Okay, The Morgellon was deinstalled just over a year ago.
I was supposed to have finished the Disembody edit by now.
That didn’t happen, did it?
I’ve barely begun the logging.
What’s the hold up?
I’m not real good at focusing.
Fortunately, being behind schedule and overbudget is an important part of any site specific work for Los Angeles.
What are the current distractions?

On September 7, 2011, 23 Entryways Into My Mind, Portal 7: A Mild Informality entered its second year (P7Y2). Year One (P7Y1) consisted of composing - with the collaboration of Daniel Miller, Moe Bowstern and a handful of others - approximately 365 scores for field recording. P7Y2 is a 365 day field recording extravaganza, wherein I am wearing an audio recorder on me 24/7 for an entire year. Yup, I am recording every sound in my environment for 8,760 consecutive hours. Obvs the project owes as much to Tehching Hsieh as John Cage. These are two artists who informed and inspired me as a teen more than just about any others. Well, The Residents, John Zorn and Current 93 were pretty damn important, too.
Those 8,760 hours of field recordings will make up the material for realizing the 365 compositions. I’ve scheduled five years to actually work on the realization. I did a smaller variation on this idea back in 2000, Une Fleuve Maudit (UFM). UFM took five years to complete. I’m hoping the lessons learned then will allow P7 to move at a headier pace.
You may be reading way too much about P7 on here in the coming year. Or given my lack of regularity at posting here, maybe not…

In November, 23E Studios will be creating an etching in an edition of 23 with Caladium Editions, in Champaign, IL.
Caladium Editions found us through the website. They asked us to create a print, curious as to what an installation-driven art collaborative would create when given a blank page. Currently, Honyo is working on two illustrations for the print. He is integrating images from Erin, Phil, Libby and Jack. The owners of Caladium, Walter and Molly, will also be contributing to the image as members of 23E. The images are proper Penrose tiles (P3), following the rules of tenfold symmetry.

23E just sent off an initial proposal to an arts center in New England. The proposal is for us to design, install and co-manage a sculpture garden.
Um, yeah, audacious and ludicrous we are.
That proposal has absorbed the last several months of my life. It was deeply research intensive as it is a site-specific, community work. I now know more about the turn of the century and industrialization in America in the 19th century than I ever could have imagined was possible.

In August My Daddy Ate My Eyes had a great tour. Documentation of the 6 installations should be complete by month’s end.
On September 25th SleepWalks will launch the first of our monthly research performances.
My Special Porpoise expects to perform in Chicago in mid-November.
And I’m nearly finished mixing the Stowe-Pembleton Project’s third and fourth records.

The candy boxes are going to be started today. Erin sent me this pic of samples they did last night. This is not the final look of the boxes, but various tests. It gives an idea of how beautiful these are going to be when completed, though.

I am so excited.
To get all the candy, Jonny drove to four Wal-Marts in the Omaha area. LOL.

As well, Keturah sent me her coming soon ad for the calendar and it is fabulous. I’m not posting it here because it should be a wonderful surprise.

The other ads will roll in later today. We’ll go to print tomorrow.

I spoke with Hanif last night, and his catalogue essay is coming along. It is really exciting to see it develop.

I installed the teasers in Fringe’s windows today. They look amazing.

Carol-Anne and Keturah are, from what I hear, now working around the clock. Day jobs 8am-6pm, studio making ceiling panels 6pm-2am.

Ote sent me a rough of the Japanese distro poster yesterday. And today a new version, both are below. They are really coming along.

Nobu and I spent an hour or more yesterday trying to work out the film title in Japanese. In the end we’re using the kanji, Ketsu Nikku Ghe Datsu.

Again, I can’t even begin to express how amazing the folks at 23E Studios are. It really blows my mind how hard we’re working.

Monday Alex and Keturah and I met at Danang to go over the budget for the interior design and the production facility and recording studio. It was a good meeting. They pointed out a number of necessary items I had missed. And gave me some concrete costs on chandeliers and other elements.



Tuesday I met with Marcella and Bonnie Banks. Mostly we looked at mp3s I got from Phil. Bonnie also loaned me a couple more vhs and another book. Earlier I was with Skye. We copied over all the footage thus far shot for the Making Of. I left him with two 500GB drives, one each for him and elise. They can start familiarizing themselves with the footage we have, the stories that might be developing, etcetera.

Skye and I also talked about art and film.

Before that I was with my friend LaTasha, a video artist, musician, writer and performer who is movign back home to NYC. We watched some docu of her performances from last year. She’s super mega-talented. I really want to find a way to get her involved in one of my East Coast projects next year.

I spoke with Amy, as well, and she’s going to help me get the food donated to feed everybody. Ali gave me some advice on that today. I’m also going to see if we can get some of the materials donated for building.

I started the day with our fabulous seamstress, Kathryn. She picked up the lining for the usher/usherette uniforms. They are going to be spectacular. I knocked out an email to Chantal to get her measurements. We have Jack’s (and I got her ticket, too).

Tomorrow I am going to try and hunt down AH and SG, two potential investors. And maybe SL, who is definitely not a potential investor, but is always good for great advice.

Jonny is coming out to SF this weekend and he and I will drive down to LA together Sunday.

Erin is working towards getting the ephemera page up, and getting ads and posters ready.

Ote is also starting the poster for Japanese distribution, which is great.

Finally, Keturah pointed me towards a potential screen printer for the candy boxes. Her art is great, so if she can do it, we’ll be in really good hands.

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.