I will have three large black and white photos of bike trips in Northern California in the San Francisco Art Commission Galleries at City Hall from January 30th through May 10th for the Take Me Away show. Here are two photos that are not in the show (no spoilers!):

My statement reads: ” From my home in Oakland, it only takes a short bike ride to escape the cops, the cars, and the concrete.” Come to the opening on January 30th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm where you will be surrounded by all three and we can plot our next escape.

I also updated the projects page and finished uploading photos from December to the photo page.

Fun-a-Day is right around the corner! Pick a project, do it every day, then show it in a big group show. We have 20 shows lined up for this year, possibly more to come (maybe you want to organize a show?).

In Oakland, we will be doing a short project so we can put the show together for first Friday on February 1st at Rock Paper Scissors. The schedule looks like this:

January 1-25: Make something every day
January 28-29: Drop off your 25 pieces
February 1: Show opens for Art Murmur

Submission details for most shows will be posted on artclash.com sometime in January.

Above is our installation at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History for the Work in Progress show. I’ve never put so little in such a big space, but it’s nice to make an installation that only hints at what’s to come. By the time the show ends in March, those walls will be covered with maps and secret histories we’ve collected. Our first workshop is tomorrow, December 21st from 2-6pm. We have guest speakers presenting from 5-6pm who have some good stories to tell. Come hang out with us every other week and help us fill the space.

Downstairs, Thomas Campbell is working on a giant mural that will also unfold over the three month show, which should be exciting.

Kyle and I are bringing the building collective to the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History from December 14, 2012 to March 17th, 2013. Come join us, hear about secret histories of Santa Cruz, share your own, and check out our giant concept map as it grows over the course of the show.

Meetings are Friday afternoons, every other week
2-5pm: the building collective will be working on mapping secret histories. Come share yours!
5-6pm: impromptu guest speakers will share their stories. Come eat snacks and hear about secret histories of Santa Cruz.

Topics
December 21st: Downtown
Jan 11st: Westside
Jan 25: UC Santa Cruz and the greenbelt
Feb 8: the mighty San Lorenzo River and its levees
Feb 22: Midtown / Seabright / Branciforte
Mar 8: Beach Flats / Boardwalk

buildingcollective.org
www.santacruzmah.org/2012/work-in-progress
sparc.ucsc.edu/buildingstories

Museum of Art and History (MAH), 3rd Floor 705 Front Street

Made possible with generous support from SPARC at UC Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

I am excited to announce that I just received an Alternative Exposure Grant for a future iteration of Hacking for Artists! Hacking sessions will begin next spring and consist of weekly workshops for Bay Area artists who want to incorporate computer programming and electronics into their practices. Details will be announced soon.

I recently hacked together a program that produces slit-scans of users’ desktops. Custom software slowly scans across the screen, taking about four minutes to complete, creating still images which illustrate both the spatial arrangement of software windows and the temporal flows of users’ activities. I have been distributing it without telling people what it does and asking them to send me the results. They produce fascinating maps of how people use their computers as their private activity is laid bare. Here are a few low resolution examples (all reproduced here with consent from users):

Katie, artist, Minneapolis

Matt; curator, writer, artist; Oakland

Rachel, artist, New York

Mark, programmer, Oakland

And head over to the photo blog for some snapshots from October.