almost something insider forum

[ Miwa put up golden name plaques of all the people who helped set up the show but are not direct participants. Reminiscent of all the Donors plaques stuck all over most buildings in the US, she was motivated in part by this writing of Pessoa. What if instead of thanking God before eating, a family thanked all the people who made the meal possible, from the farmer or cowherd, trucker, shelf stocker. Other humans are what make your life possible. -- Marco ]

I'm in a trolley, and, as is my habit, I'm slowly taking notice of the people sitting around me. For me details are things, words, sentences. I take apart the dress worn by the girl in front of me: I turn it into the fabric that makes it up, the work that went into making it - but still I see it as a dress and not cloth - and the light embroidery and the work involved in it. And immediately, as in a primer on political economy, the factories and the labor unfold before me - the factory where the cloth was made, the factory where the twist of silk, darker in tone than the dress, was made, which went into making the twisted little things in the border now in their place next to the neck; and I see the components of the factories, the machines, the workers, the seamstresses, my eyes turned inward penetrate into the offices, I see the managers trying to be calm, I follow, in the books, the accounts involved in it all; but it isn't only that: I see, beyond that, the domestic lives of those who live their social lives in those factories and those offices ... All of them pass before my eyes merely because I have before me, below a dark neck, which on its other side has I don't know what sort of face, a common, irregular green edge on a light green dress.

The first chunk of reports from Dr. Minskoff:

Location 01: Objectively a segment of concrete floor in which arcs are discernible from the initial pouring and smoothing. Subject Eleanor G. described "A sea captain, looking over his shoulder at me. He is angry." Two subjects found nothing in the area, but Christian identified "a funny little man in a hat," and giggled at the figure. Both of these episodes were cataloged photographically with subject's help.

poem 1

handwritten in tiny print (most likely in pencil or ballpoint pen, perhaps sharpie marker) in a relatively obscure part of the gallery (i'm thinking along the underside of the windowsill, but this will of course depend on the floorplan of the show). mentioned in one catalogue as a scrawl of graffitti left over by a previous artist named Granger Tolman.

Steinway Street                                                                           
                                                                                          
Cardboard televisions can accentuate                                                      
the product in a furniture store window.                                                  
Smudgy noseprints yearn for Lite FM, air                                                  
conditioned showrooms.   

poem 2

the "card" of a nonexistent work. the piece should be described in one of the catalogues and attributed to Granger Tolman, but the card should not be mentioned.

Flying trash !

two kite flying high

The Snake

five kite with good weather clouds

view of Queens

Simon has created this image for "Almost Something", and is allowing us to use it for the postcard.

A hand moving absently up and down a stranger's back. Lips glimpsed in a rocketing subway car. A body that makes people want things. Maybe something sexual does happen, if you think of sex as a wave that passes between people at odd and inconvenient times and for no reason. I will be planting writing that feels like breath on your neck, or a sidelong glance, or a brush you're not sure is intentional or accidental. The ambiguity can't be resolved and is something you like.

I am in the process of writing letters to places, such as my local pub, grocery store and favourite local gigging band. I write to these people who do not know me from the next punter and apologise for my absence on a certain day in their bar, store or at their gig. My excuses are always a bit lame and go into much to much detail. Whilst writing to my local pub I apologized that I would not be able to make it as normal on the Friday night and wanted to tell them in plenty of time so that they would not miss the usual £25 pounds that I spend. I have had a wonderful reply from them which has started a dialogue with them completely by chance, neither of us knowing which is the madder.

facsimilies of library books

Nick Normal creates facsimilies of books. He has agreed to mix some of these "fakes" in with the reference materials and other projects which will be presented in the references/background materials section of the show.

pump still

Eric will be showing this short video of a digital camera zooming in and out on a table. Filming camera also goes in and out of focus.

My daughters love dolls and they have quite a collection of them since they were in Seoul. One day, when I came back from giving them a ride to kindergarten in the morning, I found dolls lying with a pillow and a blanket, bottles in their mouth, in my bedroom, in my kitchen, on my sofa, etc. From then on, I often found these dolls sleeping in my house somewhere and I took photos of them. It was an interesting feeling of oxymoron - funny but scary at the same time - when I first saw it and I thought I should keep an archive of these pictures to see what I can do with them.

Seulgi's image of the completed project

Small black plane called "Mouche" or "Fly" in English.

"This idea came to me thinking about your project and watching my cat chase a fly. I imagined a white cat against a white wall chasing a fly. Because of the white on white, only the fly would be visible, which I found nice in respect to "almost something". I thought that planes don't come in black..." -- seulgi

Untitled

Olivia-jane Ransley makes work concerned with process and the everyday. By isolating actions and situations she invites us to really consider them, find the mysterious in the ordinary. She is interested in the performative aspect of our lives, the things we do when we feel we are being watched and are overly conscious of ourselves. Olivia-jane's practise includes drawings, video, photography and slides. Her work examines the humour of how we react in particular situations and what is socially appropriate or inappropriate. It uses the mode of the DIY or etiquette manual. Her films are about endurance, in their subject and in the experience for the viewer. They depict an action which is known and commonplace, as we watch the action begins to change and becomes something different. Olivia-jane Ransley lives and works in London. She is a graduate of Central St. Martins School of Art, and is a founding member of the Second Rate Art group, a collective involved in organising exhibitions and supporting emerging artists.

installation view

Each person has a different feeling of the length of one hour.
A synchronous event can cross space and connect distant people to the same time.

I place a wristwatch with an alarm clock in the exhibition space.
Same as the wristwatch I am always wearing. I wear the same watch to the exhibition. The watches both indicate Japan standard time.

The alarm delimits the time that I am using in Japan and the time of the exhibition in NY at the same time.

Granger Tolman will be embedding poetry throughout the space.

"I will write a series of short poems (probably around five) and embed them within the fabric of Almost Something for the viewer to "find". Will the poems be seen as such? Will they be seen as prose, or as visual art? Will they be seen at all? This will be left to the perception of the individual viewer."

"touch me" written in braille with nails on the wall.

This drawing is a tracing from slide which I took in NY. It is an image of an american flag catching the wind. I have kept only the red stripes. I'd like to reproduce this drawing on the floor in red chalk.

Title: 50

This is a reference to the 50 missing stars and to the 50 years of Jasper Johns' "Flag".

This drawing interests me because it becomes abstract, a plant which I inscribe in corner of Flux. Also, there is a risk that the chalk will be erased or float away with the passage of people.

"What is above is like what is below"

I use everyday objects to represent fragments of the physical world found in the landscape. My landscape sculptures/installations illustrate the ancient principle of the Tabula Smaragdina: "What is above is like what is below." Laundry drying racks remind me of electric transmission towers. I am building a personal transmission tower. Through its elaborate circuitry, its radiating transmission lines will channel information to me about the universe. I am tuned to the right frequency, but unfortunately fail to hear anything.

Working directly on one of Flux's gallery walls- already rich in history- I will build up new layers of surface, essentially creating a wall painting. Drawing on the integrity of labor of those workers who paint over graffiti and who clean up gallery walls, I will paint over my work with that ubiquitous five gallon drum of white latex paint. My first painting becomes the underpainting once it has been white washed. The painting will be almost entirely erased. Almost. Surface tensions will remain.

pigeons on a stage

Horus is a projection of the projection of the shadows of pigeons walking back and forth on top of a roof. The shadows appear on an adjacent wall of corrugated iron (just like the ceiling by the way of the Fluxus Factory).

Now that I have seen the space again I think that the wall space right above the windows in the front of the building would be great. It has the right proportion. I want to at least double the width of the video so that it would fill the space above the windows. The shadows of the pigeons become like judges..

Video Collage made from Found Footage Material of UFOs.
Copan Building. Sao Paolo. 2004.
video format AVI. length: 7min.
Music by ATKINS & LEVINE (Sing Along With JFK)

This is a video collage made from found footage material of UFOs.
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From the 25th floor of Copan Building in Sao Paolo, I had a strange feeling of the presence of supernatural phenomena. The urbanism with its constructions of modern architecture made a mysterious impression to me. It doesn't have this clear structure other modern cities do.