Tag Archives: laserletters

Studio Visits @Eyebeam Oct 23 & 24 3-6PM

October 19, 2009

Date: Fri., October 23 + Sat., October 24, 2009 | 3–6PM
Location: Eyebeam, 540 W. 21st St., NYC
http://eyebeam.org/events/open-studios-fall-2009

Eyebeam is pleased to host Open Studios for its 2009 Senior Fellows, Resident Artists, and Student Residents at Eyebeam’s state-of-the-art design, research, and fabrication studio; showcasing video performance, wearable technologies, code and humor, party technology, and sustainablity design. This two-day presentation at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center will allow a rare, inside look at current research. Guided tours of artists’ work will be given every hour from 3–6PM.

I will be presenting recent laser cut sculptures and drawings: books laser cut with poignant words, and drawings made from industrial patterns. These explore transformations in technology and their relationships to evolutions (or devolutions) in economies. If that sounds like a bunch of vague artspeak, let me describe three examples: two display bookshelves with an ever growing collection of 130+ investment guide books all laser engraved with the logos of failed FDIC Insured banks, A shrink wrapped bundle of 12 Yellow Pages that have been cut all the way through with the phrase “GOOGLE” and a dictionary inscribed with the phrase “OMG LOL.”

Posted in Exhibitions | Also tagged Eyebeam, FDIC Insured, Open Studios |

Graham Parker interviews me after studio visit

October 8, 2009

Graham Parker stopped by for a studio visit, and we had a great conversation. The highlight was when he told me to “choose my words less carefully.” In the description he writes:

First in a series of studio and show visits with contemporary artists. I’ve known Michael for some years – probably since a friend directed me to his Shop Mandiberg project. He’s recently been a research fellow at Eyebeam and is having an open studio there soon – mostly showing off work he has been producing with a laser cutter. He invited a few people along to do some studio visits in advance of that and I happened to have my camera with me when I went along. He’d set up a lot of work in one of Eyebeam’s main display spaces, so the effect was much more like a solo show than a regular studio visit.I asked Michael to talk me through a few pieces on camera and he generously agreed to do so – despite having no time to process what we’d just been talking about in our visit. It’s mainly shot under existing lights with a few stills dropped in, so the footage is a little grainy in places, but it should give an idea of what he’s up to.

James Wagner on my new work

October 5, 2009

picture-19

James Wagner and Barry Hoggard came to see my installation last Monday. James has written up his impressions. James says:

Mandiberg goes where no laser cutter has ever gone before. Some of the work physically and dramatically distinguishes important newly-established contemporary technologies from their aging or defunct antecedents (many of which could once have been described as cutting edge themselves), The result is a visual dialogue charged with the passage of time and composed in the empty spaces we see “written” in and on various kinds of reference books.

One piece, a work in progress (surprisingly, lasers take their time), is titled “We have never had a year of peace”. When finished it will comprise the three volumes of the “Encyclopedia of the Third World”, lying on their spines next to each other, open at a random page in the middle where the artist has deeply burned the name and year of every war fought by this peace-loving republic since 1890.

Another body of work consists of a wall display of cast-off volumes describing how to make money. Mandiberg has “whittled” with a laser into their hard front covers to describe the logos of, according to the artist, “all of the failed banks of the Great Recession”.

Not directly related to the re-worked dictionaries, encyclopedias, phone directories, or investment monographs are some breathtaking laser-cut drawings of the security patterns ordinarily found printed inside those familiar small mailing envelopes used by banks and similar institutions.

More here (tx James!)

Posted in Press | Also tagged exhibition, Eyebeam, FDIC Insured, Press |

Security Patterns – A Studio Visit Installation

September 30, 2009

I just put up an installation of work at Eyebeam for Studio Visits. This is work I have been producing over the last 6 months. The work is primarily old found books cut with the laser cutter, as well as some laser cut drawings.

The central piece against the wall is “FDIC Insured” a collection of 130+ cast off investment books from the Strand dollar racks, engraved with the logos of all of the failed banks of the Great Recession.

Along the left side is a piece called “Before and After.” I wanted to call it “Before and After President Reagan Lost His Memory” but that seemed a little overdetermined. So I just write it here. It is books from an 1982 and 1992 World Book enscribed with things that were (Free Love, Analog, Prisoner of War) and things that are (HIV/AIDS, Digital, Enemy Combatant.)

Sprinkled throughout are altered reference books. I like taking Dictionaries and turning them into memorials. It is kind of like putting an ironic inscription on a tombstone…

Along the right side of the wall are laser cut drawings of security patterns from the inside of security envelopes.

Eyebeam is currently closed to the public, but if you would like to see this installation you have two options. Contact me (myfirstname@mylastname.com) to set up a time to meet, or come by the Eyebeam Open Studios, which will be October 23rd and 24th from 3-6PM.

Posted in A Partial List of Projects, photos | Also tagged drawing, exhibition, Eyebeam, FDIC Insured, Gallery, security patterns |

This Show is Closed: Install Shots

September 8, 2009

This show is closed… but I am just blogging install shots now. I did get the announcement out for the opening. Just not the follow through. Sometimes things slip through the cracks. Not sometimes… mosttimes.

“Summer Reading” at Jen Bekman Gallery.

Posted in photos | Also tagged exhibition, New York City |

New Work at Jen Bekman in Summer Reading

July 23, 2009

New laser cut work from the “Summer Reading” show at Jen Bekman gallery in NYC.

Yes, the cut goes all the way through all of the phonebooks.

Posted in Exhibitions | Also tagged exhibition |

Drawing Contemporaries documentation on Flickr

June 16, 2009

Photos from Drawing Contemporaries are up on Flickr. I have also posted full res versions, and a video here

Drawing Contemporaries, curated by Eyebeam senior fellow Michael Mandiberg, is an exhibition of work on paper made by a peer group of new media artists who all create drawings, both as a primary object and as an experimental process. The exhibition includes work from Darren Kraft, Steve Lambert & Julia Schwadron, Michael Mandiberg, Marisa Olson, and Lee Walton. For many of the artists, the use of computers and algorithms are the focus in their work. While a number of the artists are Eyebeam affiliated, all are contemporaries whose influences upon each other can be traced in this exhibition.

Darren Kraft uses powdered graphite to photorealistically reproduce icons and logos associated with consumer and political culture; Eyebeam senior fellow Steve Lambert and Julia Schwadron write personal and poetic messages of hope which they leave taped up in public places; Michael Mandiberg uses the laser cutter to etch and carve works on paper that incorporate text, history and design; Marisa Olson performs Google image searches for obsolete technologies, and traces their contours directly off her laptop screen with a mechanical pencil; and Lee Walton creates elaborate indexes of possible graphic marks which are algorithmically used to document events as they occur. His subjects range from from pedestrian traffic to sports games.

Drawing Contemporaries was on view through June 9, 2009