Christopher LG Hill‘s paper and usb publication Endless Lonely Planet, launching Friday May 4 at World Food Books Melbourne.

WORLD FOOD BOOKS The Nicholas Building, Studio 19, Level 337 Swanston Street, Melbourne 3000, Victoria, Australia

Endless Lonely Planet is a yearly periodical in print and data featuring Christopher L G Hill, Nicholas Mangan, Evergreen (Olivia Barrett and James Deutsher), Alex Vivian, Joshua Petherick, Kate Newby, Y3K, Review Swapper, Discipline, Bunyip Trax, Matthew Benjamin, S.T. Lore, Virginia Overell, Nicholas Selenitsch, Darren Banks, Elizabeth Newman, VDO, Theodore Whong, Oliver Van Der Lugt, Hessian Jailer, Jason Heller, Olle Holmberg, Justin K Fuller, Matthew Brown, Ardi Gunawan, Counterfeitness First, Emile Zile, Fictitious Sighs, Porpoise Torture, Bum Creek, Simon Denny… and others

Self published by contributors and Christopher L G Hill, and each copy coming with 4GB of data. A special launch price of $15 (AUD) will apply tomorrow night, it will then continue to be available for $20 (AUD) from World Food Books in store and online.

Bill Drummond of the KLF / Timelords / K Foundation was in Amsterdam as guest of the Art Reserve Bank, an alternate currency project based in the Amsterdam Zuidas financial district.

We were The 17, a vocal project that has no audience only participants. A human ring around the financial district where one person after another would scream the word MONEY.

Waiting for the scream to come around, you are left thinking about the pre-crisis office architecture surrounding you, the consensual hallucination that art and banking is, the power of the voice and the trust involved in such a performance. When the scream comes to you it is more of a football chant or rural command, not singing, not melodious. As it passes it feels like the unity of a dance party, solitary individuals united by a moment. The energy of communal experience, a line that passes through acid house, singing in taverns, mosh pits, sport chanting and choirs. The voice – the very first thing and the very last thing.

The White Room was the first ‘grown up’ album I bought. The mythic qualities of the KLF seduced me. Masked pop stars. Sample heavy production. Symbolism and shadow. Read Drummond’s book 45. It’s a self-help text for me, in the same hallowed territory as my viewing of Tarkovsky’s Stalker every six months. Two weeks ago I came across a plastic-wrapped copy of 45 at a small departure lounge shop in Sandakan airport Malaysian Borneo. Sitting amongst Malay fashion and beauty magazines, looking solitary and bemused, it was some kind of omen. I made a photograph of it and took it with me to Amsterdam.

Camera: Ian Elson
Edit: Emile Zile

https://youtube.com/watch?v=c3b4s1JkYaM

Documentation by Pieter Kers

Palais Paradiso
February 16, 2012
http://www.palaisparadiso.nl

It is often said that if Sisyphus were alive today – he would probably be using a bulldozer to push his boulder up the mountain, while running a small company for similar services. Such are the times in which we live, where it’s possible that even mythology cannot exist without having cast over it the contemporary shadow of the corporation. Art that uses technology in any way is also under the same shadow: the product is embedded, be it the logo on laptop lids, in-camera menu systems, the sheer presence of digital projectors in the gallery space adds the subliminal presence of the multi-national brand. This minor conflict is not so much because they are there but because they are not intended to be there. It is a concession that must be made in order to use these tools. Never before has industry been so visible in art materials. Perhaps in a typical setting we are expected to overlook the device in order to consider the art is only what comes out of it. For this reason gallery and museum spaces often attempt to conceal these pieces of equipment so that their relationship with the artist and the viewer is not questioned, but in some ways this smudges something that might be pivotal.

With his history of performances that engage with popular culture and consumer technology Emile Zile recently premiered OMG_Sisyphus. The Greek mythology of Sisyphus, a tale of burden and absurdity, is used as a prop on which to enact a contemporary performance situation: being on YouTube. The performance happens in the midst of laptops, amplifiers, digital cameras, projectors and a  heavy looking stone that the artist carries in from outside. In recent performances of OMG_Sisyphus at (Open Archive Melbourne, 30 November 2011, Palais Paradiso Amsterdam 16 February 2012) Zile enacts a humorously calculated switch. In his treatment we begin to understand that the laptop/webcam is now a rock, or vice versa. Its physical presence, weight, and texture become entwined in a passage of worship, as the ubiquitous Apple product is now something more equivalent to a Chinese scholar stone (Gongshi). Throughout the whole performance it is as if through some application of post-production what we should be seeing as a computer (the adored gateway to online audiences) is now a small volcanic boulder. Simultaneous slips between live action and published content begin, as Zile sits staring at the rock we imagine him staring at his computer, alone in a room while addressing an imagined YouTube audience. In doing so the actual live audience sitting in the gallery space is distanced, even denied. YouTube clips are executed and closed at the same time as the live performance, and by performing to the rock the absurd act of speaking to a mute object is comically revealed. All at once we view him in physical proximity sitting at his desk almost as if we are already at home watching him online. But we are not. At the same time YouTube clips projected at large scale on the wall present various moments recorded earlier, leading to a sense of shifts in time – the first clip is a (insert precise video length) closely cropped macro image of the minute crevices and minor surface details of the rock itself. The tragedy is that even though the rock is there in the room with us we still see it more closely on YouTube. The tone of this performance brings to mind the not-quite-transcendent aura of work by Shana Moulton combined with the webcam style bravado and entertainment factor of Hennessey Youngman. At some points in the piece we are made to feel the joys of web 2.0 publishing, light relaxation muzak plays, we are all connected by technology. But the gallery space begins to fall out of step as the artist struggles against what appears to be self-doubt and loneliness. The rock remains motionless on a small table under lamplight. Is real life different to projected life? Maybe it used to be. Zile seems to suggest a new friction is built in this crossover rather than a seamless merger. Whilst various elements of the performance are online, the crux of this work hinges on being present live in the gallery space – where multiple facets of contemporary being are felt and fired simultaneously. As it happens we are pointed toward a space where states of alienation, corporation and intense connectivity collide into a state of indivisibility.

– Ry David Bradley

February 2012

Supporting BODY/HEAD: Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth + Bill Nace

Sunday February 26 2012, OCCII Amsterdam €7 doors 20.00

One-night only. Powerboards and extension leads. Pixels and beams.

Featuring: Gavan Blau, Sally Blenheim, Ry David Bradley, Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Greatest Hits, Ian Haig, Joe Hamilton, Sam Hancocks, Sean Healy, Christopher LG Hill, Amelia Hirschauer, Spencer Lai, Matt Leaf, Maximum Rim, Rowan McNaught, Dale Nason, Antuong Nguyen + Pageant,  Joshua Petherick, Johann Rashid, Sibling, Soda Jerk, Swanbrero, Nic Tammens, Alex Vivian, Oliver van der Lugt, Yandell Walton, Marcin Wojcik, Warran Wright, Wikileaks, Emile Zile

BYOB MELBOURNE
Level 1, 18 Ellis Street, South Yarra
Friday, December 16 2011 7-11pm