My MA symposium in Visual and Critical Studies at California College of the Arts was Saturday. I presented a 20 minute talk on The Work of Art In the Age of Digital Reproduction. The symposium is our big graduating show, public presentation and all, you know. So, I stepped away from everything else for a little while. And, yes, that means that the post about dropping out was premature. Or, ummm, should have been retracted. The department chair convinced me to stick it out. I’ll just do half the work this semester and finish in Fall. But I’ll walk in May. A picture of me presenting can be found on David Silver’s blog.

If you’re interested in seeing it, you can find my .ppt with the text I presented in the notes section, on vime.

Now I’m back on Disembody more or less full time. There’s a lot to do.

Sunday I met with David Gurman. I am pleased to say that the materials budget for the build is spot on. So, the theater and concession stand are not only ahead of schedule, but within our budget.

After meeting David, Carol-Anne and Keturah-Anne and I went fabric shopping. We looked at a couple possible fabrics for the upholstery on the bleachers. And we bought enough stretchy cotton for 16 pairs of hotpants. I am going to have the sexiest design team in the world.

My producer, Alex, came through in that way only a producer can today. He’s supplying us with a super kick-ass Mac Pro as an editing station. Given that the editing station was one of my biggest concerns, this is a really big deal. Alex lifted a giant weight from my shoulders coming through like this.

Amy has connected us with a superb printer in L.A. which should be a huge help. She was already supplying us with a faboo on-site Epson printer. So now she’s doing double-print duty.

And for things we can’t print ourselves, Elise is hunting out potential contributors. Printing is turning out to be one of the bigger concerns in the project. Catalogue, posters, cards, popcorn bags, candy boxes, etc, there is a great deal of printing involved in Art.

Jonny told me today he has proof-of-concept for the confessional tech, which is great news. You can’t help but love someone who solves technical problems by cutting apart firewire cables and figuring out which wire does what. So straight-forward, but just how many of us have actually ever cut apart a firewire cable? Plus we’ve abandoned the idea of a paper version of the mega-catalogue, with all the emails and everything, for a digital book. Jonny is developing a flash book that will contain not only all the email and photos associated with the show, but also all the video and sound. This will probably be sold as an inexpensive computer and wall-mounted flat panel, so that people can install it on their walls as an art work that has multiple viewing options. You will be able to set it to random and it will be beautiful and magnificent visual art (and I am totally stealing this idea from when I worked for Jason Rhoades), or you’ll be able to actually flip the pages (using flex) and read/view/hear the entire history of the project.

The show’s nepotism quotient looks like it might go up soon. My niece lives in South Africa, and she may intern with us as part of her art requirement at the American School there. We’re still working it out, and it may fall through, but if I’m lucky she’ll begin assisting us remotely, and then may be around for both the weeks in Fringe.

Ote is apparently considering come over from Tokyo for the show, as well. He is an amazing artist, and having him on site will be incredible. I’m so proud of the work he’s done on records for me and Nobu, I know his illustration for Disembody will knock my heart out.

Speaking of Nobu, I am getting closer and closer to convincing him to come out for the show, I think.