The recent commercial release of We Live In Public, a documentary film by Ondi Timoner (which won a Grand Prize at Sundance in January and also screened in April at New Directors/New Films at MoMA), has focused attention on Josh Harris, the erstwhile dot.com millionaire who presided over Jupiter Communications and Pseudo TV, and who funded various downtown New York arts projects in the late 90s and early noughties, culminating (at least for me) with QUIET: We Live in Public.

QUIET was a heady but deranged bit of social sculpture, enlisting 150 artist/participants to live communally in a bunker housed on three floors of a loft building at 353 Broadway at the end of 1999. It envisioned a Brave New World of surveillance, control and loss of privacy, both predicted and facilitated by the Internet. Harris imagined that these long standing dystopian issues would be given technological feasibility through an interlocking network of computers and webcams. It would re-invigorate the pan- in Panopticon.

Is Using A Minotaur To Gore Detainees A Form Of Torture?

Honduran resistance goes it alone

While Iran gets network focus-it should-but we should not forget what is happening in Honduras:

60 days of anti-coup protests show persistence in civil disobedience and little faith in int'l community

Stefan Eins, foreground, saw a striking similarity between a shadow, center of background, on a facade of Lenox Hill Hospital, and his own profile.

From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/arts/27urbanart.html

Scenes from Harlem sidewalks: a nasty splotch of green paint, or a clenched-fist image of defiance; a blue blob, or a spot-on profile of President Bill Clinton. As Stefan Eins would ask, coincidence or not coincidence?

Small surprise that Mr. Eins would find order among random lines and spots. In the late 1970s, he found art among the chaos of the South Bronx as the founder of Fashion Moda, a legendary gallery that brought together downtown hipsters and uptown hip-hoppers. But all along he has pursued his own art, teasing meaning from otherwise-random lines, spots and cracks that most New Yorkers pass without noticing.

The annual WKCR Lester Young & Charlie Parker Birthday Broadcast starts today. Three days of nonstop Bird and Prez, based on the cosmic conjunction of their birthdays: August 27 and 29. Check it out in New York at 89.9 FM or online: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/

This year, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lester Young, it takes on a special significance.

James Kalm visits some of the artsy sites on West 11th Street before dropping in spontaneously on Rick Prol. Prol has been a controversial long time presence on the New York painting scene. Coming to prominence during the ascension of the East Village, he maintained a studio/gallery on East 6th Street a stones throw from the original Pat Hearn Gallery for decades. In his involvements he’s seen the tragic culmination of the EV community close up and personal, having worked with Jean-Michel Basquiat Despite the challenges, he’s maintained his artistic practice, as well a serious commitment to music and poetry.

You Don't Know Me!
Gigantic/Opium/Bomb Benefit Bash
Wednesday, Aug. 26th
Bowery Electric
327 Bowery (at 2nd St.)
7pm - 12am

An End-of-Summer Benefit Party presented by Gigantic, Opium and BOMB Magazines, hosted by Bowery Electric

BOMB Magazine http://www.bombsite.com/
Opium Magazine http://www.opiummagazine.com/
Gigantic Magazine http://giganticmag.wordpress.com/

After 42 years of living in the New York Art World, and 9 years working in it, I have decided that it's time to put up a shingle. I'm opening a new art project space in Williamsburg under the name PLAYSPACE. It's located at 38-C Marcy Avenue, entrance on Hope Street, three short blocks and around a corner from the L train at Lorimer Street.