takes with no regard to compositional framing, or subject. The camera focus and exposure were set before each take according to the distance and light on the artist’s feet. The camera’s maximum shooting time of 30 seconds and the size of the memory card dictated the length of individual takes, as well as the length of the film.

Anna – Léa Massari – Anna Maria Massetani

Anna – Léa Massari – Anna Maria Massetani, 2007, audio, total running time 4 minutes and 35 seconds, accessed through "On Call Audio" playback on demand at Bloomberg Headquarters, 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY. Presented as part of Art in General and Bloomberg L.P.'s Horizon, curated by Jan Van Woensel

Find Léa Massari, the actor who played the disappearing character Anna in Michelangelo Antonioni' s 1960 film L'Avventura, and almost have a conversation.

Extensions on the Dial HORIZON card:
  • Ext 01: Dialogue 1 by Eric Van Hove
  • Ext 02: Dialogue 2 by Eric Van Hove
  • Ext 03: Dialogue 3 by Eric Van Hove
  • Ext 04: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Flint (3:45)
  • Ext 05: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Tahquamenon Falls (2:20)
  • Ext 06: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Holland (3:28)
  • Ext 07: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Romulus (4:43)
  • Ext 08: Music by Sufjan Stevens: Vito's Ordination Song (7:06)
  • Ext 09: Going Towards the Wrong Island and Going Towards the Right Island, 2003–2005 by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (2:29)
  • Ext 10: Ritorno a Lisca Bianca, 2003–2005 by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (3:29)
  • Ext 11: A Triangulation (Italy), 2003 – 2006 Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (3:06)
  • Ext 12: An Island, 2006 Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (1:57)
  • Ext 13: Anna – Léa Massari – Anna Maria Massetani, 2007 Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock (4:35)

Untitled-17: “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” B by A, “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” A by B, September 28, 2007, 3:48 PM


Untitled-17: “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” B by A, “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” A by B, September 28, 2007, 3:48 PM, 2007, C-print mounted to Plexiglas, h 11 1/2” x w 17”

Two “Epson Perfection 2580 Photo” flatbed scanners were placed with their glass scanning surfaces facing each other, oriented so that the recording mechanisms passed in opposite directions as they made their scans. The resultant left and right images that form this diptych are the raw scans generated according to the devices’ factory presets and are printed at one hundred percent original size with no retouching, adjustments of image density, color correction, or cropping. Although the settings were identical for both units and the scans initiated simultaneously, the two images have numerous distinct, if subtle, variations from one another.

A Triangulation (Japan)





A Triangulation (Japan), 2006, MDF, paint, c-print mounted to aluminum, video, written text, Queens Museum of Art, southeast ramp, Flushing, NY. Sculpture: h 91.5” x w 46.125” x d 46.125,” destroyed, image: h 6.57” x w 9.1,” video: color, sound, total running time 30 seconds, looped. Writing: tri-fold printed handout.

Special thanks to Eric Zeszotarski of Solid Studio.

(Foreword and first entry from ten field reports)

Subject: Foreword
Date: June 19, 2005 9:32:03 PM Japan Standard Time

I was initially pleased upon seeing Cinderella Castle in Tokyo Disneyland at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Japan. Its duplication of Cinderella Castle in The Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida was precise to the smallest detail and seeing it was like reuniting with a long-standing friend. Still, in short order the comforting familiarity was replaced by mounting anxiety and a vague sense of dread. Yes, there was an abundance of grey stone, gold trim and royal blue in the rooftop shingles. Yes, the trickery of forced architecture operated in the same manner as its companion in the United States, yet something far more powerful and inexplicable was at work than simple perspective deception. Seeing this building replicated accurately in another country had the consequence of destabilizing my sense of orientation. Somehow this doppelgänger, because of its stubborn, insistent sameness, operated effectively in inverting everything that surrounded it. This baffles me.

I understand how Cinderella Castle’s combination of architectural styles taken from various castles and chateaus in Europe is not terribly odd in and of itself, since the Disney “Imagineers” wanted their castle to be as genuine as possible; all the same, seeing this building exported from France, to Florida, then on to Japan creates a double displacement of an uncanny nature and merits closer investigation. I intend on exploring this predicament of authenticity further during a fact-finding mission to Florida that will be unified with my explorations from Japan. Understanding how the Castle compromised my sense of grounding is of primary importance, particularly as I am a simultaneous critic and fan of “The Happiest Place on Earth.”

442 days later…

Subject: The Happiest Place on Earth 1
Date: September 4, 2006 11:30:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time

So, I am 100 feet inside the park sitting on the steps of City Hall looking around. The train at the Walt Disney World Railway just gave several quick toots and an "all aboard," another group is off on a circumnavigation of the park. The familiar smells of popcorn and vanilla float on the breeze and the Main Street Transportation Company just pulled up, its clip clopping barely audible above the sound of the band bouncing through a homecoming march; even so, I must say that I am a bit on edge because in addition to presenting my ticket at the gate only moments ago, I was also asked to present my index finger for a fingerprint scan. This is the beginning.

Seeking to understand the disorienting effect of the Cinderella Castle at the Tokyo Disney Resort in Japan, Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock subjects its image (and those of its twin at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, FL) to some forms of displacement reciprocity. In a spare installation, a looping video captures the Tokyo Disney Castle on a cloudy day spinning around the edge of the screen. Near the video, a simplified silhouette of the castle, bisected by its copy, hangs upside down from the ceiling like a stalactite. A third element, a photograph from Orlando’s Disney Resort, further complicates the entertainment franchise’s aggressive innocence and its disorienting duplications. – Herb Tam, Associate Curator, Queens Museum of Art.

A Triangulation (Italy)/An Island


A Triangulation (Italy), 2003–2006, 45 rpm silver master plates, h 12 3/8" x w 22 3/4" (framed) An Island, 2006, C-print (from a Super-8 film frame) mounted to aluminum, h 6 1/2” x w 9” (image) h 9 1/16” x w 11 5/8” (framed)

Have you ever seen Buster Keaton going out a doorway? He turns right, then he suddenly turns left, then, spinning on his heels, he abruptly reverses direction and heads off to the right as he initially started. It is impressive to see his original intention, his deviation, his realization, and his modification occur in the space of a few short moments. As well as the physical agility demonstrated in this comedic instant, one also might detect a compressed set of emotions in the scene that range from desire, to failure, to subsequent redemption – the fundamentals of a classic narrative. In a sense, the improvisations that occur when actuality tempers our wishes are a skeletal array of touchstones for this project; nevertheless, they are points transposed from the period of a few moments in the space of a doorway and stretched out into several years on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

In 2003, I set off for the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily, the island of Lisca Bianca specifically, to find the character Anna who disappeared from Michelangelo Antonioni's 1960 film L'Avventura; however, I accidentally went to the wrong island. I returned a year later to the right island and swam ashore, but I found nothing. Sound recordings were made during both voyages of my boat’s small outboard engine as it labored in transit to the wrong and right islands and my grand journey eventually assumed the diminutive and archaic format of a 45 rpm record, Going Towards the Wrong Island and Going Towards the Right Island. The unique, silver master plates for the A and B sides of the record are presented in A Triangulation, their encoded sounds and story clearly visible, yet ultimately inaccessible, as the master plates cannot be played.

Working alongside the two reflective plates of A Triangulation is the third component of the project, An Island. A single reel of Super-8 film was shot in a continuous take during a 2006 return to the Aeolian Islands, yet the objective was not to travel once again to Lisca Bianca, but to navigate accurately to the wrong island. Although the film itself was never intended for presentation, the very last frame of the film, the end, was selected for enlargement. This singular frame is the trophy from a return trip to an island that formerly represented a colossal blunder on my part. As well, the last frame of the footage is a bookend, providing finality and closure.

The title, A Triangulation, refers to a navigation technique whereby the properties of triangles are used to precisely determine a location by means of compass bearings from two points a known distance apart. Within the context of this project, one might consider the technique of triangulation in relation to positions in time, as well as in regards to physical location; conversely, the numerous ambiguities, deviations, as well as the mysterious disappearance of Anna at the core of this series of expeditions, operate in stark contrast to the exactitude of the triangulating process. Along these lines, the vaguely titled, An Island, also plays with notions of accuracy by utilizing an indefinite article to describe the island that is neither clear, nor precisely defined. Although we know that An Island is not the right island of Lisca Bianca, it becomes questionable whether the original name wrong island is entirely useful, particularly given that the island was traveled to intentionally and successfully on the most recent trip. As with many different types of adventures, transformations have emerged en route: objectives have changed, techniques altered accordingly, and original presumptions questioned.

Going Towards the Wrong Island and Going Towards the Right Island




Going Towards the Wrong Island and Going Towards the Right Island, 2003–2006, 45 rpm white vinyl record, total running time 3 minutes and 30 seconds (each side), 1 color offset printed label, die-cut white paper sleeve, 4 color offset printed cardboard jacket with 1 color offset printed message inside, w 7” x h 7”. Edition of 500 for North Drive Press' NDP#3, co-edited by Sara Greenberger Rafferty and Matt Keegan, edition of 100 for The Golden Hour, curated by Susanna Cole and Erin Donnelly for Gigantic ArtSpace in New York City, and 2 artist's proofs.

Going Towards the Wrong Island and Going Towards the Right Island features sound recordings made en route to the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily in search of "Anna" who disappeared from Michelangelo Antonioni's film L'Avventura. Recordings made of the outboard engine in 2003 (traveling to the "Wrong" island – Bottaro) and 2004 (traveling to the "Right" island – Lisca Bianca) were pressed at United Record Pressing (URP) in Nashville, Tennessee, via Tokyo, Japan. Cover image of Anna (Lea Massari) only comes into focus at distances further than 3 feet.

Landscape Film


Landscape Film, 2006, video, color, sound, total running time two minutes and 25 seconds

After initial screenings of Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner, Warner Brothers studios felt that the movie needed a happy conclusion, so the finale was re-cut and utilized second unit out-takes from Stanley Kubrick's opening montage in The Shining. In Landscape Film, Kubrick's opening montage is coupled with the alternate “happy ending” for Blade Runner, reuniting footage separated for many years and compressing the two films’ narratives into one. The reunited footage is presented as a projected film loop. Image caption left to right: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, 1980; Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, 1982.

Place Marker


Place Marker

Curated by Stephan Apicella-Hitchcock
December 2, 2006 – January 20, 2007
Reception: Saturday, December 2, 2006, 4 to 6 PM
CUCHIFRITOS art gallery/project space

Including:
Peter Eide, Nina Katchadourian, Brian McClave, Douglas Ross, Elizabeth Valdez

The objectives, mediums, and strategies of the artists included in Place Marker are undoubtedly disparate upon first inspection. Temperaments and approaches to problem solving differ significantly; nevertheless, the small group of participants are united by certain criteria regardless of disposition – they were all asked to develop their ideas based on what could be found within the one block radius surrounding 120 Essex Street, the address of Cuchifritos Art Gallery/Project Space. This task has been literal for some, while a more metaphoric endeavor for others. Accordingly, contrasting approaches coexist and contextualize one another in the gallery space forming linkages tenuous, yet genuine.

Peter Eide has cast objects found while walking a focused line towards the Essex Street Market from his home in Brooklyn. The transitory nature of the material used for his sculptures highlights the objects themselves, as well as the larger changing environment of the Lower East Side neighborhood.

Nina Katchadourian has written, performed, and recorded short jingles for several vendors in the market. The vendors in the market represent an amazing demographic in and of themselves, with businesses that have been around a very long time alongside newer arrivals. Her tunes, written in a variety of musical styles, are based on conversations with vendors and observations about their businesses.

Brian McClave, based out of London, has drawn parallels between the mysterious nature of an ant colony and his perceptions of a place to which he has never been. His 3-D video focuses on community, change, and on not knowing.

Douglas Ross has provided a nearly formless work on the gallery’s glass storefront facade, washing the windows with the substance of commercial exchange suspended in a liquid medium commonly used for soothing the eyes. Looking into the gallery or out to the market, over time one will see the materials of coinage oxidizing towards the colors of cash.

Elizabeth Valdez has focused on preexisting drip marks on the Essex Street Market ceiling and continued them onto the Cuchifritos rear gallery wall creating an improvisational wall drawing.

The criteria for this exhibition has yielded individual results that are discreet and satisfying, while simultaneously signaling impermanence. Artist’s projects indicate solutions and manage to do so without delineating them too directly. Ultimately, this exhibition should be considered as a platform for gestural solutions and possibilities, not for permanent endings. Along these lines, the contributors to Place Marker have undertaken explorations that share a small facet with Robert Smithson’s infamous and mythologized 1967 A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, N.J., in that their goals were as open ended as the “tour.” Participants explored, collected, and developed in awareness that their projects would combine with other elements in creating a larger, complex whole. All works, even if unlike, relate delicately to a single point of convergence, 120 Essex Street.

This exhibit is sponsored, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and through the generous support of the following: The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The New York City Economic Development Corporation, The Puffin Foundation, the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, and the members of the Artists Alliance Incorporated. CUCHIFRITOS is a project of Artists Alliance Inc.

Rough Sketch



Rough Sketch, proposal

Two identical helicopters facing each other rise straight up until they reach sufficient altitude that nothing is visible out their front windows aside from the other helicopter and empty sky. They then begin to slowly rotate in opposite directions facing each other periodically. The footage is shot from a fixed position inside each helicopter pointing directly out the front window parallel with the axis of the helicopter. The two films are projected side by side on a suitably large wall.

Potential points of interest:

1. The Eames description: “Starting at a picnic, the camera zooms to the edge of the universe; then the journey is reversed, ultimately reaching the nucleus of an atom. Literally a sketch and essentially black-and-white, this is the first version of Powers of Ten.”

2. The music composer for the Eames’ film is Elmer Bernstein. The music composer for Antonioni’s Blowup is Herbie Hancock.

3. Consider the piece in relation to Steve Reich’s use of looping. Cycles of sound are obvious; nevertheless, the beginning and ending points of the loop are difficult to ascertain. In regards to Blowup, something divorced from its context, or fixed point of reference, has no meaning. The “something” has no meaning or value – “a great Kantian definition of art.” The quote source is unknown.

4. The site for the Eames’ film is of significance, or not. The Eames’ site (Soldier Field in Chicago) is dubious, as indicated by the postcard. Utilize the slippage of truth as criteria for site choice. Above what?

5. It is a loop, yet it is a real-time loop. The moments of re-cranking and loading may feature as an element.

Image: Charles and Ray Eames filming Rough Sketch of a Proposed Film Dealing with the Powers of Ten and the Relative Size of Things in the Universe

A Drawn-out Conflict




A Drawn-out Conflict, 2005, video, color, sound, total running time 86 minutes

A Drawn-out Conflict merges the movies Wild Style and Fast Times at Ridgemont High to create a feature-length amalgam of two distinct forms of youth culture from 1982. The films were selected for their oppositional nature and averaged together to a median length and equal opacity. Audio tracks for each film were isolated and panned hard right and hard left respectively.

“The viewer of A Drawn-out Conflict is confronted with a visual and auditory battle of east coast Wild Style versus west coast Fast Times, the South Bronx versus the Valley. Locations, budgets, filmmaking style, stereotypes, and racial composition of the cast could not be more divergent; nevertheless, from love scenes to credits, the plots of the two films overlap at major benchmarks revealing a surprising formulaic style embedded in each movie.” – L.L. Pendersen

Record


Record, 2005, LightJet print mounted to Sintra and Plexiglas, h 36” x w 36” (top image: installation for Palimpsests at Gigantic ArtSpace, New York, NY; bottom image: Record and enlarged detail)

Record is the spine of my favorite record made in 1983. Although the record spine has been scanned and enlarged for closer inspection, it is so thoroughly worn down from use that little information can be deciphered. Record is a relic.

Going Towards the Wrong Island and Going Towards the Right Island


Going Towards the Wrong Island and Going Towards the Right Island, 2003–2005, LightJet print mounted to aluminum, h 4 3/4” x w 12 2/3” (image) h 7 3/16” x w 15 5/16” (framed)

Travel to the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily, the island of Lisca Bianca specifically, to find the character Anna who disappeared from Michelangelo Antonioni's film L'Avventura and accidentally go to the wrong island (Bottaro). Return a year later to the correct island.

2.35: 1


2.35: 1, 2005, Marine fir plywood, PVC, h 48” x w 30” x d 70.5”, destroyed (image: installation for Palimpsests at Gigantic ArtSpace, New York, NY)

The title 2.35: 1 refers to the proportions of a motion picture screen's width as compared to its height. The aspect ratio of 2.35:1, or widescreen, allows for extraordinary formal dynamism and is the ratio often used for epic films. One might then say that despite its modest size, this is in fact a grand sculpture, as its footprint is precisely 2.35:1. The sculpture transitions from floor, to ramp, to stairs, to ladder, to the vertical portion of a skateboard ramp, continually increasing tension and mirroring the dramatic progression of events in epic films.

Special thanks to Eric Zeszotarski of Solid Studio

Phantom/Fountain


Phantom/Fountain, 2004, video, black and white, sound, total running time 1 minute and 49 seconds, Sculpture Center basement hallway, LIC, NY (four video stills)

Phantom/Fountain is a 1 minute 49 second film of mouthfuls of water being repeatedly spat at a video camera held at arm’s length in a morgue. Although the video is noticeably dark and empty, the space was active during the day. The video was made during the time in-between numerous autopsies. Phantom/Fountain records the raw sound of the incessant discharge; furthermore, it is a record of the gradual breakdown of the video camera itself, first with the failure of the microphone, then the auto-focus, and eventually the entire camera.

“Picking up where Bruce Nauman’s Self Portrait as a Fountain (1966) left off and following its art historical concerns and references, Apicella-Hitchcock creates a formal abstraction of shape, trajectory, and framing that also accentuates a psychological discomfort with a physical proximity to death.” – Anthony Huberman, Sculpture Center

Desire Lines


Desire Lines, 2005, video, sound, total running time 6 minutes and 17 seconds, (image: installation for Palimpsests at Gigantic ArtSpace, New York, NY), special thanks to Tom Kehn

Desire Lines is comprised of the scrolling end credits from films in the artist’s collection. The footage is sped up tremendously, diminishing legibility and highlighting the fact that despite the various movie genres, the films all adhere to a specific structural logic. The title of this piece refers to the landscape architecture term "desire lines" where the placement of concrete sidewalks is established by the organic paths worn into the landscape by foot traffic.