More photos on wood

I had a very successful day this past weekend, and all 4 exposures came out great! Both battle diptychs are coming along. I need to paint into them a little, but I like how they are looking.

Photo panels update

I've been able to make 5 exposures on the panel pieces I posted about before. Two are successes! The good news is that the emulsion can be taken off and the panels re-coated and exposed, so there is really no loss other than time and some emulsion.
Here are shots of the 4 panels I have, 2 good ones and 2 that got fogged but I haven't removed the emulsion yet.

Virtual Fireplace

I want to make a series of videos in the spirit of the virtual fireplace only with even more mundane and 'City' things....translate that idea to our neighborhood. One will be gas station....a long shot looped for a hour of a gas station in the middle of the night...nothing happens...you know it's not a still frame, but no one really uses it, not much action anyway.
Another one would be 'Abandoned lot', or 'future site of Citibank'
Definitely one of a fast food rest stop.
The lonliest place in the world.

The 2nd Annual HLH Holiday Party

We should set a date, and begin planning, for the 2008 Annual HLH Holiday Party.

Should we use an ATM again this year? Or, should we find another place? What would that be? A mall? Parking garage? Movie theatre?

New Photos on Wood

I've been working in the studio on some panel pieces based on the Civil War photo montages we were doing last year. The plan is to stain and paint the wood with oils, seal them and then paint over with enamel and spray paint. On top of it all will be photo emulsion, exposing the final black part of the image.

Below are three digital sketches of what I have in mind:




Here are some shots from the studio of the panels in progress. For the most part, all that's left is the photo emulsion and exposure... the hard parts.

These are for the first concept, of the dead soldier:




These are for the diptychs:



This was just a scrap piece of wood I was using for testing processes, and it came out so cool I'm going to use it for a final exposure:


A detail:



We need to shoot some new images for future ones, but I think these 4 or 5 are shaping up really cool.

Lyrics for the instrumentals

Listening to the new Don cab and my shock at the lyric tracks and then add Corey archangel's glockenspiel addendum it made me think why can't we write lyrics for explosions or pelican or older don cab tracks and perform them karaoke style and record them.

Harvey 7"

I'm still working on our official music release in the 7" format, but I had an idea for the next one:

1 - We write 2 songs about writing 2 songs for a 7"

or

2 - Both sides are ideas for new work from this blog, most likely work that we hope to do. We sing/write about the ideas, concepts, and construction of the work, maybe abstract, but funnier if it's really direct I think.

Police sketch artist

We should both find a police sketch artist and have them do a portrait of the other person.
We would sit down with the sketch artist and describe each other to this person and show the drawings somewhere.
Or we can hire this guy to do age progressions of each other for a show. We might be able to get him to do sketches as well.
http://www.forartist.com/forensic/modification/prest/boyaging.htm

After Sherman's March

Director Ross McElwee


Some stills from Sherman's March: A Mediation to the Possibility of Romantic Love in the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation

Some new ideas

I realized that if the piece is about the option to start a war, the person who starts it should "fire the first shot". So what if we wired a switch into one of the plastic muskets, so that when you fire it the program is triggered?

Also, I have some great ideas for photos we should take on our road-trip. Hopefully we'll have an extra day to go to Antietam, because the best ones I have in mind need to be taken there.

Click the image below to see some new footage. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet...

cell phone drum kit

Do you think there would be a way to have the ringtones of a bunch of cheap phones be a part of a drum kit. One is the snare, one is the high hat etc, and get them to play out some kind of weird beat by calling them? Or they are all on the same #. You could walk into the space and call the number on the wall to interact with it and then the beat, or even score would be performed.
Somehow the music could be conceptualy linked to the idea of this interaction, or it would require other users to call the other numbers to complete the music. You could kind of DJ it.

Slowcore...

...in action.
Seriously, could the drummer do any less? (and yet, he still manages to rock somehow...!?!)

You forget about them....

... and then one day you remember that Pelican is one of the greatest bands ever.

Space Invaders

HLH at Platform2's "Failure Support Group" event

On Friday, February 29th, Matthew Nash of HLH presented at Platform2's "Failure Support Group" event, held at the Democracy Center at Harvard University. From my post over at Our Daily RED:

Tonight Platform2 hosted an event dubbed the Failure Support Group for a crowded hall of artists and friends. The event featured a series of artists presenting various failures from their lives. I am proud to admit that I presented a failure of my own.

The event, like many Platform2 events, was a loose and open discussion of a topic that many people confront in their daily lives. Each presentation was limited to 5 minutes, and speakers were shooo-ed off stage by Andi Sutton's accordion (Sutton learned to play accordion 3 days ago). I was struck by the wide variety of types of failure presented, from "I am a failure because I am perceived to be successful but I'm not" to "Every time I become really good at something I hate it" to "My project did not meet its goals, even though others thought it was a success" to "I had a great idea that failed as a business venture." Each person talked about failure as a part of their life, but most people also seemed to find hope, or growth, or opportunity in their failures. Overall it was a really interesting conversation that lasted for quite a while.

Platform2 is a collective comprised of Catherine (kanarinka) and Sasha (pirun) of iKatun, Jane D. Marsching, and Andi Sutton of The National Bitter Melon Council. Previous Platform2 events include a discussion about Art & Activism, and an exploration of Risk: Race, Class, Geography, and Art (pictures here)

Find out more about Platform2 events, and how you can become a part of future projects, at their website.

For the event, I recreated an older Harvey piece: "Control #8: Feel The Same Emotions". In this version, I gave everyone in the room a card and asked them not to show it to anyone else. Each card had a word describing an emotion on it -- some people got "indignation" and others got "contentment". I asked everyone in the room to sit silently for one minute and try to feel that emotion. After the minute was over, we talked about whether they were able to keep that emotion, and if they believed that they had felt the same emotions as others in the room. Of course, we also talked about the failure inherent in the whole proposition.

The images are by Rob Coshow, and show me talking to the group and the minute of silence.

Cease and desist

I think we should make up bands with myspaces and websites...not even websites, just a myspace and a few original songs at first... of course with a name that isn't in use already.
As ridiculous a name as possible along the lines of the current trends in band names ...like Wolf Wolf Wolf!!!, or whatever sounds like a reasonable or unreasonable band name.

We create these bands with looks, myspace pages and a few tracks....some pictures.

Then we wait until another band tries to use that name, we write them a cease and desist letter.

Partially I think it's funny because there are fewer and fewer band names out there...or you would think, and they might get angry, and partially because we predicted this stupid name.

I think the piece succeeds if we actually get a band to stop using the name we are using.

Temp install in basement - circular wall test

Interactive Installation - matt's basement boston

Here are two sketches of how I see an installation working in my studio space.