rejon.org is Jon Phillips.

I have the honor of being the featured presenter at one of the longest (if not the longest running) curated experimental media events in the world, Electromediascope, put on by my mentor, Patrick Clancy and his wife Gwen Widmer. I studied with Pat as an undergrad newbie at Kansas City Art Institute in his radical Photo/New Media department which allowed me to break out of walls of my previous involvements in commercial media production, and escape the hell of film/video production I had started on at UT-Austin. Well, not that these things are about schools whatsoever, making art at Kansas City Art Institute helped to form my early ideas. Pat is the original person who nudged me towards getting involved in Open Source and I remember the first time we tried to figure out how to install FreeBSD — I spent way too long on trying to get X windows to work!

We worked on so many other things together like the Cybersite new media research project which was to be part of the Wizard of Oz theme park that never took off and then countless other things like Pat’s Writing Machine project. Pat and Gwen continually show me how good friends and artists live. And, Pat, is really great teacher and really cares for his students own paths in life.

Here is a synopsis of what I will be talking about this friday, Sept. 19 at 7 PM at the Nelson-Atkins museum in Kansas City:

September 19: Visiting artist Jon Phillips will analyze the state of remix culture and mashups and questions whether they are sustainable cultural software that has the potential to run continuously and further expand into the mainstream of contemporary art.

I just found this which is what I originally wrote to explain what I am talking about Friday if it helps make things more vague

“The myth of sole authorship is perpetuated throughout contemporary culture. With the mass popularization of remix culture through You Tube videos, inexpensive media production software, and cheap broadband, anyone can chop audio samples, blend multiple sources of video, globally broadcast mixes, and more easily access and create works collaboratively. But what is so broad about the band, and who or what is in the band? And, if no content in these broad pipes is new, is there some proximity of originality between works to that some may be considered more original than others? How does this play out in the global and art economies? While not rehashing obvious connections to the previous art histories of collage, appropriation and new remix, this program will actively analyze the state of the remix culture and mashups and question whether they are sustainable cultural software that has the potential to run continuously, evolve, and further expand into the mainstream of contemporary art. Videos will be shown from the vast Internet archive collection, You Tube, and other sources from around the world. Also, the implications of copyright law and piracy on the state of art as commodity and a critical look at future sustainable models of intellectual property that are being rapidly constructed around content industries will be explored, including my Fabricatorz.com.”

NOTE, it sounds like you must get tickets even though the event is FREE. I bet you can still walk in, but anyway: Reserve your tickets for September 19

Here is another excerpt from another press outlet:

KANSAS CITY.- Electromediascope, the popular experimental film, video and new-media series at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, focuses on the Internet for its fall series Opening Networks. The effects of Internet technologies and usage on artistic expression, art economics and art authorship will be examined. Three programs in September will feature two visiting artists and several film presentations.

Artists Mark Daggett and Jon Phillips will introduce their own work and address other digital media projects. Daggett works with software design and social software. His presentation will show how networks and social software are reshaping attributes of community. Phillips works with the open source code movement and Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization devoted to creating an alternative to existing copyright laws by providing free tools that let authors, scientists, artists and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms of use they want it to carry.

Films and works of art streamed from the Internet will be featured on the final program.

Here is some links posted from Nelson-Atkins press:

• http://www.nelson-atkins.org/calendar/EventDetail.cfm?id=9430
• http://www.nelson-atkins.org/art/Exhibitions.cfm?id=65
• http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/30176/
• https://www.artskc.org/ArtsTakepart/Calendar.asp?IdS=00113F-41958C0&Id=3778
• http://presentmagazine.com/calendar_print.php?calentryid=4357&calid=683
• http://arttattler.com/archiveopeningnetworks.html
• http://identi.ca/notice/490868 (hahaha)
• http://www.kcai.edu/newsevents/artnotes/

And, here is a google search for electromediacope if you are curious about this program.

Bamboo scaffolding is a low resolution grid used to produce a higher resolution structure. Living in Guangzhou is inspirational because of the scale of buildings, real imaginations constructed, and accessibility to cheap materials and constant laborers.

The above is a view from outside Lu’s parents house in the midst of a city under construction.

The first version of the Bamboo structure being constructed. It has received a second revision now to make it much much stronger, all from 24 pieces of 7 meter bamboo.

For Cantocore, opening on friday here in Guangzhou from 8-10 PM, I’ve built, with the assistance of Chinese carpenters, a large 7 meter structure of bamboo which might be likened to Big Ben, hence, its a Chinese Big Ben.

I’ll have more notes about my project tomorrow at the unveiling Plus, have some code to write still (at the top of a 7 meter bamboo structure).

Last week we did a press barrage for the upcoming Cantocore show in Guangzhou, China! I know a lot of you are spread all throughout the globe, but nonetheless, I hope that anyone in the region can make it for the big September 5th Opening! It will be fantastic.

I wrote the exhibition text, have been coordinating fabrication, and somewhere in the midst trying to finish my project for the exhibition. We are up late right now finishing some projects and the publication is coming along nicely for the last minute print deadline for tomorrow Here is a sampling of the press text which you can read in full at cantocore.com:

Today the Cantocore Project and Ping Pong Space announced the upcoming contemporary art show, Cantocore: Import/Export in Guangzhou, China during September 2008. This initial show features contemporary artists from San Francisco and Guangzhou producing artwork around the more detailed relationship between import and export of culture and materials between Guangzhou, China and San Francisco. This first part of the Cantocore exhibition, Import, begins with an opening on Friday, September 5 from 8 PM at the brand new Ping Pong Space in Guangzhou, China. The show continues until Tuesday, September 16 with gallery hours of 2:00 PM until 10:00 PM daily. The second part of the show, Export, opens Sunday, September 21 at 8 PM until 10 PM when a special video screening developed by San Francisco’s Mission 17 titled “Stardusted” will be presented at the Ping Pong Bar from 10 PM until 11PM. The second half, Export, continues daily until Saturday, October 4 with daily hours from 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

The Cantocore Import/Export exhibition examines, through applied art practice, the relationship between import and export of culture between Guangzhou and San Francisco by asking a simple phrase: Are you Cantocore? Guangzhou, also called Canton, is the third most populous city in China and its province, Guangdong, is a major manufacturer of textiles and electronics for export to the United States. San Francisco has the largest import of Chinese immigrants of any US city, primarily from the Guangdong province. Chinese immigrants also created the largest Chinatown in North America in San Francisco. However, understanding the conceptual framework of Cantocore is not limited to geographic divisions, nor reductive dichotomies driven by post-colonial stereotypes such as East vs. West, nor Olympic nationalism pridefully paramount in China vs. US “non-political” sports matches. Cantocore is the reality of life versus the theory set forth by jurisdictions where people live.

The artists in the Cantocore exhibition were tasked with creating projects which explore import and export, materially and conceptually. Practically, how can one’s artwork be actualized either through fabrication locally in Guangzhou or imported from San Francisco? Guidelines for the creation of the work were left alone since modern strategies for creating artwork such as remaking, remixing, interpreting, pirating, translating, copying, and appropriating content, already espouse the Cantocore style. After the proposals were received from invited artists, curation of works took place based upon the processes, scope, location of artists and available resources to constitute this first Cantocore dialogue.

Curation for this show has been a group effort by Deer Fang, Justin Hoover, and Jon Phillips from the Cantocore Project and Wu Jay from Ping Pong Space (PPS). Layout and Design for the show is done by Pierre Picard (PPS) while wordsmithing has been handled by Nikita Choi (PPS), Jon Phillips and Deer Fang.

Exhibition Venue

#60 Xian Lie Dong Heng Lu Ping Pong Space, Guangzhou

Cantocore Import
September 6th - 26th, 2008
Opening: Friday, September 5th, 8PM – 10 PM.
Drinks after at Ping Pong Bar.

Cantocore Export
September 22nd - October 2nd, 2008
Opening: Sunday, September 21st, 8PM - 10PM

Video Screening “Stardusted” at Ping Pong Bar

September 21st 2008, 10PM – 11PM

Regular Gallery Hours
Tuesday - Sunday 2 PM – 10 PM
Gallery Closed on Monday

Ping Pong Bar Open Everyday

Also, we just updated some images of works for the show. Here is a sampling of the full post over at Cantocore.com.

For all you needing images out there, we have just up pushed out images for David Johnson who will be exhibiting a work titled “Made in China” and Guy Overfelt who is getting some magic smoke fabricated.

Guy Overfelt's Untitled (Up in Smoke) Sketch

Please check out the press section to help blog and promote this show!