BUFFALO WEEKLY VIDEOS

ALYSSE STEPANIAN

2006

"In 2006, Philip Mantione and I gave up our home and lived in different countries for short periods of time. Our post office BOX 1035, also our collaborative name, became a symbol of non-permanence and nomadic existence that was motivated by our interest in experience and movement. Throughout our travels I created 'e-postcards,' a detailed online photo journal, updated on a daily basis, allowing friends and family to have a firsthand look at our daily experiences. In a way, "e-postcards" became a surrogate home for us.  'Buffalo Weekly Videos' represents each of the 11 weeks of our lives in Buffalo, New York. I shot these shorts on my photo camera, producing transient moving images that symbolized our lives."

Alysse Stepanian is a multimedia artist and a filmmaker. Her exhibitions include CologneOFF V (2009), Digital Fringe Festival (2009), YOVEO International Video Festival in New York City (2009), Abington Art Center (PA, USA, 2009), Center for Contemporary Art (Santa Fe, USA, 2008), Imagine Gallery in Beijing, and Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin (2006-07), The Islip Museum of Art in New York (2006: featured e-postcards, in an installation created through "e-correspondence"), Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2003: cinema l'Arlequin (Paris) and Podewil (Berlin). Stepanian is the curator of Manipulated Image video screenings at the Santa Fe Complex, USA. (www.alyssestepanian.com)

THE NATURAL "HIGH-TIMES" SOUND SHUTTLE

RUDI PUNZO

2008

"This is a simple htlm of somehow ironically outdated project that invites visitors to spend some time fiddling around in front of a computer monitor, something of a basic video-game, where there will be neither winners nor losers. You just follow the basic numerical indications that appear on the screen. Each number corresponds to a sound-track that can be played either individually or by adding one after the other all the sound tracks. Eventually all the six sound tracks can be played simultaneously, thus bringing about a sort of endogenous high state of mind, an innocuous, harmless, innocent trip."

The Turin (Italy) based artist Rudi Punzo is interested in metamorphosis and its symbiotic relationship with artistic transformation - the transformative act of making art out of discarded, abandoned and cast-off refuse, both material than virtual. Similarly Punzo teases music out of his marvelously kinetic art works to produce magical sculptural/aural hybrids - wonderfully ever-changing, renewing and surprising.

BAPTIZE

AARON OLDENBURG

2009

"This is from a series of experimental video games exploring religious actions.  As an atheist who nevertheless feels religion to be a part of my life, I choose certain rituals, activities or mental games that people play to reinforce their faith and attempt to simulate them. The rules of the game are meant to be learned through experimentation. I began with the verb "Baptize" because the essential expressive power of a game is through the repetitive performance of an action, and attempted to create game mechanics that expressed feelings associated with that verb.  When the player makes a connection with a non-player character, the character gets pulled toward the player and becomes part of the same mass, moving together, seeing through imperfectly-merged eyes."

Aaron Oldenburg is a game designer and new media artist whose primary interest is in game rules as an expressive medium. His interactive work exhibited at art.tech in San Francisco, SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles, and VIDEOKILLS in Berlin.  He also spent a year creating commercial casual games for a website owned by MTV Networks. He received his MFA from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and is an Assistant Professor at University of Baltimore's Simulation and Digital Entertainment program. In October 2003 he finished two years as an HIV Health Extension Agent for the Peace Corps in Mali, West Africa.

IN HIS MEMORY (STARMAN)

AARON M HIGGINS

2008

"'in his memory (starman)' is an interactive Flash piece dedicated to Zalmen Rosen, my maternal grandfather. My grandparents are survivors of the Holocaust who immigrated to the United States when my mother was just 2 years old. Eventually settling in St. Louis, Missouri, he and my grandmother raised my mother, Lila, and made a home where they lived until his passing in 1992. My grandfather was a very sweet and honest man. I have extremely fond memories of the time that I was fortunate to spend with him. This piece is my way of communing with Zalmen who I have nicknamed starman. It is a continuation of previous work where I think of technology and cyberspace as a means of creating a realm in which he can embody a sort of physical form."

Since an early age, Aaron Higgins has developed a balance of training in the practice, theory, and value of visual arts. An MFA in Digital Art at Indiana University further enhanced his artistic expression with a new genre and the ability to hone his teaching skills. Aaron has excelled as a teacher at the collegiate level and has a comprehensive repertoire that covers beginning Fundamentals to advanced Digital Imaging. He fosters a learning environment that encourages experimentation and invention that empowers his students with the skills to think critically and communicate about their art to others. As a solo exhibiter, Aaron has begun to expand his offerings and is pursuing opportunities to showcase his work in gallery spaces and non traditional venues. www.aaronmhiggins.com

KEYWORD INTERVENTION

OWEN MUNDY

2007

Keyword Intervention is custom software that mines current popular search phrases from top search engines. It displays the terms online where they are indexed by the same search engines, appearing in search results to create an intervention into the consumption of popular culture. Users searching for these words click on the Keyword Intervention site in the search engine results and encounter an intervention. This manifestation acknowledges that the internet is a public space, where like the physical world, artists can enact dialogue by intervening in that space.  

Owen Mundy’s artwork considers places where money and culture collide. He deliberately blurs the lines between vernacular forms of representation, contemporary art, and public space in order to construct new ways to interpret the world around us using both traditional and digital tools. He completed the U.S. Navy’s Defense Photography program (1994), a BFA in Photography at Indiana University (2002), and an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego (2008). He is currently based in Tallahassee, FL and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Florida State University.

RADIANT COPENHAGEN

ANDERS BOJEN & KRISTOFFER ØRUM

2009

In 2009 Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum invited a group  of  science fiction writers, engeers, poets, architects and visual artist  to  write  collaboratively with them in a wiki form, combining text with images,  videos  and  modified  Google  maps  imagining a new future for Copenhagen. All contributors share an interest in alternative realities and how these, through the internet and other media, play an increasing important role in our common understanding of the world .  Using Google maps and Wiki technologies, the group has created a Copenhagen dressed in both dystopian scenery and amusing attire. Featuring Kristoffer Ørum, Anders Bojen, Rune Graulund, Maja Zander, Kaspar Bonnén, Stig W. Jørgensen, Palle R Jensen,  Ida Marie Hede Bertelsen, Peter Rasmussen, Kasper Hesselbjerg, Ulrik Nørgaard, Daphne Bidstrup, Andreas Pallisgaard og Kristian Haarløv.

Danish Artists Anders Bojen & Kristoffer Ørum have worked together on numerous projects in Denmark and abroad including works in video, sculpture, internet and drawing. These projects have been characterised by a constant examination of the field in between popular culture and alternative perceptions of reality, with the potential of changing the existing. Furthermore these projects are characterised by a diversity of materials, connecting to a multiplicity of references and areas of knowledge, creating dynamic entities to experience and revalue the world through.More at: www.anders-kristoffer.dk