Read Closely

Gay Shame spreads the real news. Free on your local San Francisco utility pole. Now that's public education.

Best,

Claire

Gay Shame Nails It Every Time

Want to know the news? Read the posters.

The "sharing economy" is exploding

From: "Robert Reich via MoveOn.org Civic Action" <moveon-help@list.moveon.org>
Date: November 28, 2015 at 10:43:52 AM PST
Subject: The "sharing economy" is exploding

Dear fellow MoveOn member,

The "sharing economy," also known as the "gig economy," the "on-demand economy," or the "uncertain economy," is exploding—think Uber and Airbnb—but few people are talking about what it'll mean for the social safety net built in this country over the past century. In five years, this new economic trend will encompass 40 percent of American workers.¹

That's why it's important that we take action now to figure out how to provide critical labor protections, even as our economy undergoes massive changes.

Can you make sure your family and friends are talking about what's needed in the "sharing economy" by watching and sharing my latest video with MoveOn?

We have to help make sure the changing economy works for workers by preventing the elimination of worker protections such as unemployment insurance, health insurance, worker safety, family and medical leave, and more.

Help jump-start this national conversation by watching and sharing this video now.

Thanks for all you do.

–Robert Reich

Source:

1. "The secret number to the sharing economy," TNW News, June 25, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=308312&id=135818-3309980-Du1oUFx&t=3

Want to support our work? MoveOn member contributions have powered our work together for more than 17 years. Hundreds of thousands of people chip in each year—which is why we're able to be fiercely independent, answering to no individual, corporation, politician, or political party. You can become a monthly donor by clicking here, or chip in a one-time gift here.

---

This email was sent to Claire Bain on November 28, 2015. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. To remove yourself from this list, click here.

I'll cut your hair

Relative Performance Saturday November 28, 4-8 PM

What is Neoliberalism?

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376

The Fire This Time

Tonight at 6:30 Noe Library we are showing 16mm films about Rufino Tamayo and James Baldwin. Free ! 451 Jersey Street (near 24th/Castro)

Coco Chanel the Gender Fender Bender - Aug 17, 2015

Lisa Chaney's Texture of the Present - Aug 17, 2015

Interesting thoughts from "Coco Chanel" by Lisa Chaney

Power vs Influence

 From Coco Chanel | An Intimate Life by Lisa Chaney 

ATA window installation September 2015

http://atasite.org

Title: "Where We Leave Off"

Statement/Description: "Where We Leave Off" is a month-long performative installation in ATA's window gallery September 1-30, 2015. Comprised of several kinetic sculptural systems that generate sound and shadow, and which are motion-activated by viewers, this piece will develop over the course of the month. I will be present at times, to perform/work, and to interact and facilitate viewer interaction with the piece. This interaction and its products will be documented. [That documentation and related media and performance will be presented at the reception + screening, date TBA]]

I create these sculptural systems based on the potential I see in their original elements. Many of them originate as decorative household items such as fountains or clocks that have been embellished with motorized illuminated scenery. I take them apart and then assemble them with lights, piezoelectric microphones, speakers, and plaster/cement parts which I've made. Ideas are generated by the sonic, rhythmic, kinetic, visual, and light-related qualities of the materials. While I do not build these sculptural systems with any narrative in mind, they usually remind me of social groups. Other people may not see this, and that's fine. For me they are like models of social systems having one main entity whose core power manifests as movement that impacts others, either directly or indirectly. Previous viewers have shown interest and delight in the sensory qualities of these systems, sometimes finding metaphor, drama, or music in them. I look forward to the reactions at 992 Valencia Street.

See also: 

http://spi-group.blogspot.com/2015/01/current.html?m=1

http://www.atasite.org/2014/12/showing-up-almost-publicsemi-exposed-in-atas-window/

Month of September in Artists' Television Access Window

Mobile Justice CA - Take the ACLU on the go, for free.

https://www.mobilejusticeca.org/

Fwd: 5/4/2015 - Next To You: Canyon Cinema Salon with Claire Bain

Best,

Claire

Begin forwarded message:

From: Canyon Cinema Foundation <info@canyoncinema.com>
Date: April 29, 2015 at 10:50:54 AM PDT
To: <artistabain@yahoo.com>
Subject: 5/4/2015 - Next To You: Canyon Cinema Salon with Claire Bain
Reply-To: Canyon Cinema Foundation <info@canyoncinema.com>

Canyon Cinema Salon - ft. Claire Bain (Monday, May 4th) View this email in your browser Next To You Canyon Cinema Salon with Claire Bain featuring Babeth/Warhol/Kuchar/Child's Mayhem/Smith's Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (By Kelly Gabron) Please join Canyon Cinema on the evening of May 4th, 2015 at New Nothing Cinema for the next installment of our Spring 2015 Salon series. This month, artist and filmmaker Claire Bain will present a selection of 16mm films from Canyon's collection that function within systems of identity, representation, persona, and power. The Canyon Cinema Salon Series is a FREE event hosted at New Nothing Cinema (located at 16 Sherman St, off Folsom between 6th and 7th in SOMA). 7:00pm- Reception 7:30pm* – Screening and discussion. *Note: Street entrance locked at 7:30 – please arrive on time. Program Notes by Claire Bain: "…But if there is no space between consciousness and the world for self-representation, precisely how can one 'put on an act'? How can simulation be possible without a void between consciousness and an imaginary? Accepting this most 'melancholy' of all possible worlds, we find nonetheless that some Others are still more incommensurable than others." – Keith Sanborn, Modern all too modern "Chronicles of a Lying Spirit (by Kelly Gabron)… bitingly undermines the contemporary notion of a unified, authoritative 'history' as commonly represented in film narratives…" – San Francisco Cinematheque, Consciousness Cinema/Contested Personas "…But somehow the way the ending robs the earlier inky images of their power leaves a real openness…"     – Monica Raymond, letter to Abigail Child about Mayhem "I don't know where the artificial stops and the real starts."– Andy Warhol Next To You – a Canyon Cinema Salon with Claire Bain The 16mm film is an invention without a future. I can't help but feel that current cultural and political context supersedes all else that I would want to say about these films. They were made 40, 30, 20 years ago, by persons from Amsterdam, New York City, and Los Angeles. All intersected San Francisco for a time, and moved on, but the films remained. To walk into Canyon Cinema now is to step into a silvery memory of the old place on 3rd Street, a very similar setup. You pass through the long serene concrete hallways and open the door right into the archive. The walls are lined with the Objects themselves; there is no reception desk, no index, no mediation to greet you. The films can be seen on the shelves, one could open the cans, hold the strips of "little pictures" up to the light. To experience them in their function as moving images with intended sound, you can sit in a small room with the projector, you can glance at it and see the film on the reel, hear the sprockets being pulled through… Celluloid film has become more of an art object than media, because of the current culture of viewing. More museums have film projectors, less cinema venues do. Most middle class people watch moving images on demand, either on cable tv or the Internet, or a melding of the two. *          *          *          * Roland Barthes, in Camera Lucida, speaks of the overall image in a photograph as the studium, and the bit that punctures the field of prescribed meaning as the punctum. All of this evening's films function as inversion of those parameters: they have taken the representational function of various forms of cinema and reshaped it into visually compelling, sometimes funny, incisive social and visual critiques, and they are, each one of them, a big punctum obliterating the studium around us that is our mass culture… The program: Claire Bain is an artist working in analog and digital mediums. Usually her foundations in film art are elemental in her work. Tonight she presents three films from Canyon's collection that resonate with her interest in representation and persona. All three films are masterful in form, each uses character in a unique way, yet all three implement generalization to point up the distancing that people experience as a result of identity/power systems based in social capital, gender, and/or race. – Ms. Bain will discuss her current work in progress. – Two of Bain's early 16mm films, ITSME and Found Out, will be presented among three seminal works from the collection: Andy Warhol's Unfinished Symphony (1975) by Babeth Mayhem (1987) by Abigail Child Chronicles of a Lying Spirit by Kelly Gabron (1992) by Cauleen Smith. *All descriptions written by Claire Bain. For alternate descriptions of these films, please see their respective pages, accessible via hyperlinks Andy Warhol's Unfinished Symphony (1975) | Babeth | 26 minutes | B&W | Sound Featuring George Kuchar, stunningly gorgeous and demonstrating formidable acting – just another one of his many talents. Babeth used Andy Warhol's words in her script; he is blithely played by Hank Pitcher. Filmed in the Walter/McBean Gallery at the San Francisco Art Institute, this drama questions the disconnection between people, a reflection on the 1970s' cold trajectory away from the loving revolution of the 1960s. This film is rich in visual texture that masterfully supports a choreography of melodramatized yearning and desire. But just below the surface is a true concern for human connection. Mayhem (1987) | Abigail Child | 20 minutes | B&W | Sound Made a decade after Andy Warhol's Unfinished Symphony, this is perhaps another side of the same coin. A New York film, the energy and pace is ramped up. Gender, desire, control, and violence are polarized into stronger contrasting black and white; the visual motifs of stripe and pattern produce a highly stylized tableau. Masterfully edited with the finesse of a virtuoso poet, this composition of imagery styled on Film Noir, …"soap opera thrillers, and Mexican comic books…" (-Abigail Child) works with a sound track that keeps you on your toes. The film is extremely concentrated, its density approaching the gravitational pull of a black hole. Really, what's going on is that generations of struggle ("…Sexuality evoked as a line against which the body can move…" -Abigail Child,  A Motive for Mayhem) are played out in this 20 minutes, with an emphasis on the slippage at the time — the 20th century was winding down and things weren't looking any better: Is this what you were born for? Prophetic, cautionary, sensual, scary all at once, Mayhem demands a lot, but it's worth the effort to take it in. Chronicles of a Lying Spirit by Kelly Gabron | Cauleen Smith | 1992 | 13 minutes | Color | Sound I've always wondered about this film, reading with interest its description in the Canyon catalog: an alter-ego, a scrapbook, hmm. Finally seeing it was a surprise and a challenge. Dense and sharp; like Abigail Child's films in that you need to try and look at every frame, and really listen…there are a lot of layers, visual, textual, sonic. It could be a very San Francisco film: a mention of gentrification/takeover (see also: Flag Wars by Linda Goode Bryant and Laura Poitras), and it was made here. Here the narrative and voices are at odds, think "voice" as in writing and you'll have your work cut out for you.  All of this meaning, this universal history that the protagonist lays on herself like a 2-way membrane of reclaimed vs reductive history…Twenty years later, White Guilt has unraveled, and mobile media has imploded, exposing the horrors that those privileged enough to feel guilty had no clue about, the extent to which Black lives are still shattered. And as for the narrator saying she'll put her own damn videos on TV: now there are Shonda Rhimes's popular TV dramas-but does it help Black women to be depicted as the president's Side Chick (in Scandal)? And will The Wire, called Quality TV, do anything better than assuage vestiges of guilt by paving them over with contempt? These films demonstrate that dis/connection to one another via race, gender, sexuality, and/or desire is intrinsic to all human experience, and impacts the wholeness of being human. These matters are bound up in the overall existence of people, and they are not separated out in these films, but presented in balance. This provides a super powerful textual politic of humanity that is completely free of rhetoric. All three filmmakers use mastery of specific visual composition and sound to lay out the human imperative in ways only possible through the considered use of cinema. Also included in the program will be two of Claire Bain's short 16mm films from the collection: ITSME | Claire Bain | 1986 | 2 minutes | Color | Silent Super8 film optically enlarged to 16mm. My first in-depth film project, made while studying traditional filmmaking at City College of San Francisco. My work was a little bit weird in that context, the speed and silence not understood, except by the great teacher Phil Green, my first film teacher, who knew the possibilities of the medium. It silently speaks to media representation, objectification, infantilization by juxtaposing images based on content and movement. Found Out | Claire Bain | 1986 | 2 minutes | Color | Sound A compilation of bits of image and sound gleaned from editing bins at the San Francisco Art Institute, and discards from my City College days. I put it all together as a comment on sync-sound film, with undertones of gender wonder–look closely… About the Artist: Originally from New Mexico, Claire Bain now lives and works in San Francisco. She studied filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute; her art practice incorporates writing, painting, sculpture, and digital media into work that investigates systems-power-identity. She has served on the board of Canyon Cinema, guest curates and helps with Social Media at Artists' Television Access (ATA). She works part time at the San Francisco Public Library, where she has initiated a partnership with ATA to present a series of 16mm films from the library archives. Her films and videos have been shown in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City; her performances and installations have been presented locally, and she has painted several murals in San Francisco. see: http://personbain-index.blogspot.com This is from her original bio, now (in 2015) over 20 years old. It still applies: My film work has informed my painting and photography, and vice versa. I have two approaches to film/video. One is more formal, primarily concerned with light, composition, emulsion and rhythm; meaning reveals itself gradually or indirectly. The other approach is a direct communication of thoughts, observations and questions through the use of characters. Occasionally both approaches are used, and with the latter, more narrative, approach a bit of the former always creeps in to cause a tiny (or not so tiny) rupture. I grapple with the media indoctrination we in this society have had; it disgusts and fascinates me at the same time. That is why I imitate it, and the culture it represents. In doing this I'm also trying to find where I fit in. With my formal, "experimental" work I find the answer in a similar way to the way I sense my belonging when I commune with nature. That work is ultimately the most important to me; I need to do it and to experience the work of other film artists. It is a most direct and unique form of communication. Copyright © 2015 Canyon Cinema, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 1777 Yosemite Ave Suite #210 San Francisco, CA 94124 unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences

This email was sent to artistabain@yahoo.com why did I get this?    unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences Canyon Cinema Foundation · 1777 Yosemite Ave · Suite 210 · San Francisco, CA 94124 · USA

Please join me on Monday May 4, Canyon Cinema Salon

http://canyoncinema.com/about/canyon-cinema-salon/next-to-you-a-program-of-films-selected-by-claire-bain-canyon-cinema-salon-5415/

About Joe Gibbons

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/rhode-island-man-robs-manhattan-bank-video-camera-article-1.2072890

Word on the street is Out: NSA & RSA Have a Back Door Plan - -

Queer street art/stencil packs a heavy message. It's a good way to get news. I saw this, googled "nsa rsa back door" and came up with this Reuters article. Spread the word, it's time to read.

Security industry pioneer RSA adopted not just one but two encryption tools developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, greatly increasing the spy agency's ability to eavesdrop on some Internet communications, according to a team of academic researchers.

Seen on a San Francisco sidewalk in the Castro District.

Blooming Babel

family dynamics, a social contract, and the workings of identity and power within that family system + greater social systems.

Blooming Babel

Recall Kim Gordon's quote about people paying to watch others who believe in themselves.

Sierra's mom's belief in herself is either false or incomplete.

A woman is important. How important, she does not know. She has a sense of her role in life, and to her that imparts a necessity for her being. But that is not what is truly, actually important about her, that’s not why she is important to the world and universe.

This woman is Sierra’s mom. That is how she is known to people around her, which is why she thinks that her role as mother is what makes her count in the world. And now Sierra has a baby, so Sierra’s mom is even more important because she is a Grandmother. Grandmother is a role in life that feels like a gift to many, because they get to enjoy the grandchildren without the day-to-day drudgery of cleaning, feeding, and raising them. Sierra’s mom enjoys playing with the baby, and proudly strolls through public places with the tiny bundle of joy. Even when her son-in-law Joby comes along. Though he is, well, different in certain ways, he is still very good with the baby. Maybe even better than Sierra is, but it’s hard for Sierra’s mom to admit this, even to herself.

Sierra’s mom finds herself reading more and more about child rearing. She knows this is not necessary because her child/ren are/is adults now. There is a shadow of discomfort that grows a tiny bit each time she is with her daughter and grandchild. Sierra’s mom does not want to admit to herself (yet) that the discomfort is caused by Sierra’s inability to connect with the child. Much deeper and farther along the road to realization in Sierra’s mom’s mind is the truth that she has raised a child who is utterly disrespectful. Still further along the road is waiting the truth that she raised Sierra this way because she was taught, erroneously, that her own importance in the world was based on motherhood.

This definition of herself provided decreasingly easy solutions to feelings of discontent, restlessness, and even indecision throughout Sierra’s mom’s adult life. Anytime there was a stirring in her that she couldn’t immediately identify, she could supplant it with a rote responsibility that relieved her of making any type of reflective decision. She would simply do whatever prescribed task related to housekeeping, childcare, or husband-centered obligation.

About this project:                                                  See the full project blog here

Blooming Babel is a book (and blog) inspired by French romans-photos and Mexican and Italian fotonovelas (photo novels), and by a New Yorker article that extols the benefits of talking to very young children.

Blooming Babel tells the story of a set of family interactions. Using texts, photographs, and other graphics, it looks at the power and identity systems within the family, and in the greater social context. But the project is also a tool to critically take apart ("unpack" & "deconstruct") social bias and hegemony underlying media.

The plot is this: A woman known as "Sierra's mom," learns that children develop more language skills and higher IQs if their parents engaged them in conversation (even if unidirectional when the kids are pre-verbal) from the time they were born (there is really data that indicates this--but how good is that data?).The woman's adult daughter, Sierra, has a baby, and Sierra's mom worries that Sierra may not be talking to the baby enough. Sierra's mom is hesitant to approach Sierra bout this because Sierra is very defensive about her parenting skills, especially when her mother tries to help. However, Sierra's mother feels that Sierra's husband, Joby is more approachable and hopes to get him on board with talking to the baby, even though he has an accent. What kind of accent will not be indicated.

A subplot is that Sierra is very interested in fashion modeling, to a degree that Sierra'sw mom finds worrisome. Related to this, Joby gets upset with Sierra because she spends $80 on real gold leaf to put on her fingernails because she saw it in a French fashion magazine (this actually was in a magazine--don't know if it's real gold leaf or not). In that same French magazine are images of a model who resembles my colleague, Stacey. I'd like to merge this imagery into the plot and plan to style Stacey/Sierra so that she looks even more like this model. Ryan will appear mostly looking like his usual self.

These ideas come from actual media that I have seen/read. I'm not sure why I chose the photo novel format. I think it may intersect all the other forms I use: film, digital & social media, handmade books: all are sequential and include imagery. One inspiration was a wall in Marseilles where someone had pasted pages from a French photo novel. I like that the Wikipedia article below points out that photo novels are an effective way to distribute information, and also to make the essence of movies available to a wider audience. Interestingly, I saw an old Spark episode on public tv which featured the artist Sandow Birk. He said that the way to reach more people with his art is to make a book. Go figure, they say the book is disappearing, and I keep finding ways that books are continuing to be important means of information distribution. Class- based. Not everyone has a computer, no they really don't! Not everyone is middle class, wow! And yet, this piece of art will only be seen by a small segment of the middle class. Oh, well, I am what I is.

 

Cast:

Sierra - Stacey Rivet

Sierra's mom - me
Joby - Ryan Schnirel
Joby's mom, Valencia - Sue Fandel

Joby's dad - Alfred Hernandez

other characters to be determined, and may include and Sierra's dad.

Crew:
Claire Bain - Writer, Director, Props, Camera, Editor, etc.

Sam Russell- Consulting Stylist

Settings:

Westfield Mall, Macy's Small Scale Furniture Section, Art Explosion Studios

Other settings are likely, some decorated them with the actors' artwork: all four of us are artists.

Information sources:

"The Talking Cure" The New Yorker magazine, January 12, 2015

Current public service announcements about talking to your kids.

"Femme actuelle (Modern woman)" magazine, December 9, 2014 - January 4, 2015 and January 5-11, 2015
Wikipedia
The New Yorker Magazine's biased article

Other inspiration:

A recipe in a sort of high-end magazine for risotto with a sheet of gold leaf on top. Now you, too, can feel rich enough to eat gold and shit it out...of course, nobody that rich cooks for themselves, but the readers of this one can feel oh so ostentatious.

Ryan and The Baby

Sam Russell style magic

Sue Fandel Rocks the Role as classy grandma...

Shopping with the young parents:

Sierra: Ohh! I need to have this

Joby: I don't think we can afford that.

Sierra: It's definitely an essential for the home.    Joby is shaking his head.

Joby: I don't think it's a good investment, I don't, I truly don't. No.

What'l my friends think if I don't have anything?

Current Pieces

These sculptural systems either grow from walls or are built free-standing. They are from re-purposed motors, plaster, and other materials chosen for their sound, visual, or other physical properties such as weight and texture. While I don't necessarily set out to have them symbolize anything in particular, they often evoke social systems. They have qualities that oscillate between grotesque, hilarious, and beautiful, depending on the viewer's perspective.

System 3 Projection View

System 3 Apparatus View

See it in action! Click Here


System 3 Projection Installation

System 3 has elements of projected shadow, movement and sound. The sound can be amplified via both piezo contact (clips on and amplifies sound waves moving through solids) and regular microphones (pick up sound waves moving through air). The attached video shows it set up in my studio with dimensions of about 3ft wide by 3ft deep by 6ft high, but this would be adjusted to the window space. The shadow image is projected onto paper, and viewers can see the whole piece by stepping around include it in the videos, so the sound you hear is what the camera mic picked up.



                                                                     *****

System 2 Oblique View

System 2 Head On View

System 2

System 2 grows from the wall and has "hair," a "wall-thorn," and other elements that work together to produce sound, rhythm, shadow, and light.

Click here to see it in action!