UPDATE: SCHOOL OF ATHENS SHOW EXPANDED

It keeps getting better and better! Our SCHOOL OF ATHENS collective is getting bigger, and we've decided to include some new members in our first show on May 2nd! Getting.Shit.Done.

Armageddon TV

I finally finished the first ever HALFWAY HEROES comic strip! "Further Tales" will be a series off online web comics that don't have any direct ties to the main stories my writing partner and I are developing but still have a basic sense of continuity and are certainly canonical. If you don't know about HWH, you should visit the sites for the project found to the right.



More to come soon!

The New Adventures of Danny Gonzalez & Thom Ulmer

I have a show on May 2nd! This is the flier I designed for it:



Please come out if you can and support us! It's both of ours first independent show and we're going to have some really awesome work up.

In The Land of Slumber

Statement:

With "In The Land of Slumber" I am aiming to manifest the realm of the domestic (or at least an area of it), sentimentally, as a landscape. The patterned bedsheets and pillow shams become mountainous ranges and doilies become their snow topped peaks. Tablecloths and other domestic fabrics become the rolling foothills, weaving rivers, and marshy grasslands and plains. The floral patterns of the fabric become literal representations of plant life. Faux flowers, objects meant to exist solely in the domestic environment, surround the island and become wild trees as tall as the eye can see. The colors are warm and alluring, the cloth billowy and soft; all meant to lure the viewer and invite them to get lost in this new world of the once familiar.

It seems that, for me, the conceptual aspects of a three dimensional piece are secondary to the material and the forms themselves, whereas it's certainly the other way around when I work in two dimensions. The paper/video/computer becomes a means to a greater end in two dimensions. I think that it's simply because you have to be completely conscious and aware of the materials and the reasoning behind using them when you create a three dimensional/sculptural work. You just can't place materials and media on the back burner, if anything they almost always take precedent over conceptuality. I guess all of this goes without saying, but it really does explain my reluctance to make 3-d work over 2-d work. I feel less in control of the work, not to say that I don't have any or that I have to be didactic to be content, but it does hinder me. But I also understand that I'm still rather naive/green with this area of art (more so than others). The relationship between materials and concept is one that I certainly want to continue to explore.

NEW PANTHERTRON SONG: Purplehearts

This is my latest song off of 'GOLDENBLACK', the first full length Panthertron LP that I've been working on for a while and hope to release early this summer. I stumbled across this sweet little descending chord progression and it immediately evoked that sort of wide-eyed saccharine sound of Hughe's-era 80s romanticism. I couldn't help but embrace it and I even laid down the requisite huge face melting wanktastic "guitar" solo. Cry, dance, enjoy :)

$5,787.03

Let's start with a bang:








Statement:

This is the start of a very ambitious participatory project entitled "One Second of War". The amount of '$5,787.03' represents the amount of money, approximately, going towards the funding of the "Global War on Terror" every single second. The changing fonts and colors for each consecutive image represent a new amount of money for each second. The images themselves are found images of war, and all that it encapsulates and affects: our own economic conditions, the lives of foreign citizens caught in the crossfire, the simulacrum or the 'spectacle' most US citizens don't just choose to escape into, but are conditioned to do so. These images will eventually be the basis for a website, where they will be animated to change every second. I will invite others to submit their own images with fonts and colors of their choosing. They will then be added to the larger body of work continually and often. And as I further add my own, the sheer amount of the art will further emphasize the preposterous sum of money going towards the atrocity that is this "Global War on Terror". In this regard, this project is never 'finished' or 'complete' as long as the "War" itself goes on.

This project is not simply an exploration in juxtaposition, though it certainly plays an important role in the conceptual aspects of the piece. This project aims to weave a thread of correlation through all of the different areas of life that are affected by the gluttonous spending, that happens and has been happening for every second for over 7 years, with no signs of deterring. I also hope that this raises awareness of how hard earned American tax dollars are spent and at such an alarming rate and that this incites action towards preventing the continuance of what is shaping up to be the defining moment in our generation's legacy. Whether it is a moment of apathy or one of action is yet to be concluded, but the question itself is one that myself and others must continue to ask.

I'm really excited about this project and think it has the potential to 'work', at least relative to how I see it working.

The plan, thus far, is to have the website 'www.onesecondofwar.com' up and running (at least a BETA) sometime by mid summer. I will be sure to keep you updated on any further developments on the project.

You can see some of the larger images on my Deviantart site.