OPP Sponsors threewalls' Hand-in-Glove Conference

Logo Design by Plural

OtherPeoplesPixels is pleased to partner with the upcoming Hand-in-Glove Conference organized by threewalls with the Alliance for Independent Arts Organizers (AIAO) in conjunction with the MDW Fair. Hand-in-Glove will take place in Chicago October 20-23, 2011 and pre-registration is happening now (through October 8th). While the going is hot, we invited co-organizer Abigail Satinsky, Director of Programming at threewalls to fill us in on the Conference's inspiration, mission, and highlights.

AS: Hand-in-Glove is a new, semiannual conference that addresses the pragmatic realities and imaginative possibilities of self-organized, noncommercial and artist-run spaces, publications, residencies, and a variety of other pro jects that challenge traditional formats for the production and reception of art at the grass-roots level. PHONEBOOK 3, released at the Hand-in-Glove Conference and available for sale thereafter, is the essential guide for artists and arts administrators looking to connect with others in this ever-changing realm of independent artist-run culture, including everything from nonprofit and community institutions to flexible and self-organized art spaces, alternative schools, and event series. PHONEBOOK 3, in its third edition, contains over 750 listings of projects and essays by the people that run them.

Designed for both the artists who participate in these spaces and the organizers, administrators, and curators who run them, Hand-in-Glove is for anyone and everyone who participates in artist-run culture in order to talk about its past, current manifestations and potential futures. Conversations will range from sustainability to funding to unconventional organizing models, as well as the kind of creative administrative strategies people are using to stay open.  

Oftentimes, it’s  a make-do approach to keeping an artist space open or getting a publication printed. Support is usually a combination of personal donations, small amounts of grant money, the copy machine at work, and a Kickstarter campaign. At Hand-in-Glove, we want to network with each other for larger solutions as well as discuss the ethics of starting small and keeping small, the compromises of becoming bigger and the inventive problem solving that keeps independent culture alive and well. This is a creative conversation that should be collectively authored amongst artists and their support structures, taking into account the people and the economies that make things happen.

Hand-in-Glove brings together speakers from across the country that have started micro-granting initiatives, residency programs that are about learning to live off the grid, veterans of artist spaces, executive directors of venerable institutions, and amateurs. We will be hosting arts organizers from Minneapolis, Detroit, St. Louis, San Francisco, New Mexico, North Carolina, Philadelphia, Oregon, New York, and many other places. Martha Wilson of Franklin Furnace Archive, Mark Allen from Machine Project, writer Lane Relyea, Renny Pritikin, founder of the National Association of Artists Organizations, Ted Purves, artist and MFA Program Chair at California College of the Arts, and keynote Nato Thompson, curator at Creative Time (and former Chicagoan), will give their take on artist-run organizing of the last 30 years and its future. We hope you can join us!

Pre-registration (before October 8) is $100 and includes lunch on both Friday and Saturday (catered by Roots & Culture Community Kitchen) and continental breakfast on all three days. Registration at the door or after October 8 is $50/per day with no food included. We have scholarships and student discounts available, please check our website.

We also have a special offer from OtherPeoplesPixels: $25.00 off any new website account for the first year of service for every conference attendee. Email Abigail (at) three-walls.org with questions or to claim your discount.

Search Engine Optimization of your OPP Site : Part Two

Now that you have the content of your website text-rich and in tip top shape, let's move onto other things that will help with the SEO of your site.

Get the word out!

A great way to help the SEO of your site is to be linked to by other sites. No, we don't mean participating in sketchy 'I'll link to yours if you link to mine' type deals. We mean good old fashioned getting your work out there -- by being interviewed, written about, participating in networking events, art residencies, and the like.

 Google Webmaster Tools

If you do not currently have a Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) account, be sure to sign up for one. Directions on how to connect your GWT account to your OPP site can be found here:

http://wiki.otherpeoplespixels.com/help/cp/google-webmaster-tools

If you already have a GWT account, please check it regularly to see if you have any messages from Google regarding your site.

Submit your URL to Search Engines

 If you have not yet submitted your URL to Google, you may do that using the link below:

You can also request submission to Yahoo and Bing:

When submitting to Bing, please note that you don't have to set anything up with Bing Webmaster Tools. Simply go down to the bottom of the page to submit your URL using their 'deprecated tool'.

      You should also submit your URL to this independent, non-profit Web monitoring project that links to Google's directory.

      Ask Google to Recrawl your Site

      Once you have made sure that the content on your site is rich, detailed and relevant, and you have taken all the steps listed in our Google Help section, you can ask Google to reconsider your site, if you think it's been awhile since they have visited your site. Directions on how to do this, and a link to the page to request reconsideration are below. No need to worry about the technical or code related stuff here, as we take care of making sure that all this is in compliance with Google's webmaster guidelines:

      Remember that all changes to your site will take some time to be reflected in Google's index.

      Happy SEO-ing!

        OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews Lilly McElroy

        2010 Was A Rough Year
        Installation Image, Thomas Robertello Gallery (Chicago)
        Stained glass window and video documentation of stand-up comedy performances

        OtherPeoplesPixels: In your artist statement you discuss your attempt to give the cliché new and personal meaning. Those ideas apply especially to your series I Throw Myself At Men, as well as your projects, Lilly invites you to come watch the sunset with her, and 2009 was a rough year. Let’s talk about how your shifting media throughout and within each these three projects effects your viewers’ interpretation of the clichés you’ve addressed. Do you yourself gain further insight from exploring the clichés from the multiple “angles” of photography, participatory websites, performances, labor-intensive constructions, and installations?

        LillyMcElroy: One of the main reasons that I make art is that I want to be able to communicate ideas. The advantage of having a multi-disciplinary practice is that I try and figure out what kind of media best conveys the concepts that I am interested in.  Also, no singular project has really provided me with complete answers or explanations to the things that I am curious about. Using a combination of media allows me to keep hacking away at an idea.

        OPP: What comes first in your art making process—an idea about a cliché or an idea for installation or performance, or do they occur to you simultaneously?

        LM: I would say that my ideas mostly come in the form of whims; a moment when I want to see what will happen if I perform an action or ask a question. My projects all begin very simply and I wind up using a lot of cliché’s because they are an effective way to communicate ideas or maybe that is just the way by brain works. I think very literally and a lot of those thoughts are clichéd. However, that thought process allows me to introduce a lot of humor to the projects. Ideas generally come first, cliché’s are just another interesting tool to work with.
        Truck Stop
        2004
        C-Print

        OPP: How do you negotiate trust and vulnerability in your work—or do you think about the interactions involved in your performances as vulnerable or requiring trust?  Are you nervous about potential outcomes before lying down in a nightgown in public as you did in Locations, leaping at strangers in bars as you did in I Throw Myself At Men, or performing other people’s jokes on stage as you did in 2009 was a rough year—or are you generally faithful in your attempts at connecting?

        LM: For my projects, I often approach strangers or am in situations where I do not have complete control. I make myself, at some level, vulnerable to other people’s responses, but I suppose that may be one of the reasons that they choose to participate in my projects.  The fact that I am vulnerable or at least making an earnest request makes it possible for them to trust me enough to participate. Hugging a stranger on the street or allowing some woman you just met at a bar to leap at you takes a little bit of bravery or trust. To be honest, I am often surprised that people are willing to participate.

        Ideas about vulnerability are most interesting, for me, in the Locations series. By lying down in public spaces, I was making myself physically vulnerable, but that action became aggressive simply because it was an interruption. I am interested in actions that can signify more than one thing, behaviors that are simultaneously loving and cruel.

        However, I am always nervous during my performances. That is part of the reason they are interesting to me and possibly part of the reason that they are successful. I am genuinely trying to connect with people and therefore the possibility of failure exists. I know to stop working on a project or performing an action when I am no longer nervous.

        Doing stand-up was a whole other type of experience, though. There was a lot of adrenaline and the moments when I actually got people to laugh at the jokes were intoxicating.
        I throw myself at men - #12
        2008
        Digital Print
        30 by 40

        OPP: Did any of the men in your series I Throw Myself At Men not attempt catch you?

        LM: Yes and I just bounced off of their chests.

        OPP: Were there any contributed jokes that you were uncomfortable performing at comedy clubs in 2009 was a rough year?

        LM: I didn’t tell any of the racist jokes and I partially feel like that was a cop-out.  I was supposed to be telling all the jokes that people sent in, but I couldn’t.  

        OPP: How does the idea of failure factor in your bodywork as a whole?

        LM: Failure is key or at least the possibility of failure is key. Without that possibility there would be nothing to root for. It would be like watching a sports movie without the underdogs.

        OPP: You’ve written about the gestures that you enact in your performances as simultaneously loving and cruel. Can you give me an example of how that duality plays out in a particular piece?

        LM: Hugs is the first piece that comes to mind. For this video I hugged strangers without asking their permission.  A hug, a loving and tender gesture, became aggressive and selfish. My behavior was a demand that people engage with me and there is something very mean about that. That said, there were a few moments of legitimate tenderness in the video, moments when my gesture actually felt wanted. That is what I mean by loving and cruel.

        OPP: Your drawing and paper mache installation, I kicked a dog implicates you as either having kicked what appears to be a friendly non-threatening dog, or wanting to. How does your Dog series factor into a body of work concerned with implicating yourself and others? Was this an attempt at making it clear that you are aware of your complicated position in your work—or did you just want to be sure and eliminate the possibility of ever being able to adopt a pet?

        LM: That project had a lot to do with frustration, with wanting to destroy or reject something lovely because of desperation.
          
        OPP: What are you working on now?

        LM: A bullmastiff named Buttons saved my dad when he was 11. Right now I am working on a sculpture of that dog.
        To view more of Lilly McElroy’s work work visit lillymcelroy.com

        Search Engine Optimization of your OPP Site : Part One

        Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a big deal these days. Making the first page of results for a specific group of terms is fantastic -- the top result, the best!

        OPP takes care of all of the technical aspects of SEO for you -- so you don't have to worry about any of those things. But before you throw up your hands in relief, remember that you alone are the content manager of your OPP site! This means that you and you alone have the ability to keep your site appealing to search engines.

        In Part One, we'll focus on content and the OPP settings that will maximize the SEO of your site. In Part Two, we'll focus on the other things you can do to help with the SEO of your site.

        Text, text, text.

        The absolute number one key thing to do is to make sure that the text content on your site is detailed, specific and relevant to the keywords you want people to use in search engines (especially your name), since this is how search engines decide what your site is all about.

        Here are some do's and don'ts when it comes to content:

        • Do add titles to your pieces
        • Do add text or descriptions to your images
        • Do add a content rich Artist Statement to your Home Page
        • Do use your name and most important keywords in your Home Page text
        • Don't leave your Home Page with no text on it -- Home Pages are one of the top places Google looks for keywords, and is also where Google gets the description of your site for its listing
        • Don't enter dots or spaces in between the letters of your name as your website title -- 'J o e S m i t h' and 'J-o-e-S-m-i-t-h' does not equal 'Joe Smith' to a computer

        Template

        If you are using one of our old-school Flash skins, we highly recommend that you switch to using an HTML Template, as our Templates allows Google's robots to 'read' the text on your site, therefore finding your name and keywords more easily. Google's increasing prejudice against Flash-based is part of the reason we designed the new Templates.
               * You'll only see the Flash skins as an option in your Control Panel if you've been using one for a long time. If you don't see this option, don't worry – this means you're using the correct Templates!

        Image Settings

        If you haven't already, we recommend that you switch both your Normal Image Settings and your Zoom Image Settings to 'Shared (HTML).

        Having public images is also just a good thing in general as bloggers, galleries and curators can grab your images for their files and articles this way.

        Worried about image theft? See this post.

        Having your Image Settings as 'Shared (HTML), along with detailed Captions (see the next step) can be VERY helpful.

        Captions

          Something to be aware of is that Google has also stopped using 'behind-the-scenes' keywords (technically <meta tags>), such as the ones you may have entered into the Keywords section of your Control Panel --- so that makes it all the more important to have your content visible in the text on your website itself.

          Instead, it is very important to fill in the 'Caption' section of each Image.

          Like all of the content on your site, these should be honest and descriptive, as search engines are good at spotting tricks. :) A good description would consist of something like "photograph of galaxies rainbows kittens and sunset by Your Name." This will help search engines get more info about your site and can assist in getting your images on Google Image search.

          Remember though that Google Image Search is designed to find images OF something, not BY someone. A search for your name is more likely to bring up a photo of you, as opposed to work by you.

          That's all for now, folks. Till Part Two!

          OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews Adam Ekberg

          Cocktail umbrella and bic lighter
          2009

          OtherPeoplesPixels: Many of your incredible range of photographs from the past five years have everything to do with presence and absence—and perhaps more accurately with the presence within absence. What inspires your investigations surrounding these ideas?

          Adam Ekberg: This working methodology comes, pretty specifically, out of my failure to represent ideas with “straight photography.” Prior to graduate school I was a caretaker at a six-bed facility for people living with HIV and AIDS. I was really interested in the disparity between the systems surrounding death and the organic death. I was with people when they died and in awe of how amazing and unique each patient was. Comparatively, after these patients died, they got pushed through this final bureaucracy. As a direct result, I made formal pictures of funeral homes that, while formally beautiful, represented a way of making that fundamentally did not work for me.

          These failed pictures led me to turn my way of making photographs inside out so that instead of concentrating on systems that the individual occupies, I make unique actions in empty spaces–apartments and landscapes. This transition from the universal to the personal helped to define what I do now. I have realized that the simple things done to amuse myself are worth capturing with my camera. I remember an amazing afternoon in the late 1990’s when several friends and I raced an empty Kool Whip container against an orange Tupperware container down a New Mexico stream. We came increasingly invested in the outcome of these races and watching the colorful containers race through the desert was absolutely hilarious and beautiful.

          These days, I think more and more that a good photograph is the result of a memory coming out sideways. My best example is my first memory: watching the barn next to my childhood home burn down after being set on fire by an arsonist. I recall being held by neighbors while my father sprayed down our house with a garden hose to prevent it from burning. I was wearing spaceship pajamas and holding a glow-stick that a neighbor of my parents had given me. At its peak, people could feel the heat and see the fire from miles away. Holding that small glow-stick while watching the giant flames take over the barn and rise into the sky was a pretty good introduction to one person’s smallness within the universe.

          From the inside looking out
          2010

          OPP: I love From the inside looking out—your photograph of ovals drawn into the steam on a windowpane. The ovals outline light sources as seen (as the title implies) from the inside looking out, but there is something intimate about your ovals beyond their obvious hand-drawn quality. I know you create all of the constructions that appear in your photographs to exist in the world (as opposed to digitally manipulating them). I’m curious if you create each with someone in particular in mind? There is something romantic about many.

          AE: That picture was made while boiling water for pasta on a winter night in Chicago. A friend was over for dinner and drew circles on the condensation in the window. If you looked through one eye from this specific place in my kitchen, the circles lined up with the lights in the parking lot. I thought that was really wonderful because it made me think about the space in between yourself and the world around you, as if the windows functioned as eyes. I attempted to take a picture of it but my camera’s lens kept fogging up so I recreated the situation on the following evening. Looking back on it, I am struck by how wonderful it is, not just as an image but also as a gesture.

          OPP: Can you speak about how lighting and illumination play into your body of work as a whole?

          AE:
          Even though it is obviously one of the elements of any photograph, I don’t think about lighting that much on a conscious level. When I use light as an overt ingredient—such as refracting a shaft of light with the camera lens or capturing the physicality of light in a smoked out room—I am interested first and foremost in making its presence known. I think a good metaphor would be having a neighbor over for dinner that you have lived next-door to for years, but never spoken to.


          Untitled (levitating pink umbrella)
          2010

          OPP: You’ve written about repositioning celebratory iconography to create minor spectacles: balloons, cocktail umbrellas, disco balls, soap bubbles, and lens-based refractions. The result is always magical and usually surprisingly so. Over time, has it become more difficult for you to maintain a sense of magic in what you do?

          AE: In many ways, I am the luckiest artist in the world, because my work investigates the commonplace. There seems to be no end to human beings’ ability to generate the mundane. I marvel at these moments of toenail cutting, tax doing, shoelace tying, and paperwork filing. It is of course a completely different exercise in taking these things and making art from them.

          I feel best about my practice when I am simultaneously creating pictures that seem like what I am known for doing and starting to make images that deviate from that. I recently made a picture of a shadow falling on a wall. There is a knothole in the wall and a human eye exists in the place of where the shadow’s eye would be (if shadows had eyes). So the resulting photograph is a kind of visual pun. This image is both grounded in what I have done and provides fertile ground in which to grow.

          Shadow and eye
          2010

          OPP: What does a day in the studio look like for you? Do you “sketch” with your camera or does your process perhaps include writing, drawing, or pursuing the materials you ultimately photograph?

          AE: I have a notebook and I make a lot of sketches of my ideas. I should “sketch” with my camera a lot more than I do, but I mostly make drawings. I like to sit and let my mind wander. I like to ride my bike because it gives my body something to do to keep it busy—my conscious mind pays attention to not running into trees but my unconscious is allowed to drift. Since a lot of my photographs come out of experiences—or an effort to reconstruct an experience or a memory or perhaps to mythologize a previous experience—I tinker a lot while I am thinking about things.

          The photograph Cocktail umbrella and Bic lighter is a good example of that. I was sitting in my apartment waiting for someone. Bored, I wedged a cocktail umbrella in the lighter making the gas stay on. When I later restaged that moment to photograph the lighter on my coffee table, the light from the flame was refracted by the lens making a warm circle of light in the picture. I love this picture because its origin is firmly grounded in playing with commonplace objects, but at the same time the result is this mundane sculpture with a halo around it that is reminiscent of painted depictions of Christ and Saints.

          OPP: You are an Assistant Professor of Photography and Digital Media, School of Art and Art History at University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. How does teaching influence your art practice?

          AE: I love teaching and am really lucky to have joined an amazing faculty at University of South Florida. I teach two classes and work with five graduate students each semester. A day of doing studio visits is my favorite—when I get to walk into grad studios and spend an hour talking to people about their work. Being surrounded by people who are working through ideas and constantly improving their ability to articulate these ideas is truly inspiring and motivating for me to do the same.

          OPP: What is next for you? Tell me about your upcoming solo show at Thomas Robertello Gallery.

          AE: Having just had solo-exhibitions at Platform Gallery in Seattle and Fotografiska in Stockholm last spring, I am now preparing for an exhibition at Thomas Robertello Gallery this October. I have a good part of the late summer free to make images and am looking forward to driving to New England to do so. Several friends of mine live on large, beautiful pieces of land in the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont, so they give me pseudo-residencies. My notebook is full of sketches for photographs I want to create. I can’t wait to wake up in the woods where the only thing on my ‘to do list' is to make pictures.

          To view more of Adam Ekberg’s work visit adamekberg.com

          Protecting your Work : Shared (HTML) vs. Protected (Flash)

          Protecting your work is important, but before you rush to set all of your Image Settings as Protected (Flash), take a moment to consider the pros and cons of both settings.

          First, a little background as to your setting choices:

          Protected (Flash) displays your images inside of a Flash “movie” that people can't download as easily as HTML.

          Shared (HTML) is the most common way to display images online and means images on your site can be downloaded by people, which seems like a bad thing, until you think about all the potential good that can come from this.

          Although using the Shared (HTML) setting does allow people to right-click download your images, and people could then theoretically print them out -- at their size and quality, there is little risk that a print out of your images could be sold.

          As you decide which setting to use, please note that no method is foolproof! Remember that the internet is inherently a public arena. For example, regardless of the choice you make, nothing can prevent your visitor from screen capturing your images while viewing your site on their computer.

          By using the Shared (HTML) setting, you are:

          • Allowing your site to be viewable on mobile devices (Virtual Business Card!)
          • Increasing the chances of your Images being indexed by Google Images
          • Allowing the images on your site to upload more quickly and smoothly
          • Eliminating the possibility of anyone having trouble viewing your images due to outdated components in their browser

          Concerned about your larger, Zoom Images being misappropriated if you set them to Shared (HTML)? You can still use our Watermark Feature, to try to ensure that you get credit for your work.

          All of the benefits of using the Shared (HTML) setting outweigh the cons, in our humble opinion. It will also assist with the Search Engine Optimization of your site -- a topic that is so hugely important and complex that we're dedicating two blog posts to it. Until next time!

            OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews Sara Schnadt

            Drafting Universes
            2010

            OtherPeoplesPixels: You describe exploring technology in your work both as subject and media. In doing so your primary media are installation and performance. Let’s talk about the relationship the performances and installations have to one another in your artmaking process and how the combination of disciplines plays into how viewers perceive your work in varying locations.

            Sara Schnadt: I am trained as a performance/installation artist so I naturally think about ideas as live gestures and environments at the same time. Space, architecture and gesture are fundamental to how I think. In the past four years the installation component of my work has developed to the point where the intention holds up without the live presence. This has opened up the possibilities for my work in terms of where and for how long I can show a work (a month with regular performances versus an evening) which has been exciting. Most of the time a live activity is integral to my work, though. It's at the heart of the work's concept, like building the internet in Connectivity or creating versions of the universe in Drafting Universes. I also sometimes use found movement in a similar way to how I consider found objects. I see them as materials with a previous life and history. For example my piece Reading Gestures uses found pedestrian movement—body language that people use to create a private space in a public library in order to get lost in what they are reading. It was created for a space that was the Chicago Public Library's reading room from the 1880, through the 1980' and drew from images of readers spanning this time period for movement material.

            I do have two recent pieces that are installations without a live element. But one of these is an adaptation of a performance remnant—a mistake when the room-scale installation component of my Connectivity piece (a representation of the Internet in string and wire) was sent back from an international show as a compact three foot ball. The other, Network, is the idea of a gesture in string—a virtual network structure cutting across an ordinary space. But even this piece is going to become a performance in it's next iteration.

            When I am there live inside of my work, the audience tends to take on an engaged spectator role or sometimes they respond like they are seeing the inside of my studio and are interested in getting close to the creative process. When I am not there live (either during the run of a piece with scheduled performances or with my pure installation pieces) I think that the audience experiences my work more actively and intimately because I am not there to serve as an intermediary. The experience of the work is much more charged when I am there live however, and there is a place for both kinds of engagement in most of my work.

            Connectivity (Condensed)
            2011

            OPP: In reviewing the performances you’ve created in the last decade I am especially interested in noting each work’s duration. Many range from one to three hours performed multiple times over the course of an exhibition while others occur once and last a few days. Could you speak about how you determine the duration of a performance?

            SS: I consider the format of the presentation opportunity as part of the site or situation I am responding to. In most cases, the overall duration or run of a piece is a response to the opportunity (a one-night-only, site-specific performance festival versus a month-long run in an exhibition space). If I have the time to create a series of performances within a larger exhibit time-frame my preference is to perform for three hours at a time. This gives a focused enough time window that you can have a decent accumulation of audience (which really gives the work energy) but also is long enough to push me beyond my comfort level for stamina. Pushing past this point, which happens usually about an hour in for me, puts me in a heightened meditative space and makes the performance more transformative because I really become part of the work.

            Connectivity
            2008, 2007

            OPP: I am similarly interested in your costuming in the performances you’ve created in the last decade. In Drafting Universes and Continuity you are dressed in what could be interpreted as business attire, and in Network and Network Hub you are dressed in everyday attire, while in Connectivity you wear a custom-made orange jumpsuit that could be described as both futuristic and prison or inmate apparel-inspired. What factors go into your costuming choices?

            SS: I think of the costume as part of the sculptural element of each piece. Some of my work is more abstract and some more pedestrian in it's vocabulary, and so the costumes vary accordingly. If there is a real type of person I am embodying for the piece, then I will put together a costume that suggests this person. For Continuity my intention was to be dresses in historically-ambiguous travel attire, since the piece included a large collage of travel images from a wide range of historical sources. I also chose the color palette of this costume to match the piece. For Drafting Universes I was a scientist or science worker, but I also wanted to keep the read very open so the audience could make a variety of references from my activity. I actually rotated through three costumes during this performance because it was a little tricky to get the balance just right. Also the installation element is very abstract visually, so a lab coat was just too literal. I will fine-tune the costume more for its next showing.

            For the building of Network we are wearing street clothes because the installation process is not part of the work. With Network Hub, (a piece about airplane flight patterns) I am shooting for a balance between a pilot and a stewardess, since both those roles facilitate flight. Also, simple lines and a single color look good formally with the piece. I have worked with a fashion designer for one on my pieces, Chicago-based Agnieszka Colon. She lent me a gown that she made out of a woman pilot's flight suit, which I wore to be both an architect and municipal worker role as I 'built' the Internet in my piece Connectivity.

            Chicago Artists Resource (CAR)

            OPP: Connectivity celebrates Web 2.0, the collective activity of creating and sharing information online. Web 2.0 is integral to the website and online community you created as co-founder and technologist for Chicago Artists Resource at the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Do you consider yourself a hybrid artist in that you work at the intersection of art and technology in both your work as an artist and your work with Chicago Artist Resource? How do the two inform one another?

            SS: Yes, absolutely they do inform each other. And yes, I do consider myself a hybrid artist. Or just an artist with multiple intersecting interests. I got involved with arts administration early in my career. I wanted to understand the infrastructure around artists' practice in order to give my own work a context and to participate in activities that enrich this infrastructure and allow me to be part of something greater than myself.

            My work with CAR has directly affected my art practice. It has expanded my art network both locally and nationally, inspired me to focus on technology innovation as a central theme in my art, and shown me that I can pull off large complex projects. The scale and ambitiousness of my art has grown as a direct result. My art practice also affects my work with CAR because I am much more effective as an advocate for artists' professional practice when I am actively practicing myself. In terms of working at the intersection of art and technology, this is just where I feel most engaged.

            OPP: You keep a research blog that is accessible from your website. How do you approach researching some of the specific details and networks that appear in your work? How do your viewers tend to engage with the information you present to them both online and in exhibition spaces?

            SS: I've realized over the past few years that the scale, complexity and processes in my art have been informed by my work with Chicago Artists Resource. Overseeing development of this large and comprehensive web site has involved a lot of research on professional practice content for artists. A taste for research-intensive creative process has since become part of my art. Sometimes this has meant researching global internet access, sometimes data visualization, sometimes found movement, and sometimes large quantities of images. Sharing interesting information that I come across on my blog is something I do for further background on projects, and because some of the stuff I've found is really fabulous. In addition, some of my finished projects include specific information that is relayed as part of the work's concept. When this happens I think of the art as a data visualization, and it has to be clear, direct and informative. I never want my work to be dependent on reading the label to get its ideas across. Other projects are supported by my research, but factual data is distilled and abstracted in the final piece and has become something else, more aesthetic.

            OPP: What is next for you?

            SS: What's next for me job-wise is finalizing plans for national syndication of CAR, which I've been working on for the past year. I'll also be overseeing the upgrade of the current CAR site so that the interface is more user-friendly and the large quantities of content on the site are more prioritized to artists' interests. And on September 29th, I’m moderating a panel on social media strategies for artists at Chicago Artists Coalition.

            Art-wise, I have a solo show at Counterpath Gallery (Denver) which opens September 2nd. I'll be their inaugural show. And in October I'll be doing an 'Artists Connect' talk at the Art Institute of Chicago, discussing my work in relation to Agnes Martin, Sarah Sze, Olafur Elliasson and others. For the end of the year I’m learning to code and developing an interactive data visualization for the Apps for Metro Chicago Competition, based on data from the city’s new open data initiative. I am also beginning to develop a new movement/new media/installation work that involves performing a social network.

            Longer term, sometime next year, I am doing a project at Minus Space (Brooklyn) in their new Dumbo space. I’m excited to work with Minus Space because their invitation to join their flat file has really influenced my work over the past two years. Applying the lens of minimalist reductive art to what I do has egged me on to try new directions and distill my ideas into simpler forms.

            To view more of Sara Schnadt’s work visit saraschnadt.com.

            Image Credits: John Sisson and Courtesy of the Artist

            Your Virtual Business Card : Optimizing Your OPP Website for Mobile Devices

            As an Artist, being able to display your work while you're on the go is important. When you are out and about and wish to share your work, your OPP site can serve as your virtual business card.

            To ensure that the work on your OPP site is viewable on mobile devices, be sure that:

            • You are using a Template for your site, and not a Flash Skin
              • FYI -- you'll only see the Flash skins as an option in your Control Panel if you've been using one for a long time. If you don't see this option, don't worry --- this means you're using the mobile-friendly Templates!
            • Your 'Image Settings' are set to 'Shared (HTML)', not 'Protected (Flash)'
            • Your 'Zoom Image Settings' are set to 'Shared (HTML)'

            You can now display your work on anyone's mobile phone or device -- instant access to your work. Big deal, you say? You can now...

            • Have coffee with a writer who's anxious to blog about your work (press! yes!) and show them your work on your mobile device
            • Share your body of work with others during studio visits, or with fellow residents while at an art residency
            • Present your work while networking at art fairs, conventions, and conferences
            • Meet with a potential collector and make a sale

            Worried about your work being stolen, because you won't be using our 'Protected (Flash)' settings? We'll address those concerns in an upcoming post. Stay Tuned!

              OtherPeoplesPixels Interviews Jimmy McBride


              M1 V2 (The Crab Nebula)
              2011
              Quilt
              87 inches x 78 inches

              OtherPeoplesPixels: Tell me more about your fantastical persona for your quilted wall pieces. You are a space trucker traveling back and forth from rock to rock delivering salt and vinegar who has a lot of time on your hands prompting you to download a grandma program that has taught you how to quilt—do you create all of your work from the perspective of this persona?

              Jimmy McBride: Yes, all of the quilts are theoretically from the perspective of the space trucker.  Early on there was no story to go with the quilts, but they're a lot of mindless labor to make and I have a very fertile imagination and love of science fiction. Also, at the time I started making the quilts I had taken a break from "making art" and just wanted to try doing something I had never done before. One thing led to another and a new artistic practice was born. After a while I developed the space trucker as a way to contextualize the quilts and put them in a framework that would make sense. With this more conceptual take on quilt making I also wanted bring it more into the realm of "high art" rather than a purely craft process. 

              OPP: Do you go by your real name, Jimmy McBride, while “in character”?

              JM: There's a lot of the story that's still in my head, including the trucker’s name and how he lives, where he comes from, but I haven't figured out how to get that information out. Right now people just assume that Jimmy McBride is the name of the space trucker.

              OPP: Your space trucker persona makes me wonder what kind of art you made while growing up. Did you have imaginary friends as a child? Or perhaps a science fiction-inspired imagination?

              JM: All of the above. There was a special effects TV show on when I was a kid called "Movie Magic," and the very first thing I wanted to be was a special effects makeup artist. Despite growing up in the suburbs, my house was on a lot that included a large wooded backyard with a creek running through it. I was an only child with not many friends and I would run around the woods all day making up epic tales of gods and monsters. I made a lot of paper mache sculptures and watched a lot of Star Wars and Star Trek.

              OPP: How does the genre of science fiction influence your work, generally?

              JM: I'd say its the basis for my work. Initially most of my influences came from movies and TV: Star Wars and Star Trek: The Next Generation, Aliens, Bladerunner, 2001, Dune, Mad Max, Waterworld, and Firefly. Recently, I've started reading a lot of science fiction art and concept on the internet: Assimov, Stross, Gibson, Dick, Le Guin, Vinge, and Herbert, for example. A couple of years ago I started doing a lot of research on pirates as well which has influenced the story. I've found that the more that I take in from as many different influences as possible makes the story I tell through my work that much better and more complex.

              Jet in the Carina Nebula
              2010
              Quilt
              73 inches x 89 inches

              OPP: You keep a process/research blog that is accessible from your website. How do you approach selecting the source images you share on your blog?

              JM: The idea for the blog is to give a "behind the scenes" look at what I do. I like to keep my site as streamlined as possible including the story of the space trucker and keeping everything conceptually sound and coherent. With the blog, I get to show how things are going in the studio, what's influencing certain pieces, showing how things come together and explaining certain technical aspects of how I actually construct the quilts.  As with the main site, I try to keep the images oriented towards the "how and why" of making the quilts and not too much extraneous info like what I had for lunch. I do stray every once in a while, but mostly it's just where I get my material, how I make the patterns, etc.

              OPP: Seeing some your preliminary color and fabric charts and seeing the quilts in-progress emphasizes how involved and time-consuming each piece is. How do you select the fabric you quilt?

              JM: All of the fabric for the quilt tops are from second hand stores. I especially like this aspect of the quilts both for practical and conceptual reasons. Quilts originally were made from clothes that were worn out or things that were going to be discarded, so I like the nod towards the history of quilt making, but also there aren't really many fabric stores on the space truckers route so he has to use any fabric he can get his hands on. The fabric is mostly button down shirts. I try and match the colors of the shirts to the images as best I can.  After working with this material for so long, I've found that small plaids and patterns give me the best matching capabilities.

              The Milky Way Galaxy V2
              2010
              Quilt
              60 inches x 60 inches

              OPP: Are you self-taught or did you have a human equivalent to your persona’s “grandma program” to instruct you in sewing and quilting?

              JM: I am a completely self taught quilter.  My mom taught me how to do a little sewing when I was young and I knew my way around a sewing machine when I began, but I basically knew nothing about quilting. Ironically, I learned a lot about the tricks of the trade of quilting by watching YouTube videos.

              OPP: You’ve recently received a $25,000 AOL’s 25 for 25 Grant and had a show at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo that traveled to The Museum of Contemporary Art, Bergen (Norway)—congratulations. Tell me a little about the impact your increased visibility has had on your artmaking.

              JM: Thanks! The grant was a watershed and complete surprise. I did apply for it, but thought it was a shot in the dark. The grant allowed me to take a break from working a day job for a while and just focus on making art. It's really been great getting my stuff out into the world, having people see it, and giving me feedback. At the end of the day though, it hasn't really altered my artmaking; it's still me with some old shirts and my sewing machine.

              OPP: What are you working on now?

              JM: Currently I'm working on a quilt based off of an image of M83. M83, or Messier 83, is the technical name of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy which is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Hydra. Charles Messier was a French astronomer that first catalogued permanent deep space objects, giving them numbers to differentiate between stationary objects and moving ones, like comets. After that I'm going to focus on more of the Sci-Fi storytelling quilts, and less on direct representation of images of space.

              To view more of Jimmy McBride’s work visit jimmymcbride.com.