So this is pretty fresh news but looks like i’ll be doing some work with the Barbarian Group this summer. They’re a pretty well established interaction company, with a history in innovative interactive website work, but now doing commissioned installations, independent projects and even gallery art work, occasionally. They just finished working on the Photoshop express project. It seems commercial, and it is a lot of the time (it’s a company), but it’d be tough to find a good company that is equally as packed with cool funny people who have artistic sensibilities too; doing alternative projects. One of the professors I TA’d for works there.
It’s co-founded by Robert Hodgins, mastermind behind Flight404, the popular Processing, animation blog. He heads up the S.F. office. I exchanged some emails with him and we wound up with something that’s not quite an internship but more of a chance to go work on my own stuff, help them brainstorm, do some intern work and just be awesome. I’m super excited about it.
What this means: I will most likely be kicking it in San Francisco for about a month and a half after mid-late July. The first half of the summer i’ll be teaching in the pre-college program in my department, making some paper. There are still many details to iron out in the next few months, which is why I’m reluctant to say anything too definitive. But my summer seems to be fleshing out in this direction.
I’ll do another post soon on new themes / ideas. Plus info on show’s i’ve seen.
For now, I’d just like to update. It’s been a really challenging quarter. Largely in the sense of defining my own work schedule intelligently (which I’ve been failing at) and balancing reading theory and producing work (also failing at).
My major grievance this quarter is that I’ve been doing too much reading and not enough making. In my seminar with N.K. Hayles, who is brilliant, the weekly reading list is usually astronomical (by my slow-reader standards). The class is full of english/literature phD candidates. They’re all really intelligent and make great contributions in class. But I’ll be damned if I don’t feel like the only one there not drinking the kool-ade. Some theory I just don’t buy. And trying to wrap my mind around the rest is leaving me mentally exhausted on a daily basis: completely the wrong state of mind to do some serious art making. I’m glad i’m being exposed to all these new writers, but it’s just so challenging for me.
Now I understand there should be a nice healthy balance between studying and making; I support that claim 100% I’m just feeling that the scales are tipping way towards the theory end this quarter. And what I said about my brain shutting down every evening is really leaving me bummed out.
Last weekend, I had a little mini-crisis when I realized 4 or 5 weeks have gone by and I haven’t produced anything but screen tests and drawings. But since then, i’ve turned my state of mind around and started re-considering my methodology. “Playing around” with physics engines and game engines haven’t yielded any creative results, (as per my current interest in games and machines). My plan was to start producing some non-functional abstract games based on a couple of themes…but the software development has had such a high learning curve that all my ideas have died in the initial phase. I’m thinking now i’d like to do a larger installation and break away from screen-based things; unless i’m going to do all-out video. I’m just not a programmer… I can learn what I need when necessary but I can’t be creative with code when I’ve got no initial concept. So that’s that. Time to start over.
TAing for Rebeca Mendez has been a treat. I’m learning loads about typography and motion graphics just by working with the students and her and being involved in critiques. I’ve cultivated a high respect for design. Occasionally she can’t make it and i’ve had to teach several classes completely on my own. This was frightening at first but i’m definitely more used to it now. I love curating screenings for the students and showing them influential work that they’ve never seen before. I can feel my CMU education oozing through!
That’s all for now. Please check in later for more updates and photos. The attitude turn around has been pretty successful so far and I can foresee starting on some new project very soon. I even started going back to the gym and trying to get excercise…
Check my del.icio.us for links and interest, as well as my flickr for new photos. I also started making some video playlists on youtube. I think i’m youtube.com/mkontopo or something…
I hope everybody had a safe and happy New Year celebration, and is enjoying the first week of 2008!
I’ve spent the past week here at Tammy’s apartment in the Mission. The experience has been different from the usual visit, because much of the beginning of it involved moving/cleaning. But overall it’s been really enjoyable. Seeing some of my other friends has also been an added bonus.
Out of the many things we’ve done, a couple have stood out. Haight/Ashberry was interesting and certainly charming, but damn, did I ever feel totally un-hip after attempting to shop there. It’s my own damn fault for refusing to spend $100 on some allover print hoodie and neon pink sunglasses. Which way is the GAP? There’s an Amoeba Music there too, which was huge and awesome.
JapanTown was excellent as usual. I’d say it’s even better than LA’s Little Tokyo. Much bigger and cleaner with more stores. The inside of the mall areas reminded me alot of the winding hallways of many of Tokyo’s larger subway stations (ramen shops, etc.). Okay, Art stuff:
Amisha gave me a VIP tour of The Exploratorium, which was really fun, but somewhat stressful at the same time. The space is really large and was packed to the rafters with screaming children on field trips. I felt bad wanting to shove them out of the way to play with the exhibits because they’re sort of the primary audience. . . But the exhibits were very cool. How could they not be? One great thing about the space is that the woodshop where some of the exhibits are made features very prominently as part of the museum, with clear walls to observe how things get made.
The Olafur Eliasson show at SFMOMA was as great as everybody told me it was. I don’t really intend to write a detailed review of the show, but suffice it to say that it was simply delightful. His work is always really impressive, fun and experiential. One highlight, was a room full of models, tests and experiments made of various cheap/raw materials. It was a bit like peaking into his studio. Seeing this sort of process work featured as a major part of the exhibition was great because it emphasized the importance of testing, iteration and failure, in my opinion. It was a good reminder to myself never forget how important process is. Then, there was an ice sculpture/car piece that I didn’t quite understand. I mean to say, I read the description and understand the political significance of doing it…But admittedly, it seems a bit “bloated” when compared to the other pieces which as you can imagine, are very simple, elegant and beautiful.
I got to meet Craig Baldwin, which was an unexpected surprise. One of my classmates and former student of his, took me to his studio/exhibition space (ATA) on Valencia to meet him. Having watched his films in college, I was nerding out a little bit and didn’t talk much. But I didn’t really need to because Baldwin was already quite excitable and talkative. He went into detail about the new film he’s working on (all about Scientology myths and scandals, and much much more!) and showed us around his crazy, messy studio space (which made perfect sense to him), including his massive, massive film archive, which is modestly crammed into a room in his basement. AMAZING. He’ll be lecturing at D|MA this fall as part of our grad “curated” lecture series. I’ll report on that when it comes!
That’s all that comes to mind for now. Now i’ll just blurt out some other great stuff; mostly places i’ve eaten. “Mission Pie” makes great…pie. We had a lovely breakfast there on New Years Day. Dogeared Books, Needles and Pens (DIY goods) and Aquarius Records on Valencia are all awesome establishments. David showed me an awesome alley full of wall paintings (Clarion Alley) that I would never have found on my own. Philz Coffee is my new favorite place to get coffee. I bought a pound of one of their many delicious handmade blends to take back to LA. Oh, and don’t ride on the rails. Dangerous!
San Francisco is a great city; You can get around without a car, people are interesting, Mexican food is amazing, and so on and so on. And now my girlfriend and best friends live here! What more could a guy ask for?
I’ll add pictures after I upload them.
Graduate orientation was yesterday…FINALLY. I must say, after two months of hyper-vacation, I feel about as artistic as a hot bowl of soup. I’m pretty exciting to start class tomorrow, and yet, I do feel predictably anxious. I’m not really worried about forming relationships or being a good student… I suppose i’m just feeling anxious about discovering what i’m all about; or perhaps about filling the role of how I used to view graduate students as an undergrad: all knowing and wise…constantly motivated. The shroud is falling!
Excited about: Experimenting, taking risks, 24-hour access to everything, our department’s private research library, cheap student software deals, having studio space again (albeit, limited), making friends and playing nice.
Not excited about: Bros on Strathmore inviting me to frat parties because they think i’m a freshman, saying goodbye to healthy eating and sleeping schedule, having to cunningly balance school with non-school relationships, Internet Explorer butchering my CSS, my bike is broken and the shop is so far away.
That’s right folks, mkontopoulos.com is the new michaelkontopoulos.com
In the process of switching hosting services, I lost my old domain name! The silly thing is, it wasn’t bought by an individual, but instead, it looks like there are companies out there that buy recently expired domain names and sell them back for outrageous amounts. Long story short: I had to pick a new domain name. I suppose it’s not that big of a loss, aside from the hassle of having to report the change to everybody who is linked to me, etc. . .
My new website is very close to being finished! I am aiming to have it uploaded by tonight, and then I can finally go outside again. You would have found out eventually; really, I just wanted to show off the funny hipster picture.
