Theorizing the Web 2013 Conference #TtW13

Theorizing the Web 2013 #TtW13

If you are in the New York area (Hunter College, specifically) from March 1-2, please consider attending the Theorizing the Web 2013 Conference. I will be presenting my research as a part of a panel discussion titled, “You are what you Post” during the Saturday breakout sessions. I will also be serving as a hashtag moderator for the panel, “The Participatory Culture Industry.” The conference will be live streamed so if you are remote, no fear. You will be able to log on for an augmented conference experience. It is an extreme honor to be included in such fine company! Look out for my tweets and tumblr posts. It would also be wonderful to see you on the Twitter stream during the conference. Please click on the flyer above for more details!

Imagine 2049 Time Capsule

Click on the image above to visit Imagine 2049 and submit your invention for inclusion in the Time Capsule!

I recently submitted an Invention for the Imagine 2049 time capsule, which is part of Scott Kildall’s series, 2049.

You can submit your invention for the future at www.imagine2049.com.

All “future inventions” submitted before Thursday, January 10th will be placed in the time capsule and opened in the year 2049. Please consider being a part of this project. Here is my entry for the time capsule:

“A five senses book that would enable people to see, hear, taste, smell, and touch objects and things from any time in history. Warning text would be placed on whatever entry the reader wishes to learn more about and experience. It would be a comprehensive inventory with help text on understand the historical, cultural, and societal context of the item the reader wishes to examine. Although there would be an option to experience the object or thing, the reader is unable to bring it into the future. If they wish to live with that object or thing, they would need to make the decision and sacrifice to give up living in the future and live in the past. They would not be able to return. This would be the Book of the Five Senses.”

Opening for Solo Exhibition at Asterisk SF for Sita Bhaumik ~ Querida Calle 24 | Dear 24th Street

Curatorial Statement 

Art serves as reflection. It mirrors what has come before, what exists, and gives inspiration to what may follow. Art is also a conduit to introspection. It raises questions about the relationship between culture, tradition, and location. In the exhibition, Querida Calle 24 | Dear 24th Street, installation artist Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik takes memories and experience to pay homage and gratitude to the well known 24th Street in San Francisco. With the increasing traffic and popularization of the Mission District, Bhaumik seizes the opportunity to form of a visual and a multisensory love letter to the stretch of urban landscape.

The sweet smell of cinnamon leads the viewer to a patterned wall that will please even the most obvious retinal sense. Yet, the longer one stands and observes the walls dusted in the familiar spice and platters enrobed in gold candy wrappers, the senses will subtly shift back and forth to engage in something that can only be experienced. Observation will become delectable and crisp sensations will tickle the nose upon a deep inhale. Impressions will go beyond the gallery walls and storefront. The viewer will be greeted by a Twenty Fourth Street that refuses to be forgotten and remains ever present through its distinct scents and visuals. As a show made with a myriad of parts, it intricately meshes culture, tradition, and history into sensorial consumption. Bhaumik provides an exhibition of the past, present, and future. Our collective recollections and thoughts made into the tangible and the tasty, this artwork will waft and flirt and begs the senses to devour, digest, and reflect.

~ Yours Truly

Artist Bio

Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and writer born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles to Indian and Japanese Colombian parents. After receiving her B.A., Cum Laude, in Studio Art from Scripps College, Sita moved to the Bay Area where she holds an M.F.A. in Fine Art and an M.A. in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts. She currently teaches photography and portfolio development at RayKo Photo Center. Sita has collaborated with organizations such as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, SOMArts, 18 Reasons, 826 Valencia, Whitman College, and Cal-State Fullerton. She has been the art features editor for Hyphen magazine, a writer for Art Practical, and Kearny Street Workshop board member. She also spends as much time as possible in the kitchen.

Movement in Many Parts Shotgun Review in Art Practical’s 4.1 Shotgun Issue

Noritaka Minami, A706 (Wall I), 2011; archival pigment print mounted on aluminum; 30 x 38 in. Courtesy of the Artist and the Kearny Street Workshop, San Francisco.

Humans are resilient. Our anatomy is extraordinary and highly complex. We build, construct, destroy, and synthesize. But human nature involves understanding the biology and mechanisms that provoke us to move and accelerate. In Movement in Many Parts, an exhibition curated by Lucy Seena K. Lin and Weston Teruya, artists investigate human evolution through nature and industry. Their ruminations are shown through organic forms, moving image, photography, drawing, and painting. Each work reminds us of the adage that the totality of many things in concert is far greater than one single part of the whole.

In A1007 (Wall II) (2011), Noritaka Minami asks us to peer into the modular housing built within the Japanese urban landscape. At the start of the series, a viewer is let into a small room with a single, large round window that looks out onto the city and other pods. There is no returning gaze; a viewer sees only the disheveled room of a seemingly busy city dweller. The room could very well be a viewer’s; the window is the only way to see outside and to observe other living things. Stagnancy is apparent through the dull colors of bed sheets and the aging, disintegrating papers on the wall. Even the dated typography of the numbers on the clock suggests a thick layer of dust has settled over things untouched. The scene gives the sense that the busyness of city life has depleted the weary soul that inhabits this space. Minami’sTower (Facade 1) (2011) includes a segment of the exterior architecture that gives a viewer not only a sense of scale but also of how nature has weathered the building’s exterior. The erosion suggests that the original design is obsolete in this fast-paced environment.

While Minami’s photographs depict an environment, Kim Anno’s photographs ponder the effects of climate change and demonstrate how humans may adapt to and work with rising sea levels. Men and Women in Water Cities (2011) shows individuals fully clothed in suits and corporate attire turning their bodies toward a viewer, as though caught in mid-action. The picture plane presents something absurd. Yet, is it as absurd as we think? Anno proposes peculiar but perhaps ingenious ways we might survive despite nature’s disposition, showing what humans may be driven to do when it is necessary to endure. It is this human tendency toward movement that forces resiliency.

Originally posted to Shotgun Reviews on Art Practical, please click here to view.