Date: Fri, 04 Feb 1994 23:04:25 -0900 From: PHILIP A MUNGER (PSPAM@acad2.alaska.edu) To: luxlogis@contrib.de
ALASKA ARTIST HOPES TO CREATE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTALIST ARTIST DATATBASE Alaska composer Philip Munger seeks information on artists who work in any discipline or media and who use serious environmentalist and ecological themes in their work. He hopes to create a worldwide database of artists, venues and opportunities. He hopes to offer information on Internet by 01/01/95. Send info to: Philip Munger PO Box 877114 Wasilla, Alaska 99687 USA Tel: (907) 373-0994
RE: HANDSHAKE: Alaska sculptor/performance artist Ken Gray did a performance piece nine years ago which had primitive elements of some aspects of handshake. Electrotech has come a long way since. I recently proposed that some Alaska electonic composers and media artists and computer artists do a set of canonic variations on Gray's original piece, which was called *Man in Static/Mind in Transit (Canon for Radiophonic Suitcase). Gray is currently gravely ill with pleural cancer. We hope to do the variations sometime in 1994 or 1995.
RE: ?s on meaning of electronic art/electronically aided art: I am currently using new concepts in digital image storage to aid in long-term documentation of the bronzes of Peter Bevis. Known in NW USA as *World's greatest roadkill artist*, Bevis has executed dozens of bronzes cast from molds of animals killed at or by oil spills, large machines (we molded a moose *in situ* in a snowstorn last March, alongside a railroad track in the shadow of Mt. McKinley (Denali) in Alaska. The moose had been killed by a train, the carcass abandoned), and currently, we are preparing to mold carcasses of wolves gunned down near Fairbanks, Alaska as part of an ongoing state program to increase the size of caribou herds for local hunters. While there are many exploratory facets of Bevis's work and my concepts of artistic dealings with governmental bodies (taken from Jos. Beuys December 23, 1978 appeal which originally appeared in the newspaper *Frankfurter Rundschau*) which may be unique, what I am learning about the primitive nature of electronic image recording may be of interest to your group. Bevis is casting bronzes of animals which are in states of decay. Many have since all but disappeared. I thoroughly documented on VHS, 8mm video, DAT, color slides and B&W plates the demise of scores of thousands of carcasses of sea otters, seals, birds killed in the aftermath of the *Exxon Valdez* disaster. Bevis was able to mold and then cast a number of sea otter carcasses, heads, fetuses removed during necropsies,and other such animal remains of the disaster. He has since turned these into bronzes. Months later, the carcasses of his images and those of some 40,000 other animals and birds (stored in freezer vans as possible evidence for legal proceedings against EXXON, were cremated. The animals are gone. The video, film and audio images are already beginning to decay. The bronzes will be with the world for tens of thousands of years. At the expense of seeming polemical, i'll repeat that last: The animals are gone, The electronic images are already deteriorating, The bronzes will be with the world for tens of thousands of years. The best I can do in terms of digital documentation is to hope longer term storage media come along, so the story of how this artist's work came about will lend context to the images during the works' long life.
RE:ELECTRONIC CULTURE: Some say the world's greatest living artist is James L. Acord of Richland, Washington. He is fully licensed to work with restricted radioactive mat'ls by US DOE and Euro EEC. You should do a hologram of him for HANDSHAKE. He gives a dynamic stage presentation with video projection, two slide projectors and electronic sounds projected over his body. Acord's work with restr- icted mat'ls is no less important than his communication as an artist with the scientists recently unshackled by the end of the hyper-fueled nuclear arms race. Acord will be travelling soon the MIT for workshops, but can be reached at: PO Box 159 Richland, WA 99352 Tel: (509) 946-1572 xx
RE: ARTIST INFO: I am currently seeking global information on environmentalist artists. I hope to create a database of artists, venues and opportunities. It would be an artistic, environmentalist and political tool. I have set aside my work as a composer for a year to work hard on getting info in. Should you have a bulletin or similar comm means, please post:ALASKA ARTIST HOPES TO CREATE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTALIST ARTIST DATATBASE Alaska composer Philip Munger seeks information on artists who work in any discipline or media and who use serious environmentalist and ecological themes in their work. He hopes to create a worldwide database of artists, venues and opportunities. He hopes to offer information on Internet by 01/01/95. Send info to: Philip Munger PO Box 877114 Wasilla, Alaska 99687 USA Tel: (907) 373-0994