I had a nice interview with Lenni a couple weeks ago, and it went to print just before my Tranquility opening.  You can read the article here.

Artist uses rocks, spaceships as interactive devices from ASU News on Vimeo.

Graduate student Matthew Mosher in ASU’s School of Art is an explorer of human connections through objects. He creates tools to help people interact across space, capture memories in objects, and redefine the way people see the world. In an age defined by social connection he brings a new perspective to our view of interaction. Filmed by Nick Prete and Jeanne Schaser. Edited by Chakris Kussalanant for ASU News.

So… Umm… Like…  *headsmack*

Humans vs Cyborgs is a participatory art game that references the contemporary themes of intervention and the everyday. For one night only as part of the ASU School of Art Live Art Platform, YOU can fight for humanity by playing Humans vs Cyborgs.

Here are the rules:
On Wednesday, April 27th at 7 pm, we will be gathering at the Cornerstone building to begin the resistance. Come early, come prepared. You will probably want to wear comfortable clothing and shoes. You will be provided with a headband that identifies your position as a human. We have intelligence that at least one cyborg will be waiting in our midst. Once that cyborg touches someone, the resistance will begin. Expect the following:

1 – If you are touched (tagged) by a cyborg, you will have been infected by the virus. You will have to flip your headband to indicate that you have become a cyborg. There will be inspectors making sure that you maintain the proper identification.

2 – If you have become a cyborg, you will be compelled to turn more humans into cyborgs. Touch as many as you can to spread the virus.

3 – Humans are not powerless in this exchange. Do not listen to what they say. If three humans encircle a cyborg, they can inoculate the cyborg and it will be turned back into a human. The newly recreated human will then flip the headband back to the human side.

4 – There are boundaries to the field. Inspectors will be enforcing those boundaries. Humans who violate the boundary will be required to remain motionless, meaning vulnerable, within the boundaries and count out loud to ten. Cyborgs who violate the boundaries will be required to remain motionless outside the boundaries and also count out loud to ten. In either case, after counting to ten, boundary violators will be allowed return to the defense and aid of their comrades.

5 – Some humans will be provided with a circuit disrupting orb that will temporarily freeze the operation of a cyborg. If a human throws the orb at a cyborg and makes contact, the machine will be disabled until it counts to ten. Humans can reuse these orbs as much as necessary.

6 – The resistance has a finite period of time to succeed. After one hour, the numbers of humans and cyborgs will be counted by the inspectors and a victor will be declared.

You can read more about the event and our theories behind it on the game blog.  You can even join the event on FaceBook.

Matthew Mosher, a grad student in the ASU School of Art Intermedia program recently completed the interactive story telling composition, If These Walls Could Speak, which is showing at the Madcap Theater on Mill Ave in Tempe, Monday, 9 May 2011 from 4:00PM to 6:00PM. The wooden box, made of red oak and fitted with an audio recording device holds numerous rocks on the left each with a RFID tag that activates the stone reader on the right. When a fresh stone is placed in the reader it asks the viewer to tell of a memory  relating to a wall, which it records into the stone.  If a stone is placed in the reader that already has a memory associated with it, the device simply plays back that memory for the viewer to hear.

Nathan Cummings Graduate Travel Award Exhibition
Harry Wood Gallery, 900 S Forest Ave, Tempe, AZ 85281
Monday, 11 April 2011 – Thursday, 14 April 2011, 9:00AM – 5:00PM

Each day I will be doing a unique participatory performance about mindfulness, art, and society. You are welcome to come and sit with me. Monday we will be painting, Tuesday I am serving tea, Wednesday is a reading day, and Thursday is just for sitting. A full schedule is available on the calendar.

ARTWORK STATEMENT:

Thank you for sitting with me takes the form of a four-day performance piece in the Harry Wood Gallery for the Nathan Cummings Travel Award Exhibition.  On each day of the performance visitors will be able to interact with me one at a time by sitting on a stool across a table from me and participating in whatever activity I am doing that day.  The surface of the table is not wood, but a thick block of watercolor paper.  At the end of each day the top sheet of paper will be cut off and hung on the wall showing a record of the actions that took place at the table that day.  These sheets of paper will replace daily schedules also hung on the wall that will inform visitors what activities they can expect to do on each day of the exhibition.

TRAVEL STATEMENT:

My work revolves around quiet contemplation and a desire to facilitate communication between people in an effort to strengthen interpersonal relationships.  While I am interested in verbal communication, I am equally interested in non-verbal communication, like text, touch, and body language, and how this communication can be achieved over distances near and far.  In Thank you for sitting with me my voice will fade from verbal to nonverbal, and the participatory performances will evolve from consumptive to reflective.  For my thesis work I am thinking about making relational objects, like the table here, which engage with the audience and allow for an embodied experience.

The scheduled performances utilize techniques for focusing the mind and heightening awareness.  After undergrad, I studied Buddhist Meditation the Tushita Meditation Center in India.  I went into the ten-day silent course thinking I would have all these great enlightening realizations, but I didn’t.  What I did find was that realizations were not the goal; just sitting was enough.

This piece references the sitting performance work of Marina Abromovic.  It also brings in more relational aesthetic concerns, championed by Nicholas Bourriaud, as typically seen in the work of Rirkrit Tiravanija where he serves food to create a convivial atmosphere.  I, however, will be practicing awareness meditation while simultaneously trying to engage participants in the gallery.  Participatory artwork is important to me as I agree with Duchamp when he said that, “art is the gap between a piece and the viewer,” and I think participation activates that gap. As a shy person, mindfulness training in letting go of myself around others would allow me to focus more on how to best engage people.  The book, The Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art, also relates meditation practice to strengthening visual arts as both are can be seen as life long practices, both strive for moments of realization in our everyday lives, and both rely on the interdependency of existence, be it to create meaning in an artwork or to see that there is no independent self in meditation.

With funds from the Nathan Cummings Travel Award I could fly to Thailand, enroll in a two-week meditation retreat, and visit The Land.  The compassionate understanding Vipassana retreat offered at Wat Kow Tahm is taught in English and would help me release ideas of selfhood in a supportive environment.  Thailand has been a Theravada Buddhist country for over 2000 years, so I am interested to see the art practices of a culture steeped in mindfulness and learn from their masters.  While in Thailand, I would also volunteer at The Land, a sustainable farming and meditation community established by Rirkrit Tiravanija, where my skills as a fabricator could be put to good use.

Traveling through Thailand would give me a unique opportunity to experience Thai Theravada Buddhism and the work of my role model, Tiravanija.  The meditation and interaction practice achieved there would enhance my ability to create engaging relational objects in the future and for my thesis work.

UPDATE:  Photos from first two days

UPDATE:  Photos from the last two days

FINAL UPDATE:  I didn’t win.

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM

Tempe, AZ

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

October 8, 2010 – January 29, 2011

FREE CLOSING EVENT & WALKING TOUR

Saturday, January 29

Performances – 1-3pm

Walking tour – 3-5pm

Closing Event Performances

Peter Bugg in collaboration with Ryan Peter Miller: Target Audience

Adam Murray: Resonance

Curator Lead Walking Tour

Join Open for Business artists and ASU Art Museum curator John Spiak

on a stroll through downtown Tempe and experience the artist projects

at participating businesses.

Map

A map for the Open for Business project is available at the ASU Art Museum

and online at the following address:

http://asuartmuseum.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/this-is-your-map-3/

Follow Open for Business with upcoming profiles featuring each project

on the ASU Art Museum blog:

http://asuartmuseum.wordpress.com/

Arizona State University Art Museum & Downtown Tempe Businesses

Curator: John D. Spiak

Open for Business calls attention to the importance of local artists, businesses

and organizations.  Simultaneously taking place in downtown Tempe businesses

and an interrelated exhibition at the ASU Art Museum, this project features the

work of sixteen Valley artists who address the purpose of each business, providing

opportunities for audience members to interact with the physical space of each

location and to discover, or rediscover, new aspects of their own community.

BUSINESSES

Individuals will be guided by maps available at the ASU Art Museum to art

installations at downtown Tempe business including La Bocca, Rula Bula,

Caffé Boa, The Shoe Mill, Brand X Custom T-Shirts, Monti’s La Casa Vieja,

Mood Swings Salon, Fascinations, Cartel Coffee Lab, Buffalo Exchange,

The Bicycle Cellar, The Headquarters, and Downtown Tempe Community, Inc.

(Public Parking Structures)

ARTISTS

The list of Valley artists participating in the exhibition include both internationally

established and rising stars of our community, including Peter Bugg in collaboration

with Ryan Peter Miller, Cyndi Coon, Wendy Furman, Jon Haddock, Saskia Jorda,

Tania Katan, Mary Lucking, Matthew Mosher, Adam Murray, Marco Rosichelli,

Erin V. Sotak, David Tinapple, Chris Todd, Jen Urso, Nic Wiesinger, and

Whitney Zamá

STRATEGIC PARTNERS AND SUPPORT

To insure the success and outreach of the project, the ASU Art Museum has

partnered with Tempe Chamber of Commerce, Tempe Convention and Visitors Bureau,

Downtown Tempe Community (DTC), Local First Arizona, Valley Forward Association,

Creative Connect, Comerica Bank (Tempe, Mill), *Scottsdale Public Art, and

Volunteer Legal Assistance for Artists (VLAA).

This project is generously supported by a grant from the Tempe Municipal Arts

Commission, ASU Art Museum Advisory Board, and the Wilhelmine Prinzen

Endowed Fund for Emerging Artists.

In-kind support provided by Phoenix NewTimes, Ben Franklin Press, Inc.,

Melissa McGurgan Design, and Mannington Commercial.

*Scottsdale Public Art is organizing the store front project IN FLUX in Downtown

Scottsdale that will occur during the same time period.  Through this collaboration,

both institutions will combine efforts to create cross-over audience and awareness.

A map showing all participating locations will be available at locations in Tempe,

Scottsdale,  ASU Art Museum and online at:

http://asuartmuseum.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/this-is-your-map-3/

Arizona State University Art Museum is a community incubator re-thinking the

museum through sustainability, diversity of knowledge and shared human experience

– recognizing we are more similar than different.

Just up today, description of my weTouch piece on the ASU Art Museum blog.