My dear friends at Kokoro Studio are celebrating the opening of Spir*akasha, their latest exhibition, tomorrow evening. Featuring work by The Crow and the Wolf, the installation will develop over the course of a month. So if you can’t make it to the opening, stop by later in March to see its progression. Otherwise, see you there tomorrow night — I hear there will be live musical performances too!

Spir*akasha at Kokoro Studio
Thursday, March 4
7-10 pm
682 Geary Street
San Francisco

There are works from some of the best known names of the era — El Lissitzky (see his Soviet poster, below), Malevich, Kamensky, even Lenin and Trotsky — though to my great delight, I learned of seemingly countless other groups and their often humorous counter groups:

The somewhat staid Ego-Futurists, mostly in the literary camp, were later superceded by the Imaginists who indulged in long, deeply metaphoric poetry; there were also the painterly Cubo-Futurists, who counted Malevich and Mayakovsky as primary leaders. Then there were the Acmeists, the Suprematists (Malevich at his finest), the Neo-Primitivists, the Rayonists, the Bicosmists, the Luminists, the Electroorganists, the Constructivists and the Productivists.

The funniest groups were the Eggists, who formed as a joke in a newspaper article; the Everythingists, who embraced all styles of expression; and the Nothingists, whose slogan was “Write nothing! Read nothing! Say nothing! Print nothing!”

But these groups seem disappointingly shallow when compared to artists like Iakov Chernikhov, who is worth mentioning here as one of the most imaginative minds in modern architecture — even if his perspective is missing from Baku. Though best known for the Flying City, his body of work (especially his collection of Architectural Fantasies) is well worth a peek.

One of the album’s highlights is About Two Squares – A Suprematist Story by El Lissitzky (1920-22), a children’s tale about a red square and a black square. They travel toward a red circle (Earth) and smash into each other, creating abstract forms on Earth.

It’s a futuristic narrative that combines experimental typography with the fun of reading aloud “colour-blocks of Word”… a synesthetic experience from one of the Russian greats! View the entire story here.

I met up with my favorite queen — decked in black, sporting a silver wolfhead fingertip and ready to impale new victims — and together we jiggled to Honey Soundsystem under video projections showing the soundsuits in action.

Later, we hit up Kontrol‘s fourth anniversary party just as the Wighnomy Brothers went on. Admist the sea of crappy music out there, the German techno duo still manages to produce some of the best dance music in the industry… Robag Wruhme, the group’s main musical genius, is a longtime favorite and I was most excited to see him live. His solo and extensive remix work are not to be missed.

Wighnomy Brothers at Sunset

On Sunday, I went to Treasure Island where the Wighnomy Brothers played a second set at the Sunset party. The two are so cute when they dance, like little techno bears! Robag ended the set by putting on Carmen McRae’s “I Left My Heart In San Francisco,” much to everyone’s delight. As we were leaving we paused to look out at downtown San Francisco, framed by the beautiful bay and its two iconic bridges, blissed by the late afternoon sun.

It’s official.

Obama has won the presidential election!!! It signals the end of an old, tired era of bigoted politics and the birth of a new one.

I can’t contain the infectious energy that is buzzing across the country… it’s a momentous night, one full of hope and incredible joy.

Snapped this photo at Folsom Street Fair last weekend. It’s San Francisco politics and humor in a nutshell (with a cute red heart to boot!). 

Ghost Orchid

After picking up coffee at Farley’s this morning, I went to Aquarius Records to browse through my favorite section of the store, Exotica/Novelty. That’s where I found The Ghost Orchid, a bizarre collection of paranormal voices and sounds recorded on magnetic tape. Curated by the world’s leading EVP researchers, these tracks are known today as examples of Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP), or the recorded voices of the otherworld.

Recordings from The Ghost Orchid range in both topic and length, from singing to multilingual responses in English, Latvian, German, or Russian. Often, the recordings are a scrambled combination of several different languages. They were captured in various methods: some came as mysterious appearances on home tape recordings; others were interruptions to public radio broadcasts; and many were direct, shockingly insightful responses to EVP researchers who engaged in dialogue with these so-called “voices”.

Superstitious folly? I couldn’t exactly tell by the cover art alone, but once I started listening to snippets, I became hooked and listened to the entire album. I heard conversations between EVP pioneers and the “voices,” who disclosed answers regarding specific individuals, events, life after death, and even their own origin.

Friedrich Jürgenson

Here’s one example: Friedrich Jürgenson, a painter/singer who enjoyed recording his own singing and that of wild birds, noted that strange noises and voices often appeared when he played the recordings back. After questioning the validity of these occurrences, he suddenly realized that they were no accident when he heard the voice of his (deceased) mother in one playback, saying: “Friedel, can you hear me, it’s mammy…”

Before I give too much away, I’ll stop here and let you pick up your own copy for review. It’s a trippy, unearthly experience which I wouldn’t want to spoil for the rest of you — especially those who are interested in field recordings and found sounds.

A great lineup is in store for Yuri’s Night at Nasa Ames. Of note on the audiovisual side is a psychedelic drawing interface installation by Joshua Ott, Ezekiel Honig, and Morgan Packard (see screenshot above).

Other artists like Jon Tejada, Lusine, Deru, and [a]pendics.shuffle will keep the tunes going alongside all of the technological wizardry that one can expect of a Bay area geek spectacle. See you there!

Yuri’s Night Bay Area website
Upcoming.org post

Now I step out of the house each morning toting an umbrella, darting rain puddles on my way to work. While it was adventurous in the first week, the lingering gray weather has sparked a renewed interest in beating the winter blues with cheery color. This weekend I headed to the flower market and found some lovely quince branches to take home; their pinkish blooms instantly brightened up my day:

I’m excited about this weekend’s Maker Faire at the San Mateo Fairgrounds! I’ll be there to help demonstrate scratch foam printmaking with Logos Graphics. We’ll be alongside other crafters in the Craft section of the Expo hall, sharing extended workbench space with the San Francisco Center for the Book. Stroll over to say heyo, and also try your own hand at this super easy, non-toxic intro to printmaking using soft foam and water-based inks. We’ll be selling printmking kits for you to try out at home too. It’ll be a great weekend for crafting, hacking, and DIY sweetness.