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Two GAFFTA artists featured at the Biennial of the Americas!

Thursday, July 1st, 2010



The Biennial of the Americas starts today!

The 2010 Biennial of the Americas is an international event celebrating the culture, ideas and people of the Western Hemisphere, hosted by the City of Denver. Throughout the month of July, Denver will welcome national and international visitors for a cross-cultural experience bridging and unifying the artistic, intellectual and political progress of the hemisphere’s 35 nations.Through the comprehensive coordination of art exhibitions, cultural programming and conversational roundtables, the Biennial of the Americas will bring together established and emerging leaders in the the arts, culture, sciences, politics, economics and technology communities, facilitating the development of a unified vision for the future of the Western Hemisphere. During the 2010 Biennial of the Americas, ideas to encourage collaboration, artful thinking, and promote positive change will be launched from three distinct platforms.

Gabriel Dunne, and Tana Sprague (Lissom) will perform as part of the “THE NATURE OF THINGS” LIVE PERFORMANCE SERIES @ McNICHOLS.

This series is a program spotlighting forward thinking musicians and new media artists from across the Americas. Presenting over 30 artists within 11 showcases through out the month of July, the Live Performance Series spans a spectrum of ideas and genres within music, sound, and new media. Each showcase has a narrative of its own, with focused programming on week- end evenings. Intimate audiovisual experiences, playful and experimental folk shows, post- classical vanguards, and the hot and heavy dance floor of Latin America are a taste of what can be expected within this series at the McNichols building in Civic Center Park, as part of The Nature of Things exhibition.

“The Nature of Things” live performance series is curated by: Kate Lesta (Communikey), JT Root (Aeon Child) in collaboration with MUTEK Director Alain Mongeau.

Full live performance calendar
Full live performance program (pdf)

Other programs-

The Nature of Things Exhibition
Curated by: Paola Santoscoy
Curatorial Advisor: María del Carmen Carrión

The Nature of Things brings together the artworks and energies of twenty-four contemporary artists from North, South, and Central America. These artists and their works participate in exploring the four themes of the 2010 Biennial of the Americas: innovation, sustainability, community and the arts.

The current momentum behind these themes and the frequency in which they are addressed globally in different forums proves the need to expand the selection of artists in this exhibition beyond the sphere of visual arts and to include projects by artists, designers and architects. Through newly commissioned projects and a number of preexisting artworks, this exhibition is a convergence of cultural references, personal and political histories, and geographical contexts. This collection of artworks seeks to broaden the definition of innovation, sustainability, community and the arts and provide a space for interpretation and contemplation.

More info

KidsPatch: Children’s Creativity Lab at the Biennial of the Americas
Curated by: Nana Radenkovic, Relja Bobic (RS) and Kate Lesta (USA), in collaboration with Pictoplasma (DE)
kidspatch@biennialoftheamericas.org

KidsPatch is an event series dedicated to new children’s creativity presented since 2008 at numerous events in Europe and the USA. Each program consists of a series of workshops for kids (ages 5-12), related to the fields of contemporary music, graphic art, performance and new media. It is a 100% participatory program that utilizes an intuitive, inventive and forward-thinking approach to children’s creative education within the context of arts and culture.

KidsPatch: Children’s Creativity Lab at the Biennial of the Americas, a specially commissioned program and the largest KidsPatch production so far, will involve a number of artists from both American continents into creative exchanges with the youngest population. Beside setting up a special kids zone within the McNichols Building which will be open daily, the focus of KidsPatch is on customized workshops running each weekend, to be rounded up by a final parade event on July 31st, taking the young participants and their creations outdoors, to the immediate surrounding of the main Biennial location, through a special performance.

For enrollment and complete program information:
KIDsPatch Calendar
KidsPatch Program & Application (pdf)

SPEAKER SERIES
“THE NATURE OF THINGS” @ MCNICHOLS
Curated by: Lauren Higgins

Led by an international group of established and emerging artists, leaders, innovators, and celebrated individuals, The Nature of Things – Speaker Series will explore the Western Hemisphere’s most pressing challenges and exciting innovations. Designed as an open platform for conversation and idea exchange, the series will provide a public forum for engaging with speakers, panels, and dialogue sessions, with topics ranging from ecology, art, technology and society, to culture, design, education and civic engagement. Please join us this July to lend your voice to a new era of ideas and possibilities for the future
of the Americas.

Featuring 60 speakers including Teddy Cruz, Michael Potts, Dr. Eugenio Netto, Nina Simons, Students of Escuela Tlatelolco, Marilyn Megenity, Clark Richert, and many more.

For complete program information:
Speaker Series Calendar
Speaker Series Program (pdf)

Seaquence & Gray Area in the News- ABC

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

by Richard Hart
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — In San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, social networks are leading to “social artworks.”

In a brand new gallery and workspace, a community of designers is networking artware and software. It is the latest creation in the drive to discover a new art form.

“So, here you see this grid,” said Daniel Massy. “You can sort of fill it in with notes.”

On a 15-foot wall projection, Massey recently composed music using a tool developed with fellow artists Ryan Alexander and Gabriel Dunne. It’s called Seaquence and it is at the intersection of music and images.

With it, you can build a sea creature by creating music or create music by building a creature. Changing the attack, sustain and decay envelope of the music changes the body of your creature.

Seaquence is the latest project of Gray Area, an organization brightening up one corner of San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Josette Melchor is its Executive Director.

“Gray Area Foundation for the Arts is a non-profit,” she explains. “We’re dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture.”

Gray Area exhibits interactive works such as Robert Hodgin’s new liquid screen installation and a laser scanner/projector by Aaron Koblin.

The next step is to exploit social networks. For example, two artists are using Gray Area to develop a web app to annotate works of art socially. Seaquence is also destined for the web, Daniel Massey promises.

“The idea is to create this environment in which people could collectively, online, create music and share music with each other in a playful way,” he says. “So, it takes on almost a game feel to it.”

If you can’t buy it the way you’d buy a painting or sculpture, how do you know when this kind of art is a success?

“I guess you could see how many page views you have,” Melchor laughs. “Or YouTube streams!”

In the end, she points out that good art spreads whether networked or not.

“It continues to further the community and further this kind of study, and get the word out so we’re able to get more people involved. It’s spreading. It’s social,” she says.

After all, Tweets are music too.

You can drop by the Gray Area installation to inspect Seaquence before it goes to the web.

Prototype Book Available

Monday, February 8th, 2010

PROTOTYPE was a dynamic group exhibition featuring the works created by our very first class of Resident Artists, and made its debut on January 5th, 2010. The PROTOTYPE book is a curated documentation of the resident artist process and works, made available exclusively during the Prototype closing reception.

prototype books

The book is 80 page full color catalog documentation of the exhibition. Stop by Gray Area in person to get a limited edition version of the PROTOTYPE with a free sticker and custom book sleeve. You can also order a copy from Blurb w/out the sleeve (and come by Gray Area in person for your sticker)

prototype books

Purchase your copy through the Blurb bookstore

Exhibit at Gray Are…
By Gray Area Foundat…

Prototype: Closing Reception & Book Release

Monday, February 1st, 2010

PROTOTYPE Installation Timelapse from GAFFTA on Vimeo.

Join us, this Friday, February 5th, as we share our last farewell with Gray Area’s first resident artists and residents release curated documentation of their process and works within with a first edition PROTOTYPE book, available exclusively during the Prototype closing reception, featuring the works by: Alphonzo Solorzano, Miles Stemper, Daniel Massey, Gabriel Dunne, Ryan Alexander. Future editions available through gaffta.org shortly

PROTOTYPE: Closing Reception & Book Release
Gray Area Foundation For the Arts
55 Taylor
Friday, February 5th
6PM – 10PM

ARTISTS:

Alphonzo Solorzano:
Born in San Francisco, Alphonzo Solorzano began to explore creatively as far back as he can recall. Drawing has always been first nature. Early influences would include his older brother’s comic collection, animation, vintage cinema posters. He received his BFA in 2004 from San Francisco State University with an emphasis in painting and printmaking. Working simultaneously in both disciplines as well as a commercial printer, would help to form a mixed media approach to his work. Alphonzo Solorzano currently resides in San Francisco where he continues to work diligently on his art. He has exhibited in various museums, galleries, and alternative art spaces on the west coast, Midwest and over seas.

Recent mixed media works and wall installation titled The Future was Now uses iconography from early 1900′s auto ads. Vintage images, typoghrapghy, and slogans are used to create an alternate history to explore and challenge our interpretation of time and progress.

alphonzo

Daniel Massey:
Daniel Massey (b. 1982, Mexico) is an artist, designer, and programmer based out of San Francisco, CA. Daniel’s recent work seeks to instigate new modes of collaboration, creation, and transformation by approaching technology as inherently malleable. His projects take on varied forms, from immersive installations and web-based work, to live visuals and sound. Daniel earned his MFA in Digital Arts & New Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Light Speak is an installation that transmits images through the medium of light. Images are captured outside throughout the day, and relayed as morse code pulses through a series of distributed models. Pixel by pixel, the images are reconstructed.

dan

Gabriel Dunne:
Gabriel Dunne’s work spans fine art to design and technology in the mediums of installation, architecture, industrial design, and audio/visual programming. His pursuits insight the exploration of life, music and sound, structure, and systems in the natural world. His projects have been shown internationally at conferences and exhibitions around the world. He is a San Francisco native, and holds a B.A. in Design | Media Arts from UCLA.

Monad uses custom displays and original software to explore micro and macro systems of nature, technology, and perception.

gabriel

Miles Stemper:
Classically trained as a painter, Miles Stemper’s work is a way of connecting his interests in digital media, technology, optics and the physical pleasure of painting. His work uses gestural mark-making, geometry and digital reinterpretation as a way of understanding the relevance of painting in an increasingly digitized world. Raised in Seattle, Miles received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, has worked in Germany and has exhibited work on both coasts.

Miles uses the digitization of brushstrokes to create a series of abstracted icon paintings. Geometry forms the structure of these works because it is dictated by the same criteria of function communication as technology: geometry is efficiency of form, an articulate representation of space

miles

Ryan Alexander:
Ryan Alexander experiments with generative techniques in animation and design. He spends his time hacking software for live visuals, and exploring what’s possible with all the crazy tools humanity has at its disposal.
Ryan’s work is a combination of ideas and systems created within the last two years. Laser fabrication and projection mapping are used to create a glowing gourd.

ryan

Prototype: Open Exhibition Hours

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Screen shot 2009-12-14 at 7.22.56 PM

PROTOTYPE: Open Exhibition Hours
Weekly through February 3rd:

Tuesday: 5pm – 8pm
Wednesday: 5pm – 8pm
Thursday: 12pm – 8pm

ADDITIONAL UPCOMING PROTOTYPE EVENTS:

Resident Artist Symposium
Thursday, January 28th
7PM – 9PM

Closing Reception
Friday, February 5th
6PM – 10PM

Resident Artist Symposium

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

proto

Join us, this Thursday, January 28th, at 7PM, for our Resident Artist Symposium, where Gray Area’s first resident artists will share processes and concepts behind both personal and collaborative works. The evening will begin with individual artist presentations, followed by a short Q&A.

Gray Area Foundation For the Arts
55 Taylor
Thursday, January 28th
7PM – 9PM

ARTISTS:

Alphonzo Solorzano:
Recent mixed media works and wall installation titled The Future was Now uses iconography from early 1900′s auto ads. Vintage images, typoghrapghy, and slogans are used to create an alternate history to explore and challenge our interpretation of time and progress.

alphonzo

Daniel Massey:
Light Speak is an installation that transmits images through the medium of light. Images are captured outside throughout the day, and relayed as morse code pulses through a series of distributed models. Pixel by pixel, the images are reconstructed.

dan

Gabriel Dunne:
Created with custom displays and original software, Gabriel’s works explore micro and macro systems of nature, technology, and perception.

gabriel

Miles Stemper:
Miles uses the digitization of brushstrokes to create a series of abstracted icon paintings. Geometry forms the structure of these works because it is dictated by the same criteria of function communication as technology: geometry is efficiency of form, an articulate representation of space

miles

Ryan Alexander:
Ryan’s work is a combination of ideas and systems created in the last two years. Laser fabrication and projection mapping are used to create a glowing gourd.

ryan

PROTOTYPE Installation Timelapse from GAFFTA on Vimeo.

Gray Area Studio Exhibition: PROTOTYPE

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Screen shot 2009-12-14 at 7.22.56 PM

PROTOTYPE
Opening January 9th
6PM-Midnite

PROTOTYPE: Open Exhibition Hours
Weekly through February 3rd:
Tuesday: 5pm – 8pm
Wednesday: 5pm – 8pm
Thursday: 12pm – 8pm

ADDITIONAL UPCOMING PROTOTYPE EVENTS:
Resident Artist Symposium (more info)
Thursday, January 28th
7PM – 9PM

Closing Reception
Friday, February 5th
6PM – 10PM

PROTOTYPE Installation Timelapse from GAFFTA on Vimeo.

The Gray Area studios have operated as a laboratory for its five artists in residence, fostering the creation of projects that overlap technology and traditional media. Using this collaborative workspace, the artists have created multi-disciplinary works that include immersive environments, digitally fabricated sculpture, kinetic paintings, audiovisual software/hardware, and other mixed media experiments. PROTOTYPE will be a dynamic group exhibition featuring a collection of individual and collaborative works created by our very first class of Resident Artists.

ARTISTS

Alphonzo Solorzano
Born in San Francisco, Alphonzo Solorzano began to explore creatively as far back as he can recall. Drawing has always been first nature. Early influences would include his older brother’s comic collection, animation, vintage cinema posters. He received his BFA in 2004 from San Francisco State University with an emphasis in painting and printmaking. Working simultaneously in both disciplines as well as a commercial printer, would help to form a mixed media approach to his work. Alphonzo Solorzano currently resides in San Francisco where he continues to work diligently on his art. He has exhibited in various museums, galleries, and alternative art spaces on the west coast, Midwest and over seas.

Gabriel Dunne
Gabriel Dunne’s work spans fine art to design and technology in the mediums of installation, architecture, industrial design, and audio/visual programming. His pursuits insight the exploration of life, music and sound, structure, and systems in the natural world. His projects have been shown internationally at conferences and exhibitions around the world. He is a San Francisco native, and holds a B.A. in Design | Media Arts from UCLA.

Ryan Alexander
Ryan Alexander experiments with generative techniques in animation and design. He spends his time hacking software for live visuals, and exploring what’s possible with all the crazy tools humanity has at its disposal.

Miles Stemper
Classically trained as a painter, Miles Stemper’s work is a way of connecting his interests in digital media, technology, optics and the physical pleasure of painting. His work uses gestural mark-making, geometry and digital reinterpretation as a way of understanding the relevance of painting in an increasingly digitized world. Raised in Seattle, Miles received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, has worked in Germany and has exhibited work on both coasts.

Daniel Massey
Daniel Massey (b. 1982, Mexico) is an artist, designer, and programmer based out of San Francisco, CA. Daniel’s recent work seeks to instigate new modes of collaboration, creation, and transformation by approaching technology as inherently malleable. His projects take on varied forms, from immersive installations and web-based work, to live visuals and sound. Daniel earned his MFA in Digital Arts & New Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Tendorama installation: SEAQUENCE

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

seaquence_ss

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts is pleased to announce the arrival of Seaquence: an exciting original collaboration from three GAFFTA Resident Artists and the second featured composition in our ongoing Tendorama window gallery series.

Developed on-site by Gray Area Resident Artists Gabriel Dunne, Ryan Alexander and Daniel Massey, Seaquence explores interaction and collaboration through visual, musical and social web technologies.

Seaquence will make its physical debut in the Taylor St. Tendorama window gallery space with a special installation reception and beta testing party at GAFFTA on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 from 7pm-10pm

Help spread the word on Twitter and Facebook.

About Seaquence:

Seaquence is a social music project that allows people to create and consume short musical compositions in a unique interactive online environment. The musical patterns in Seaquence are represented as biologically-inspired life forms which are both heard and seen. Different musical sounds in each composition are visualized as unique character traits in each life-form. In addition to navigating and exploring through this field of micro compositions and sequences, users can also create, publish and share ‘Seaquences’ of their own via the native sequencer and synthesizer tools.

Installation Overview:

The Seaquence installation includes a physical step-sequencer made up of 256 individual buttons and RGB LED’s which are linked to audio and projected visuals. This button array allows people to compose musical patterns through the native Seaquence instruments, which can then be published to the Seaquence world. Audio and video is routed to the exterior of the Tendorama installation space on Taylor St, encouraging the public to hear and see the installation from the outside through the window glass. Window graphics will be designed to prompt the public to enter the gallery space to experience and participate in the project directly.

During and following the physical installation, Seaquence will live online via a dedicated, publicly accessible website.

Web 2.0 Summit & Seaquence Debut

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

web

Artist Aaron Koblin will be giving a speech titled “A Vision for Digital Art in San Francisco: the Launch of Gray Area Foundation for the Arts”, addressing trends in digital culture and debuting Gray Area Foundation for the Arts to the tech community at the Web 2.0 conference. Aaron Koblin is a Gray Area featured artist, designer and reseracher who is focused on creating and visualizing human systems. Currently part of Google’s Creative Lab in San Francisco, California, Aaron creates software and architectures to transform social and infrastructural data into rich digital expression. Koblin’s work has been shown internationally and is part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

Wednesday, October 21 – O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit
When: 5:00pm
Where: Metropolitan Ballroom, Westin St Francis Hotel

For details see here.


Concurrently, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts will have a kiosk on display at the Web 2.0 conference debuting “Seaquence”, a project developed by Gray Area resident artists Ryan Alexander, Gabriel Dunne and Daniel Massey. Seaquence is an online social music experiment that allows users to create step-sequencer micro-compositions. Short musical patterns are represented as biology-inspired life forms which are heard as you navigate through their universe. Different sounds and timbres are visualized as unique character traits in each life-form. Users can navigate through the field of submissions, creating a unique musical and visual experience. Here is a preview video:

Screen shot 2009-10-20 at 5.13.09 PM(2)

Seaquence Demo from Ryan Alexander on Vimeo.

ArtSpan Open Studios – Tenderloin!

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

workspace_700

ArtSpan Open Studios is already in full swing but the weekend of October 24th the Tenderloin will be represented! Gray Area will be participating in the city-wide event by opening to the public the studios of our resident artists: Gabriel Dunne, Daniel Massey, Ryan Alexander, Miles Stemper, and Alphonzo Solorzano. Please join us in celebrating our neighborhood and the work of our talented artists!

ArtSpan lasts for four weekends, highlights four sections of the city and displays hundreds of artists. For full program listings visit their website.

Here is a brief rundown:

Weekend 1: October 10 & 11, 11am to 6pm
Bernal Heights, Castro, Duboce, Eureka Valley, Glen Park, Mission, Noe Valley, Portola

Weekend 2: October 17 & 18, 11am to 6pm
Buena Vista, Diamond Heights, Fort Mason, Haight, Hayes Valley, Marina, Mount Davidson, Ocean Beach, Pacific Heights, Richmond, Sunset, Twin Peaks, West Portal

Weekend 3: October 24 & 25, 11am to 6pm
Bayview, Excelsior, Financial District, North Beach, Potrero Hill, Russian Hill, SOMA, Tenderloin

Weekend 4: October 31 & November 1, 11am to 6pm
Hunters Point Shipyard

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