On a recent Monday afternoon, five members of North 24th, masked up and vaccinated, took a trip to San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum to see Continuity, the immersive, interactive exhibit by the Japanese collective: TeamLab. IMG_2966 In a series of darkened rooms, TeamLab explores alternative forms of perception by projecting digital images on every surface--walls, floor, and ceiling. Using their concept of Ultrasubjective Space, a unique multi-dimensional perspective, their work dissolves the boundary between the physical world and the world of the artwork. By fusing art with technology, the viewer merges with the environment and is engulfed by lush cinematic imagery and sensation: flowers, butterflies, birds, stars, even whiffs of floral fragrances. Here are some thoughts and images from our venture into TeamLab's world: Gabrielle Selz: “I feel like I’ve climbed inside an anime…Spirited Away by Hayo Miyazaki.” Julie Flynn Siler: “It was transportive -- a welcome experience after being cooped up for so long. Also a little overwhelming after being cooped up so long!” Susan Freinkel: “I loved how boundaries dissolved: At moments it felt like the images moved through me.” Jeanne Carstensen: “I loved wandering through this environment where the images were constantly dissolving and forming and dissolving, with no fixed boundaries or locations.” Allison Hoover Bartlett: "I went thinking I was going look at art, but instead, I stepped into it. A truly inspiring experience." … [Read more...]
On warming up to the launch of my book on the artist Sam Francis
By Gabrielle Selz I’m less than five months out from my book launch, and it still feels unreal to me. The manuscript is finished, but the material thingness of it doesn’t yet exist. It is out of my reach, gone off to the printer, but I still haven’t held a hard copy in my hands. Galleys have been sent to trade reviews and long lead magazines. There are stirrings of interest that feel exciting and nerve-racking. Because my book is a biography of an artist, the actual “launch” will occur in conjunction with shows of the artist’s paintings at galleries in Los Angeles and New York. I’ll give a talk, and I’ve begun to think about what I’ll say. Writing a book is a solitary process (except when workshopping with my North24th tribe), but launching a book into the public realm is social. People want to know how you found your subject and what compelled you to tell the story. Many of my writer friends talk of their book birthdays. They describe launching a book as an actual birth. For me, the labor is done—and I do miss the labor. The book was fully born when I finished the last sentence. The launching feels like a wedding. It’s a celebration where I emerge from the private sphere and stand up and let the public know: this is what I chose, this is what I stand beside, and this is how our story came to be. … [Read more...]