I first came across BAST by accident online, and then later in the streets of Soho (above). He's having a show at Brooklynite Gallery, opening next Tuesday:

BAST: Nose Candy

Brooklynite Gallery
Williamsburg / Greenpoint / Bushwick

334  Malcolm X Blvd, 347-405-5976
June 10 - July 12, 2008
Opening: Tuesday, June 10,  7 - 10PM
Web Site

more via ArtCal (see map) :

Right off the bat, Brooklynite Gallery comes out swinging--- hitting a grand slam for its premiere show featuring new print works by the artist BAST. An opening reception will be held on Tuesday, June 10th 2008. The BAST print show will run from June 10th to July 12th, 2008.

The brand new Brooklynite Gallery is located in the Stuyvesant Heights neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. As pioneers in the area, nothing is better than introducing the gallery to the art world than with the cutting-edge work of BAST. Internationally renowned and always ahead of the curve, BAST juxtaposes a raw street-edge sensibility, an eclectic montage of pop culture "confusion" and the boundaries of sex in his work.

This time around BAST's new collection targets jewelry, or "bling" if you will, as he once again finds a new way to satisfy the eyes appetite for visual candy. As if his ironic pairing and displaced imagery wasn't enough, or even the infusion of vibrant neon color schemes, the bar is once again raised with the sparkle and glitter of ornamentation.

Saturday, May 31
Admission: $5, $10 minimum
Doortime: 8pm
reservations are recommended

www.benneill.com
www.myspace.com/benneill
www.bill-jones.com

Monkey Town    Location/Map
58 N 3rd St
(btw. Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211 

Ben Neill and Bill Jones will present a new set of music and interactive video for Neill's newly created mutantrumpet. Dubbed "the mad scientist of dancefloor jazz" (CMJ Magazine), Neill's music "masterfully blurs the lines between electronic dance music and jazz sounds" (Billboard). This new set of future dub jazz is the most recent chapter in Neill's musical evolution which has included the CDs Green Machine (Astralwerks), Triptycal and Goldbug (Verve) and Automotive (Six Degrees). Neill has also recently created a new version of his unique electro-acoustic instrument, the mutantrumpet, thanks to a residency at the STEIM studios in Amsterdam.

Jones, Neill's longtime visual collaborator, has created a new set of interactive video for the set. The imagery is primarily black and white and evokes a late-night urban vibe inspired by sci-fi noir films such as Godard's Alphaville. The video and music are created as one hybrid form, and the new capabilities of the mutantrumpet make it possible for the visual and sonic elements to be seamlessly integrated in real time.

Neill and Jones are continuing to explore ways in which the dynamics and improvisation of live musical performance can be translated across the boundaries of sound and vision. Their past projects have included the Pulse series of sound/light sculptures, widely exhibited in the 1990's, MIDI controlled slide projector shows for Neill's Sci-Fi Lounge tour with DJ Spooky, and Palladio, a VJ movie based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Dee.

KRIEGSPIEL
Guy Debord's 1978 "Game of War"
Produced for computer by RSG
Screen shot courtesy of m.river, flickr.com

via post.thing.net and interactivist info exchange, 04/23/2008:
{additional links courtesy of newsgrist}

Guy Debord's Widow Threatens NYU Professor with Copyright Violation Professor Is Accused of Infringing the Copyright of a Man Who Opposed Copyright

By ANDREA L. FOSTER, http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i33/33a01603.htm

Guy Debord, a Marxist philosopher who died in 1994, was no fan of private property. But apparently his widow is one.

A lawyer representing the widow, Alice Becker-Ho, has threatened Alexander R. Galloway, an associate professor of culture and communication at New York University, with legal action. Mr. Galloway says the lawyer has sent him a letter demanding that he stop distributing his online war game, which the lawyer says infringes a copyright held by the Debord estate. The French philosopher had created a similar board game 30 years ago.

But copyrights and some forms of intellectual property were anathema to Debord, says Mr. Galloway. The Situationist International movement, which Debord founded, in 1957, is a mix of anarchism and Marxism. Its followers scrawled "Abolish copyright" on walls during the May 1968 student uprisings in Paris.

The humor in defending the property rights of Debord, a Marxist, has not been lost on scholars, who have publicized the case on their blogs.

Mr. Galloway does not deny that the two-person computer game he developed is based on Debord's creation, the Game of War. The philosopher, an avid student of war strategy, released a few handcrafted copies of the board game in 1978. The object of the game, which resembles chess, is to corner and destroy opposing pieces. Debord and his wife wrote a book about it that was translated into English last year.

<Image via, tirée du film In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, Guy Debord, 1978.

One of Debord's games, cast in silver and copper, is on display at Columbia University's Buell Center for the Study of Architecture, alongside Mr. Galloway's computer version, called Kriegspiel. The object of Kriegspiel, German for a generic 18th-century war game, is the same as in Debord's game.

A computer programmer, Mr. Galloway says he spent about a year designing the digital game, which can be downloaded from the Web at no charge. "It's part of my scholarly research into how antagonism is simulated in war games and computer games," he said. "It's also part of my research into the work of Debord."

Despite the similarities between his creation and Debord's, Mr. Galloway disagrees that he is breaking the law. "I don't think I'm infringing on anyone's copyright in the creation of this game," he says, declining to discuss his legal situation further.

John Beckman, a spokesman for New York University, says only that it received a similar cease-and-desist letter and has responded.

Wendy M. Seltzer, a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for
Internet & Society, is familiar with Mr. Galloway's case. The Debord estate, she says, is overreaching in accusing him of copyright infringement.

The idea for a game is not copyrightable, she argues; only the image of a game is. Mr. Galloway's game uses the idea of Debord's game, she says, but does not duplicate its artistry and detail. {note: this perfectly illustrates the Idea-Expression Dichotomy }

Ms. Seltzer, a visiting assistant professor at Northeastern University School of Law, sees similarities between Mr. Galloway's case and one involving the Facebook-based word game Scrabulous. In that case, the owners of the board game Scrabble have accused the developers of Scrabulous of infringing their copyright. Ms. Seltzer says that claim, too, is without merit.

 via Eyeteeth, 4/30/08:

Vuitton bullies artist over Darfur image

 
Taylor reports that designer Nadia Plesner is getting sued by Louis Vuitton for showing the likeness of a Vuitton bag in a campaign to encourage divestment from Darfur. As a Vuitton lawyer claims in a February cease-and-desist letter, the bag pictured is the Monogram Multicolore, created by Vuitton art director Marc Jacobs and artist Takashi Murakami. "As an artist yourself, we hope that you recognize the need to respect other artists' rights and Louis Vuitton's Intellectual Property rights," the attorney wrote. Plesner, probably aware that artist's like Murakami have the right to appropriate and satirize the work of others, lawyered up and refused. Now, according to TechDirt, Vuitton is "demanding $7,500 for each day she keeps selling the product, $7,500 for each day she displays its original cease-and-desist letter and (my favorite) $7,500 for each day she mentions the name 'Louis Vuitton' on her website."

"Sometimes recognizable objects are needed to express deeper meanings, and in their new form become more than the objects themselves -- they become art," Plesner wrote in her response to Vuitton's initial letter. Indeed, as Sudanese troops and affiliated militias mow down civilians in Darfur -- as many as 300,000 have died there, according to a new estimate -- the culture of consumption in the west, represented aptly by this particular bag (which retails for $1,580 on the company's website), stands in stark contrast.

Plesner, hopefully boosted in her efforts by the suit, says she'll continue with her "Simple Living" series, which both raises awareness of the genocide in Darfur and generates funds -- 30 percent of sales -- to its victims.

Update: Vuitton has collaborated with artist Richard Prince, whose celebrated work includes Marlboro ads he re-photographs, without crediting the original photographer.

2 comments:        

Lisa @ Corporate Babysitter said...

GREAT STORY. Thank you.

ToddPeak said...

Ha, Taco Bell should be suing her, too.  That's their dog.

-Todd
www.weakcity.com

via animalnewyork (found at C-Monster!):

There's Still 'Hope' for Numerous Parodies

                   

Shepard Fairey has created a monster. What began as a simple campaign poster for Barack Obama has evolved into a parody enabler. Baxter Orr peddled "DOPE," and hell, even we offered up "POPE." But it didn't stop there. One artist took aim at Hillary with his wonderfully accurate "BITCH" print, while the neocons are turning up the heat, and Obama's nose with their "SNOB" and "ARUGULA" images. The good news is that no one cares enough about McCain to even bother creating anything- except for this guy of course.

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