Thursday, April 17, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Bambi Gallery "Shadow World" show - up and running
friday night was the opening of "Shadow World" at Bambi Gallery in Fishtown, Philadelphia. I will be making a short walkthrough video soon so people not in Philadelphia can see what it looks like.
the opening was really hectic. I ended up having some technical problems in the last moments before the show. due to USPS's unreliable delivery times and poor tracking abilities I had no idea if I would have 6 or 7 dvd players. the DVDs were programed for 7 players, each looping trough 3 or 4 videos. i waited until the last possible moment to create a new menu that would play all the videos on 6 players but out of nowhere i started getting hardware error messages when i tried to burn the DVDs, leaving me with one new dvd with kind of messed up audio and 2 old dvds that only went up to episode 19.
fortunately, the show was so crowded for the entire opening that it was virtually impossible to even notice that a few things weren't working completely. the digital frames looping through hundreds of still images from the videos worked out great, each playing an audio file in the background that I made for the show of street noises and clips from the videos and outtakes. One frame played through every comment left on the shadow world blog.
also the projection came out really well. I made a large screen that is equally clear from both sides and hung it around the middle of the gallery. i shot new static footage looking down the street with the El overhead and looped that, warped to fit the screen and compensate for the angle of the projection. the audio from that played from speakers adding to the street and train noises that filled the space. During the day, the projection is a little hard to see but when it is left on at night it looks really good. to top everything off, there is a series of nine small paintings on one wall. they are only about 3" squared but very detailed labor intensive. I was very happy I made those in the end.
Thanks to everyone who came out. that was lots and lots of people by the way. thank you all.
the opening was really hectic. I ended up having some technical problems in the last moments before the show. due to USPS's unreliable delivery times and poor tracking abilities I had no idea if I would have 6 or 7 dvd players. the DVDs were programed for 7 players, each looping trough 3 or 4 videos. i waited until the last possible moment to create a new menu that would play all the videos on 6 players but out of nowhere i started getting hardware error messages when i tried to burn the DVDs, leaving me with one new dvd with kind of messed up audio and 2 old dvds that only went up to episode 19.
fortunately, the show was so crowded for the entire opening that it was virtually impossible to even notice that a few things weren't working completely. the digital frames looping through hundreds of still images from the videos worked out great, each playing an audio file in the background that I made for the show of street noises and clips from the videos and outtakes. One frame played through every comment left on the shadow world blog.
also the projection came out really well. I made a large screen that is equally clear from both sides and hung it around the middle of the gallery. i shot new static footage looking down the street with the El overhead and looped that, warped to fit the screen and compensate for the angle of the projection. the audio from that played from speakers adding to the street and train noises that filled the space. During the day, the projection is a little hard to see but when it is left on at night it looks really good. to top everything off, there is a series of nine small paintings on one wall. they are only about 3" squared but very detailed labor intensive. I was very happy I made those in the end.
Thanks to everyone who came out. that was lots and lots of people by the way. thank you all.
Monday, December 03, 2007
two.one.five
almost forgot about this article by Catzie Vilayphonh for two.one.five magazine where Zoe and I sat munching on pez and talking this charming young woman.
i particularly like my "museum of my heart" comment. i crack myself up.
two.one.five
i particularly like my "museum of my heart" comment. i crack myself up.
two.one.five
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Bambi show - one month away
i was getting a little nervous about what the Shadow World show at Bambi gallery would actually consist of but it is coming under control and I am getting excited about it.
i'm ordering as many digital picture frames as i can afford. these frames have a screen that is about 8" and take flash memory cards. I won't need any addition dvd player all the videos will be stored right on the cards and each frame will play 4 or 5 videos.
I've also been convinced by Candace, the curator of Bambi to continue to work on a series of small paintings based on Shadow World. I started working on those a little while ago but realized that it was pretty much a whole other project that i didn't have time for. Now some time has been freed up and I have been able to devote several days so far on just painting, which is still the most enjoyable artistic process for me. I'm excited that people coming to see this video project will get to see that I am actually a painter!
I'm not going to post any images of the paintings here until after the show. you will have to come to Bambi to see those. December 7
i'm ordering as many digital picture frames as i can afford. these frames have a screen that is about 8" and take flash memory cards. I won't need any addition dvd player all the videos will be stored right on the cards and each frame will play 4 or 5 videos.
I've also been convinced by Candace, the curator of Bambi to continue to work on a series of small paintings based on Shadow World. I started working on those a little while ago but realized that it was pretty much a whole other project that i didn't have time for. Now some time has been freed up and I have been able to devote several days so far on just painting, which is still the most enjoyable artistic process for me. I'm excited that people coming to see this video project will get to see that I am actually a painter!
I'm not going to post any images of the paintings here until after the show. you will have to come to Bambi to see those. December 7
Electric Factory job
jesssuus fuck! why am i here? i quit! i quit! fucking christian rock! i can't take it!
First Person Arts Festival / If You Break the Skin
So yesterday i had part of two events at the First Person Arts festival. the first was an event that showcased the winning memoir, short story and documentary films from First Person's competitions. a documentary that Danielle Lessovitz and myself made about Anya Rose took first place, which I was extremely surprised by. It is a fun little film though.
Anya and Her Spyglass from David S Kessler on Vimeo.
the memoir readings were really good too and John Pettit's film about a photographer and his phto archive was awesome.
pause - "...what God is doing with your sponsorship dollars." quote from guy on stage right now. turns out this is a christian rock show i'm working at. fuck.
anyway,
the next event last night was the world premiere of If You Break the Skin You Must Come In. along with Zoe, most of the kids were there and that was really nice. It's kind of hard for me to write about how i felt about the whole thing. I finished editing the film for the most part about a year ago and since then have just been dealing with audio and logistics. I'm personally over having any kind of objective opinion on it and I have moved onto other work that i feel is more personal to me and that actually belongs to me.
the sound and projection at the space left a lot to be desired and although I don't think it effected the viewing for most people, it made it impossible for me to watch so I ended up leaving the theater on numerous occasions. I had to be on a discussion panel after the film and that is something I don't particularly enjoy doing. Nor did i really want to talk about all the negativity that surrounded an otherwise positive project especially while there still seemed to be the need to avoid mentioning how horrible one particular person from the Institute of Contemporary Art has been since the beginning of this project, who's interference with the concept and process had nearly unraveled the entire thing on numerous occasions. Everyone knows this but somehow still feel the need to thank her and instead pretend like all of our problems came from DHS. In fact we might have had no problems with DHS if this woman did not cause DHS to take action. She has been busy getting interns to reedit miserable pointless versions of the film.
I still think it is an important film, at least for the people who where involved in it and I will take people's word that it has an effect on them. But i am personally very tired of dealing aggressively, passively, or politically with institutions and individuals that are ineffectual at anything besides causing grief. I'm hoping that someone who finds the film interesting and important has the means to take it and run with it. I'd like to support the film and let it have a life of it's own - but not be the only one working in it.
I can only go by the reactions of people who were there. those have been really positive and I am trying to use that to shape my feelings about last night rather than my own experience, which was mostly uncomfortable.
Anya and Her Spyglass from David S Kessler on Vimeo.
the memoir readings were really good too and John Pettit's film about a photographer and his phto archive was awesome.
pause - "...what God is doing with your sponsorship dollars." quote from guy on stage right now. turns out this is a christian rock show i'm working at. fuck.
anyway,
the next event last night was the world premiere of If You Break the Skin You Must Come In. along with Zoe, most of the kids were there and that was really nice. It's kind of hard for me to write about how i felt about the whole thing. I finished editing the film for the most part about a year ago and since then have just been dealing with audio and logistics. I'm personally over having any kind of objective opinion on it and I have moved onto other work that i feel is more personal to me and that actually belongs to me.
the sound and projection at the space left a lot to be desired and although I don't think it effected the viewing for most people, it made it impossible for me to watch so I ended up leaving the theater on numerous occasions. I had to be on a discussion panel after the film and that is something I don't particularly enjoy doing. Nor did i really want to talk about all the negativity that surrounded an otherwise positive project especially while there still seemed to be the need to avoid mentioning how horrible one particular person from the Institute of Contemporary Art has been since the beginning of this project, who's interference with the concept and process had nearly unraveled the entire thing on numerous occasions. Everyone knows this but somehow still feel the need to thank her and instead pretend like all of our problems came from DHS. In fact we might have had no problems with DHS if this woman did not cause DHS to take action. She has been busy getting interns to reedit miserable pointless versions of the film.
I still think it is an important film, at least for the people who where involved in it and I will take people's word that it has an effect on them. But i am personally very tired of dealing aggressively, passively, or politically with institutions and individuals that are ineffectual at anything besides causing grief. I'm hoping that someone who finds the film interesting and important has the means to take it and run with it. I'd like to support the film and let it have a life of it's own - but not be the only one working in it.
I can only go by the reactions of people who were there. those have been really positive and I am trying to use that to shape my feelings about last night rather than my own experience, which was mostly uncomfortable.
PRESS PRESS and more PRESS
so this Philadelphia Weekly article came out about a month ago. I never blogged about it but it was pretty huge for me. and now guess what? i'm working at the Electric Factory (i did actually quit this job but here I am again, filling in)
"What began in January as a fascination with the El location has transformed into a series of character studies that are as powerful and compelling as anything out there in the worlds of art or journalism—not just as portals into the everyday struggles of individuals, but also as a portrait of the neighborhood in which they live.
kessler’s decision to display his work in the form of a video blog (undertheel.blogspot.com) was deliberately populist, allowing his work to be experienced by anyone with computer access, while giving it both an immediacy rarely found in art collections and an intimacy rarely seen in journalism."
Cassidy Hartman did a really fine job of getting at the heart of what is my most personal project to date and why I'm doing it. I appreciated that she took the time to understand why I do not consider myself a journalist despite a project that looks a lot at times like journalism.
the article was about four pages long with a full page of photos taken from my tv monitor of the "characters" from Shadow World. A photo of me illuminating a strange yellow glow like I was giving off comic book radiation was on the cover of the paper. My yellow glow was available to the public on most corners of the parts of the city that house the demographic that reads the Weekly (i read almost every issue cover to cover whether i am interested in the story or not)
it was nice to be seen as a celebrity for a week. to answer your question, no, it's not getting me dates.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
HELP - Sponsor Shadow World Gallery Exhibit
As you may know, December is the end of year one for Shadow World. December is six weeks away. The plan is to bring Shadow World to a different place, recontextualizing the video project and making into a fine art installation at Bambi Gallery - six weeks from now! I want this to be great. I have some big plans for this but I really need YOUR help to pull it off. So far, as the video project has been, the gallery show is unsponsored. I do this out of love for the project and because you seem to like it. I am now looking for a sponsor. Someone who can help me get this show together, either with money or video equipment (LCD monitors, projectors, DVD players) anything like that, that I can borrow or be granted. If an organization wants to sponsor the show, i can give them a presence at the show and on the blog. if an individual wants to help out, go to the blog Shadow World and click on the PAYPAL button. If you are in a position where you might have some contacts that can help out, let me know - and don't wait - I'm getting a tad nervous.
-David
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