Steve Kurtz Waiting

Saturday, March 3rd, 2007

wow. I’m obviously riding in the meme-train-caboose here but in case you missed it, Steve Kurtz and the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) have been making the rounds these past weeks ever since Strange Culture was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Also screened at Sundance in the program “Charged in the Name of Terror: Portraits by Contemporary Artists” was a 15-minute short by Jim Fetterley and Angie Waller. These filmmakers were kind enough to supply us who couldn’t attend Sundance with their content, and posted their video on YouTube:

which was mentioned on BoingBoing, thus moving along the meme train.

However, it’s unfortunate that the BoingBoing article didn’t directly link to the YouTube video. Instead it linked to another article which then links to the video. The lack of direct linkylink I suspect means fewer users actually clicked-through than should have – it’d be interesting to compare the stats of BoingBoing referrers to couchprojects.com with the number of viewers of the YouTube video (1,808 at time of writing). Not to say those numbers are too few, with an average of 40/day, but BoingBoing undoubtedly has the ability to garnish much higher numbers, such as this post from yesterday linking to another video with already nearly 15,000 views (for a video only 6 days online I might add)! Perhaps BoingBoing were purposefully attempting to direct users to a site rather than a video, with the hope of them becoming further enlightened? Or perhaps BoingBoing failed to directly deliver the content?

Either way, I’ve been following the Kurtz case for some time now, and have attempted to show support where and when possible, including attending a benefit silent auction nearly two years ago (I didn’t get anything, the cheapest work I liked was $450 starting, and closed much much higher!), and while you can read endlessly about the case, it’s good to finally see Steve on video, to see his gestures and demeanor, and hear his voice about the issues.

[Via the Walker Art Center 'Off Center' blog]

Related websites:
CAE Defense Fund

Hwy Rachel

Friday, December 15th, 2006

HWY Rachel was founded in 2006 by Ashleigh Beyer, Emily Brandt, Lindsay Doleshal, Nancy Kelly, Nicole Lanzilotto and Melissa Shaw. HWY Rachel is a traveling band of theater artists, writers, actors, and educators who believe that art is best when it happens spontaneously. The ladies involved in HWY Rachel are currently attempting to make it manifest all over the country. It is one of HWY Rachel’s goals to travel America in order to bring original theatrical pieces to its nooks and crannies.

Next Tuesday, 19 December, Hwy Rachel are having a benefit fundraiser, I believe to help fund an upcoming theatre-act road trip. I donated a drawing to their Silent Auction; my work is a small drawing, on A5 paper, done in 2005 in response to some then-thoughts about museum expansion.

Here are the rest of the details of the event; hope you can make it.

Will take place on Tuesday December 19th
At 154 Christopher Street (1 block East of the West Side Highway. Take the 1 Train to Christopher Street.)
Epiphany Theater Company – Buzzer #2B
Doors will open at 6:30. Party ’til 10pm.
NO COVER