Bree Edwards

New Architecture found

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-06-19T21:05:55-07:00

The time has come to conclude this blog. Over the past year, as we traveled around the world, blogging became an invaluable creative platform for me. And it was such a pleasure to realize that friends, family and strangers were enjoying my posts. But now I am on the cusp of some new projects that will require my undivided attention. Over the next few months Johnny and I will be building out our new studio in Culver City, and simultaneously launching the new video design firm, Be Johnny. In addition to the studio there will be a new website, shows and maybe even a gallery in the future. Whatever we do, you are invited to join us. -Bree

Fresh off the presses

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-06-09T21:19:37-07:00

Immersion in the Land of Oil is an article about The Center for Land Use Interpretation's recent residency at the Mitchell Center for the Arts in Houston, TX. I wrote this article for the Summer issue of ART LIES magazine, which just hit the newsstands.

Design Science Revolution

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-06-07T07:16:41-07:00

There is a "The Design Science Revolution" sweeping across the cultural landscape these days. This group of exciting articles and pictures about the Godfather of the Sustainability movement are most likely in anticipation of the Whitney Museum exhibition, Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe, opening later this month. With the inflated price of oil, food shortages in China and a US recession looming on the horizon, seems we are are primed and ready for Fuller's visionary environmental ideas. DYMAXION MAN: The Visions of Buckminster Fuller from the New Yorker WEIRD SCIENCE Slideshow from the New Yorker Online This multipart GUIDE to R.Buckminster Fuller was in GOOD magazine back in 2007 More about Fuller is in some of the first posts to this blog, May 07 MACHINES FOR LIVING. You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. -R.Buckminster Fuller UPDATE: LETTERS DECODE THE MYTH OF R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER from the NY Times Architecture section

You Are Correct!

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-06-04T13:06:10-04:00

Because of today's big OBAMA news- another clip of the video we did for Adam Freeland's killer set at Coachella in April.

Band(s) and Crew

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-06-02T12:18:08-04:00

With one final show to go, we are off to Puerto Rico! (I am not in this photograph)

Lift Off

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-31T17:23:12-04:00

We just watched the launch of the Discovery Space Shuttle from the roof of the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando, Florida. Pre-launch preparations on the bus involved watching the NASA channel and engaging in some "space talk" The perfect eastern facing vantage point for the launch was located on top of the venue We have LIFT OFF! The fire ball turned into a long trail of smoke as the Shuttle ascended into the atmosphere.

Toes in the Atlantic

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-29T19:19:21-04:00

Last night we had a fantastic show in a cool venue called The Tabernacle, which had just reopened after repairing the damage caused by the tornado that ripped through downtown Atlanta a few months ago. The building was built originally as a Baptist mega-church over a hundred years ago and was renovated for the Atlanta Olympics by The House of Blues. This morning we woke up in Miami, Florida where we made the most of our last day-off.

Tour Slideshow

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-27T17:14:15-04:00

I put a slideshow from this year of touring in the menu to the right >>>> Click on the images to enlarge them >>>> The pictures are arranged chronically and according to our travels: North America July-Aug 07 Europe Sept-Nov 07 Asia Jan 08 Australia Jan 08 South America March 08 Mexico & North America May 08

Parade

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-26T15:29:50-04:00

Memorial Day Parade down Constitution Ave in Washington DC

NYC pictures

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-25T18:47:22-04:00

There are some photos from the New York shows on the BrooklynVegan site, especially good ones of the three other bands we have been traveling with on this tour.

Saturday in the park

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-24T13:09:50-04:00

It is a beautiful day in Central Park and we are off to Washington DC. After three days without the tourbus it is good to be reunited with our home away from home.

This Must Be The Place

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-22T01:40:42-04:00

Hello from New York City! I am sitting backstage in the darkness as the opening bands perform in front of the curtain and the amped up audience starts to crowd surf. This venue feels like a scene form The Gangs of New York, with three levels of audience looking down on the stage. I was asked to post some new photos and have begun to put together an album of this year on the road (only 8 more shows on the World Tour). Till those pictures are ready, enjoy these three versions of my favorite love song - the perfect soundtrack for tonight. Talking Heads- This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) David Byrne- This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) Arcade Fire- This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)

Time-lapsed Detroit

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-15T15:10:39-04:00

Last night in Detroit I took a time-lapse series of the stage during the show.
Last July when we were at the same theater I shot this time-lapse of the stage during the load-in and set-up.

Tuesday in Chicago (AKA:SickasaDog)

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-13T13:08:09-05:00

It has been a few days of tour bus mayhem. Gospel legend Dottie Rambo was killed on Sunday when her bus crashed outside Mount Vernon, Mo. Last night we hit a deer as we were leaving St. Paul. We made it to Chicago despite the dead deer and front end damage to the bus. This morning we learned that last night all 5 tour buses on another tour (an All American Girl singer) were chased off the highway and searched by overzealous Kansas troopers. These incidents have put a sobering chill in the air. On a happier note, my fever finally broke leaving me with a simple cold and tomorrow we will be in Johnny's old stomping grounds of Detroit. A number of people have asked me "What are these live cameras that you use on tour?" I found this video from a few nights ago and thought it was a pretty good example of what my small robotic cameras can capture and magnify for the audience. This clip features keyboard maestro Jordan Rudess on a Korg Kaoss pad at the start of the encore. The image you see if actually the video screen above the drum riser. This is a good clip of the video (without live cameras) and lighting from the Vancouver show last week.

Flight of fantasy

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-12T19:06:54-05:00

These days I spend most of my at work time in the world of Progressive Rock, and as an escape I spend a bit too much time surfing around Indy Rock sites. YACHT makes my favorite tour blog and Pitchfork is a great news source, KCRW has that nifty Now Playing feature (with a dangerous direct link to itunes). Only recently did I discovered the My Old Kentucky Blog and cracked up when I read the Rules of Indie Rock Success: Rule #1: Put a hot girl on keyboard or bass. #2 Cover Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. WOW- I never realized how many bands covered that song. I am also digging John Weeden's newest online project, a well curated video jukebox called Square Peg. I would love for NodeVideo (us) to do a hot indy rock tour as our next long-term engagement. I dream of working with music that you can dance to, with girl singers, in high heel boots and glitter costumes covering a David Bowie song.

Dogie not Doggie

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-11T23:35:48-05:00

Happy Mother's Day to my Mom and Grandmother, Aunt and cousins, Andrea, Carli and Jenny. We are reaching the final hour of a twenty-two hour bus ride and we are watching David Lynch's Blue Velvet. Needless to say, we are a haggard bunch who are ready to get off this bus. But since I had some time to kill on mind numbing activities I calculated that we have done 96 shows during this tour which involved travel through the Americas, Europe, South America, Australia and Asia. As we near the end of this World Tour everyone is beginning to plan their next jobs. One guy is going out with Billy Idol, others are heading out with the bands Yes, Poison, Muse and even American Idol. We are looking forward to heading home to LA, where I have some exciting curatorial and writing projects lined up. Montana roadside signage

Snow in May

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-09T17:00:53-06:00

Waking in Calgary this morning we were shocked to be greeted with fresh snow! The tour has been going well so far, but tonight is #6 of 22 shows- so we still have a ways to go. In Vancouver they did a 7 camera video shoot of the show so there should be a DVD of this tour in the near future.

Indoor parking

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-05T15:28:42-07:00

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Coffee Break

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-04T15:27:44-07:00

We made it to Seattle in time for a perfect cup of coffee. Look- there is the newspaper ad for our show. This time out we are traveling with an additional three opening bands as part of a progressive rock/metal tour. It sure is crowded backstage.

On the road, again

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-05-04T15:26:33-07:00

We are back out on video tour and will spend the next month zig-zagging across the US. Touring is like taking a long road-trip with twenty five friends or perhaps more like being in the circus. This morning I woke, snuggled all cozy in my cocoon-like bunk, to the gentle swaying of the bus that indicated we were going through the mountains. Sleeping on the bus is similar to living on a houseboat, so that even on solid land your body feels like it is gently rocking. It is a lovely sensation. Crossing from the dark sleeping quarters into the front lounge, I realized that we were already into the lush green of Oregon. Will be in Seattle by dinner and I am looking forward to sneaking off with my partner in adventure to explore the city.

More from Coachella

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-27T08:53:27-04:00

Node Video with Adam Freeland

Coachella

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-26T15:24:03-07:00

ADAM FREELAND @ COACHELLA HERE are some GREAT photos of Freeland's show- it was fantastic fun! VISUALS: NODE VIDEO

desert appreciation

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-24T15:21:56-07:00

Greetings from an Oasis in the High Desert. I have a deep attraction to this rough and rocky desert region which I cannot explain. It cannot be nostalgia because I grew up on the East Coast surrounded by water, swimming, sailing and learning to tie knots. But something about this Western desertscape just makes me feel GOOD. I came here for the first time in the year 2000 and stayed at the Twenty Nine Palms Inn & I am back here today. The small adobe bungalows without telephones or wifi are perfect for a quiet getaway (even though Johnny has set up a rehersal video studio in our bungalow.) I have been back to the high desert several times since 2000 and I always fantasize about what it would be like to live in this remote region of bright sun and strong wind. A month ago I found my high desert dreamhouse for sale and got close to actually taking that leap into the desert. But for now I am happy to come here on mini-vacations, cause I still have too accomplish in the city. Speaking of vacations, last night we sat in a hot tub, gazing up at the star filled sky and listening to the birds. Today Johnny turned a year older and I am reminded of how much the both of us have grown. I could not ask for a more amazing partner or interesting life- Happy Birthday Baby! Tomorrow we head to Coachella and then off for a month+ tour of the US. They painted a movie screen on the bungalow for lawn screenings Hot tub shack on the edge of the Oasis

On the road with projectors

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-19T15:21:21-07:00

NODE VIDEO (that is us!) is getting ready to hit the road with our live video shows. We are excited to cross-cross America and would love to see you along the way. Friday, April 25 at COACHELLA in Indio, CA with Adam Freeland ...Tuesday, April 29 Mexico City, Mexico Friday, May 2 Los Angeles, CA Saturday, May 3 Oakland, CA ...Friday & Saturday, May 9 & 10 Calgary, ALB ...Friday, May 16 Columbus, OH Saturday, May 17 Cleveland, OH Sunday, May 18 Albany, NY ...Wednesday & Thursday, May 21 & 22 New York, NY ...Friday, May 30 Miami, FL Saturday, May 31 Orlando, FL Sunday, June 1 Tampa, FL Wednesday, June 4 San Juan, Puerto Rico

Farmlab

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-18T15:19:51-07:00

From Lex Bhagat's lunchtime talk at Farmlab

Globe Trekker

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-17T15:18:40-07:00

Today Luc and I went to The Getty to check out the California Video exhibition and decided that we would need to go back when we had more time. AH...the curse of time-based exhibitions. Here is one of our photos from today's trip up Mt. Getty. Tonight I turned on TV to watch one of those travel shows that I adore and was surprised that Megan, the host from Globe Trekker was not in Istanbul or Hong Kong because she was right here with me in Los Angeles. She even went up to Signal Hill, for a little So. Cal oil history. Nice job! As I type this post, a film crew is shooting a cop chase scene outside of my house and there is a spotlight erected in my neighbors' yard. Los Angeles folds in upon itself in amazing ways and it is always beautifully lit.

This Friday

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-17T15:18:12-07:00

This Friday at noon in Los Angeles, Lex Bhagat will be at FarmLab to discuss "An Atlas of Radical Cartography" Here is a recent review from the blog We Make Money Not Art. Beginning Friday and running all weekend in Houston is the annual Media Archeology Festival put on by the Aurora Picture Show. This year's theme is Live & Televised and features multimedia artists who incorporate audio/visual technology with live performance. I have said it before & will say it again, Media Archeology is the coolest thing that happens in Houston!

Musical Tour

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-15T15:16:38-07:00

Seems I have been a little focused on buildings lately and have neglected to tell you about all the amazing music we have been seeing around Los Angeles. A few weeks ago our friend Steve escorted us to NOSAJ THING at The Eco or maybe it was The Echoplex? His Electronica/ Hip Hop has been described as "laser bass" because it sounds alot like those laser sounds from Sci Fi or Star Wars. This kid is gonna blow up- check him out! Another great show was the US premier of Sweden's LITTLE DRAGON presented by KCRW at The Roxy in Hollywood. Beautiful and talented singer Yukimi Nagano was great and it was amazing to see with such clarity the impact KCRW has on the music scene of Los Angeles. Machine Project wrapped up its TablaCentric residency with Robin Sukhadia & I am glad that I caught the free Monday concert with Srinivas Reedy on Sitar and Sameer Gupta on Tabla. Fast forward into the future. We will be doing video for the rockin DJ from UK and now fellow Angelino, ADAM FREELAND & we are really excited to work with him. Come check out the show Friday at Coachella. At the end of April we are heading back out with the BAND for the final month of this year-long world tour. I cannot believe it has already been a year. We have been so many places, clocking thousands of miles and frequent flier points. I will miss it when the tour is done, but it will be great to concentrate on the LA studio. If we are coming through your city, drop me a note. We would love to see you.

Building and their documentation

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-04-14T14:55:46-07:00

The temporary gallery is located in one of the busiest sections of Hollywood and illuminated by the flashing red lights of a Go-Go Girl club next door. The design of this show is fantastic and Frederic Chaubin's Cosmic Communist Constructions photographs are totally curious and beautiful. I cannot wait to go back to the show when it is not so packed & wish there was a book based on this exhibition. Saturday night we headed to the other side of Los Angeles to attend the screening of Schindler's Houses, by German filmmaker Heinz Emigholz hosted by the UCLA Film and Television Archives. ... Schindler was a Viennese architect, who worked in Los Angeles from the 1920- 1950s and had a significant impact on this city, primarily with his single-family home designs. While he is not my favorite architect, I love the way his houses feel natural and light-filled. His designs fuse the outside with the interior space, resulting in houses that feel like they are floating or built into the trees and hillsides. ...Schindler came to the United States in 1914 and began working with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin in 1918. In 1922 he & his wife began the construction of their Kings Road home (now the MAK Center). The construction of his Kings Road home used his "Slab-Tilt" system of prefabricated slabs of natural colored concrete. The architect Richard Neutra and his family were among the Los Angeles vanguard who lived in the guest quarters on this property during the 1920s The Saturday night screening was part of the city-wide retrospective of Emigholz's films. I enjoyed the opportunity it provided us to peek inside Schindler's houses and we were engaged by some of the sound editing techniques Emigholz employed, but generally speaking it was a slow moving 90-minute film that perhaps had too rigid a structure, for my taste. A few moments of comic relief were provided by three cats unexpectedly caught perching or posing, or when the bright yellow SUV came roaring past, loudly slicing open the neutral calm of Emigholz's still shots. The Billy WIlder Theater at the Hammer Museum is quite nice, but I was annoyed by the attitude of the organizers and that the screening was disorganized, starting almost 45 minutes late. Being an organizer myself, I am empathetic to the potential difficulties that can arise with public programs: no one comes, too many people come, it rains, it is too hot, the machine breaks, the artist freaks...

Texas reprise

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-31T20:37:17-07:00

Steve Nalepa posted a few new videos (with great audio!) from the DeKam VS Nalepa performance in Houston, TX. Video shot by John Carrithers & photo by Katya Horner. More collaborative video performances from Johnny DeKam can be found here.

House of the Century

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-29T21:11:21-07:00

In honor of the Ant Farm retrospective in Sevilla, which I just read about on the fantastic blog We Make Money Not Art, I could not resist reblogging this video of Ant Farm's The House of the Century, 1972. One of the major disappointments of my year in Texas was that I never visited this house. While the house is in ruins, it would be worth a trip back to the Bayou City (Houston) to visit. Closest we got was when Johnny did a live video performance in collaboration with the talented and lovely (and radical) string quartet ETHEL, in the Media Room from The House of the Century. This room construction was salvaged and re-created inside the University of Houston School of Architecture during the Blaffer Gallery's 2005 Ant Farm exhibition. If you happen to be passing through the UH campus, go and ask for a tour from someone in the office of the School of Architecture. Musing upon what I would do, if I had the personal funding to commission my own house of the century. I would likely call upon the collaborative Simparch, because I am enamored with their Quonset Hut rehab, Clean Livin'. This is a self-contained live/work space that employs renewable energy and is a functioning part of the artist in residence program at the CLUI South Base in Wendover, UT. (shown below)

Venice Beach to Griffith Park

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-29T18:14:51-07:00

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Hollywood street food

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-28T18:23:24-07:00

Sunday Farm Market in Hollywood

Plans to Mix Oil Drilling and Art Clash in Utah

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-26T23:07:28-07:00

Today the NY Times reported on the controversy surrounding the proposed oil drilling close to Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty . Plans to Mix Oil Drilling and Art Clash in Utah had some astute quotes, such as this one: What Mr. Smithson might have thought about the drilling plan is among the issues in dispute. State officials and some art historians, pointing to Mr. Smithson’s own writing about the “Spiral Jetty,” and the film he made about its construction, said he reveled in the juxtaposition of industrialism and beauty, decay and rebirth, rot and permanence. “The sense of ruined and abandoned hopes interested him,” said Lynne Cooke, the curator at Dia. “He didn’t look for beautiful places, but rather despoiled landscapes where industry and the wild overlap.” Spiral Jetty photo from my trip to Utah last month with grad students from the California College of Art Curatorial Practice Program. See the February archives for Smithson's 1970 Spiral Jetty film.

I learned to drive in order to read Los Angeles in the original

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-20T11:49:05-07:00

Reyner Banham, the British architectural critic and historian, keeps coming up. I am currently working on an article about CLUI's recent residency in Houston,TX and read that Banham felt that city was 'like a real life-life version of a Monopoly game', as he saw 1970s Houston as 'simultaneously wide open and impenetrable' and felt the renegade city made "Los Angeles in the Chinatown epoch seem like a socialist economy" because Houston's "property wheels and deals operated with less restrictions than anywhere else in the Anglo Saxon world". This morning as I was preparing to buy the new book Polar Inertia: The Migrating and Emergent City, once again Reyner Banham came up. In the book summary as he was quoted as describing Los Angeles as a city in which "mobility outweighs monumentality". All this Banham synchronicity is simply a great excuse to post this quirky but seminal video "Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles". Originally produced as a TV documentary by the BBC after Banham's "Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies" was published in 1971, thanks to ArtTorrents and UBUweb it has become a cult favorite, an alternative "LA101". "I learned to drive in order to read Los Angeles in the original"- Reyner Banham

Johnny Video

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-12T22:59:48-05:00

The tour of South America has come to an end. This time out we logged 11 flights in and out of 5 countries to do 8 shows. And as I add up the ticket sales (or venue capacity) for this tour, it is mind blowing to realize that we created a live video show for 73,932 people. The past 48 hours have been the most extreme of this two weeks on the road. On Thursday we left Bogota, Columbia at 10AM and arrived at the airport in Caracas, Venezuela at 6PM. We then boarded a bus that took us over the mountains and arrived in Valencia, Venezuela at 10PM. On Friday morning we boarded a van at 10AM that took us to the venue and that night had a 9PM show for an amped up audience of 6,000. Immediately following the show we broke the stage down and loaded the trucks. By 12:30AM we were boarding the bus that would take us back over the mountain to Caracas. We checked into a hotel at 3:30AM, showered and then checked out at 4:15AM to catch the last van ride of the tour to the airport for our 7AM flight home. Not much deep reflection about the tour is available at this time. Now I am looking forward to unwinding at home while writing an article about Houston for the upcoming "Urban" issue of ArtLies magazine. Later this week we will be doing video for two club shows in LA. Wednesday night's show is with DJs Steve Nalepa (LA) and MattB (Tokyo) who will be rocking the house with their Bass Science collaboration and on Thursday night we will be at Spaceland in Silverlake with the Bay Area band Film School .

Bogota, Columbia

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-11T22:09:27-05:00

Bogota, Columbia (photo: R.Dorion)

Not so glamorous

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-10T20:52:49-05:00

Sometimes the accommodations touring through South America are less than glamorous. At one venue in Brazil, the production office was a repurposed shower room and this left the toilet area as the default dining room. (photo: R. Dorion)

Cable Untangling Championships in LA

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-09T16:19:15-05:00

Xeni from Boing Boing TV visits the first-ever "Cable Untangling Championships" at Machine Project in Los Angeles, where knottiness abounds and speedy-fingered sysadmins own the world. "Cabling" is a new sport founded by Steven Schkolne in which competitors must race to detangle bundles of CAT-5 ethernet cables. (NOTE: This event took place in early February)

Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-05T19:46:47-03:00

Arrived in Rio de Janeiro just in time for sunset

Loud in Chile

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-03-03T12:42:11-03:00

It was brought to my attention that the time has come for me to post to the blog from South America. But until I can take some nice photos of something other than the airport or a hotel room, this LOUD video will serve as a place holder and introduction to how enthusiastic the South American audiences have been. This low quality video is from the first show of the tour in Santiago, Chile. Check out that crowd- WOW! WARNING: Turn down your speakers before hitting play
Loud in Chile from bree edwards on Vimeo.

Back on tour

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-02-27T20:54:58-08:00

Los Angeles has only started to reveal its secrets and it is already time to go. Tomorrow we will take our mobile video rig back out for some more rock shows and this time we will board a plane bound for Chile. Over the next two weeks we will be here: 3/1 Santiago 3/3 Buenos Aires 3/4 Buenos Aires 3/7 San Paulo 3/8 Rio de Janeiro 3/9 Belo Horizonte 3/12 Bogota 3/14 Caracas

Week 1 Los Angeles

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-02-23T15:56:01-08:00

I am slowly morphing from tourist into a Los Angeles resident, as I set out on my daily driving missions armed with print-outs from Google Maps and a GPS backup. I have established some ground rules for these solo missions. The first of which is that I can only travel on surface roads, avoiding all highways. This is generally my rule with city driving, except when I am passing through, which is all I have been doing this year. However, I already see some geo-relationship problems looming on the horizon. Yesterday I called Johnny while stopped at a red light and asked; “If I am at the intersection of Pico Blvd & Crenshaw, then what neighborhood am I in?" A few Los Angeles friends have offered to loan me their Thomas’ Guide maps, but I have declined with a “No thanks, I have a GPS”. But I am coming to realize that the GPS is best for getting from point A to Point B but the technology encourages a lack of interest in the spaces between the start and end points and provides no clues to how neighborhoods fit together to create the larger city of Los Angeles. Yesterday, I followed my GPS over to Venice Blvd in Culver City to visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the new-ish exhibition BIRDFOOT: Where America’s River Dissolves into the Sea at The Center for Land Use Interpretation. I had heard about CLUI's birdfoot project while working with Matthew Coolidge in Houston, and while Matt’s first-hand stories are more colorful, the CLUI slideshow provides a muti-directional overview of this seriously downstream delta region. The delta terminology birdfoot or bird’s foot originates from the bifurcated nature of this unique watery terrain. These narrow lobes of Louisiana land are located between branches of the Mississippi River, as it nears the Gulf of Mexico. This is remote and delicate land that has been hard hit by the recent hurricanes. The CLUI presentation in Culver City reveled a landscape that is dangerously over engineered to accommodate the demands of the petroleum industry. photo is from the CLUI exhibition BIRDFOOT & links to their website

We Want Change

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-02-21T17:36:24-08:00

Crowdsourcing video- "larger than any of us, made possible by all of us" The collective video HOPE.ACT.CHANGE was created in support of Barack Obama's run for president & the video grows as participants upload their campaign photos onto Flickr and tag them with "hopeactchange". This is a smart project that lists Obama as the CEO of Inspiration- fantastic- it sounds like a line from a George Clinton/ P-Funk song. Speaking of crowdsourcing- I am now running out to my first class at THE PUBLIC SCHOOL, an experimental school based on peer to peer learning that is taking place at the TELIC Arts Exchange in Chinatown, Los Angeles.

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-02-18T21:57:38-08:00

Robert Smithson, excerpt, 1970

Journey into the basin of the Great Salt Lake

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-02-17T22:19:20-07:00

Slideshow - I took a trip out to Wendover, UT with Matthew Coolidge from the Center for Land Use Interpretation and graduate students from the Curatorial Practice Program at the California College of Art. We were talking about 'curating space' while exploring the wide open basin of the Great Salt Lake and the hidden military history of this region. We also made treks to visit famous works of Land Art; such as Smithson's Spiral Jetty, Holt's Sun Tunnels and the CLUI's Wendover Complex. It was a fantastic field trip & I cannot wait to see the project this curatorial team will execute out in Wendover next month.

We are huge

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-02-12T16:34:19-07:00

This rig we are hauling down the highway is huge, but nothing compared to the size of Texas. For two days it felt like the state was endless, but we finally pulled through and was welcomed into the West with an awesome sunset over the mountains of New Mexico. Endless thanks to Delicia, John & Hayden who helped us get out of Houston on schedule.

Here we go!

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-31T13:16:42+11:00

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Rock and Roll

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-30T15:31:03+10:00

After three weeks in Asia and Australia that included 15 flights, 10 shows and abrupt cultural and climate shifts, we are ready to head home. Above: End of concert in Sydney (photo R.Dorion) Below: Concert in Bangkok

The Downfall in Perth

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-25T11:20:42+09:00

Beijing is no Bangkok

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-24T11:24:15+09:00

On the "it's a small world" tour we spend on average 48 hours in each country. This never feels like enough time, until we got to Beijing, where suddenly I could not get out fast enough. We arrived in the PRC around 10PM and were held up by arguing customs officials who seemed to be unwilling to let the 14 of us into the country with our 51 items of luggage and gear. When we finally made it out of the airport and to the hotel, the bus was prohibited from pulling up in front of the hotel, meaning we would need to lug everything across curbs and snowbanks. Another argument broke out between our bus driver and a hotel worker and we finally unloaded the bus in front of the hotel. Then they did not have our rooms ready & seemed to be saying we might need to move to another hotel. ... Anyways, by the time we got to our rooms and dropped our bags it was midnight. ...We began the show day by being told that our shuttle would be late because of "problems at the venue". ... Once we made it to the venue; a smelly convention hall with a rocket outside but no heat inside, I knew our day would be rough. I will not bore you with the details of having only one translator for the entire operation, who was also the promoter, stage manager and caterer. Because the biggest problem proved to be the electrical system in Beijing- which is ungrounded and seems totally unregulated. ... Actually the show was almost cancelled when the Chinese lighting team blew out all the electricity to our video system minutes before the doors were to open. Despite that awful smell of burning ozone from the blown transformer we scrambled to get video back up and running, while 2,000 people were standing in lines freezing outside the doors. ... But I could not get out of Beijing fast enough the next morning- even with the 5:30AM lobby call. ...Side note: The air pollution levels on an average day in Beijing are nearly five times above the World Health Organization standards for safety. The pollution that results from China's inefficient dependence on coal powered electric is visceral in Beijing.

Beijing

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-23T11:35:02-08:00

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Bangkok 2

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-21T12:08:37-08:00

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Bangkok 1

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-21T11:51:50-08:00

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The Temple of the Emerald Buddah, Bangkok

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-20T19:00:53+07:00

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Arrival in Bangkok

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-19T11:12:27+07:00

This was the scene at the Bangkok Airport as we loaded our gear and equipment into the cargo trucks. Show tonight and tomorrow a day off to explore Thailand. .

Quick glimpse from Tokyo

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-19T01:55:23+09:00

Tokyo from bree edwards on Vimeo.

36 Hours in Singapore

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-16T14:37:28+09:00

Before Christmas the New York Times Travel section had an article entitled 36 Hours in Singapore and this is our next stop for just about that length of time. While I doubt we will get to see much of Singapore tonight after landing, I am looking forward to 90 degree weather and tomorrow's outdoor concert. We had a great 48 hours in Tokyo and even managed to meet up with our friend Steve Nalepa (see past entires on DeKam vs Nalepa in Houston) who was in Tokyo to work on a new album with Matt, one of his DJ collaborators. Last night in Tokyo (after our concert at the famous Budokan theater) we all went for dinner at the restaurant made famous by the sword fight between Uma Thurman and the Crazy 8s in the movie Kill Bill- it was cool.

여보세요 from Korea

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-12T00:39:16-05:00

backstage webcam photo with box of toothpicks We arrived last night and found Seoul covered with a light snowfall. This morning I had miso soup and Abalone porridge, which seems to have worked on the jetlag.

You Are Here highlights

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-10T08:51:23-05:00

There are short highlights from the YouAreHere conference now online at Vimeo. YouAreHere was held at the Aurora Picture Show in Houston, Texas on November 30 and December 1, 2007. I curated this program (in collaboration with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts at The University of Houston) which featured contemporary artists and curators exploring the interplay between art and geography, activism and cultural studies. Presentations included Matt McCormick (Rodeo Films), Nato Thompson (Creative Time), The Institute for Applied Autonomy, and Matthew Coolidge (Center for Land Use Interpretation). Start with the introduction to Matthew Coolidge's presentation "Points of Disinterest in the Gulf Coast Region", in which he contextualized the work of the CLUI. You will be able to access the other presentations from here.

If I controlled the internet

breeedwards@mac.com — 2008-01-04T14:30:09-05:00

One of the best things to happen in 2007 was that the folks from TED put their conference talks online. These short video clips are inspirational, way-out-there, stimulating, challenging and simply amazing. This clip of the storyteller & poet Rives is my favorite. This week I have spent alot of time digitizing the video tapes from YouAreHere, the Houston-based conference that I organized back in December. I have been selecting short highlights from each presentation to post to Vimeo, for those who missed the conference or for those who simply don't want it to end. These video highlights will be posted soon, until then spend some time with more of the TED talks.

Happy New Year!

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-31T13:46:33-05:00

Davey Dance Blog -26- BROOKLYN BRIDGE - Ace Frehley - "NY Groove" from Pheasant Plucker on Vimeo.

From the Brooklyn G Train to the Burnside Bridge

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-27T12:50:33-05:00

Since this is a neighborhood I do not know very well and the rainy weather in New York is preventing much exploration- we are using this time to bone up on 'computer stuff'. I have done some minor improvements to my blog, which include this new title photo that Andrea Grover took on one of our trips to the Buffalo Bayou in Houston. ... We finally installed Leopard onto our computers and are starting to work on a new NodeVideo website, in preparation for our return from the world-wide tour in June 08 and the conclusion of Towards A New Architecture. In the midst of all this downloading and file sharing, we are having that perennial conversation about where we should move to next. ...Although I struggle with anxiety about climate change (cool grey days) and the economics (will we be able to pay the bills as we launch out with NodeVideo without the safety net of my dayjob), I am excited by the scale of the city (biking/walkable neighborhoods) and the city-wide emphasis on sustainable, community-initated development. ...During this time the Chamber had a rebranding campaign going on and the city's new slogan was "Asheville, Any Way You Like it". ... During this re-branding (sexing up) campaign there were at least 4 articles in the New York Times about this small city in the mountains of Western Carolina. ...I actually loved living here because it was easy to get into Manhattan one day on the L-train and really easy to feel far away the next, while riding your bike up and down Manhattan Ave- Brooklyn's little Poland. ... The camper was parked inside the video studio (a former taxi garage) and VOILÁ we owned a small studio apartment close to the studio for the cost of one month's rent. After 6 months it started to get too cold for camper living in New York and we were getting tired of going down the block to shower at the YMCA. ...By cheap I mean $500 apartments in regal old brownstones or the 5,000 square foot loft along the Hudson River that we rented for $800 a month. ... It was a 'land rich, cash poor' city, good for young artists who wanted to experiment without lots of commercial pressures and within a supportive small community. ...In searching for our city of the future we are weighing many new options, grown up options, of what makes for a great place to live. I am trying to avoid places that reference Richard Florida's ubiquitous book The Rise of the Creative Class and wish that I could consult with Jane Jacobs, the activist who championed community-based city planning and wrote the personally influential book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In the midst of making Pro-Con lists and daydreaming about the future, I find myself returning to Chas Bowie's fantastic article "The H-Word Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Word "Hipster" especially today after seeing this snarky picture-post on the Portland Public Art blog. ...In the year 1915 the city leaders of Houston created the slogan "Houston: Where seventeen railroads meet the sea" in an effort to rebrand the city as the railroad center of the Southwest.

Merry Christmas

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-24T01:07:22-05:00

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Home for the Holidays

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-19T14:06:23-05:00

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Upcoming travels for us at Node Video

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-13T23:31:01-05:00

We are heading back out with the boys in the New Year: Jan 12- Seoul, Korea Jan 15- Tokyo, Japan Jan 17- Singapore Jan 19- Bangkok, Thailand Jan 22- Beijing, China Jan 26- Perth, Australia Jan 28- Adelaide, Australia Jan 29- Melbourne, Australia Jan 30- Sydney, Australia Feb 1- Brisbane, Australia * Johnny and I produce the video screen show during the concert. I am the videographer, who does the live camera shots of the band (using a variety of different cameras) while Johnny VJs these live camera feeds into his greater mix to create the video show. He uses VDMX software from Vidvox.

South of the border

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-11T10:03:27-06:00

We are in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. I am not sure I have ever been to such a tourist driven economy & it has been a bit overwhelming. Time Share offers, beach cover-ups, boat rides, trips to the jungle, fake tattoos, silver jewelry and anything else you want comes directly to you on the beach, over and over again. To escape this we took the 45 minute water taxi over to the remote village of Yelapa. This special spot has no cars, only got electricity a few years ago and has the best fish tacos that I have ever tasted. But if you need a hand with your luggage you will need to call upon a mule to help- travel light. In the future, if we were to come back to PV I would book a one night stay in old town at the Hotel Casa Dona Susana, because it is beside the best coffee shop/ bookshop in town Una Pagina En El Sol (A Page in the Sun). After morning coffee it would be time to board the 45 minute Water Taxi to Yelapa, where I would stay at Hotel Lagunita in room 6 or 15. Buenos Suerte!

DeKam Vs Nalepa Wrap Up

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-07T14:47:21-05:00

DeKam Vs Nalepa could not have happened on a more perfect night, it was almost 70 degrees in downtown Houston. The skyline was beautiful and a mixed crowd of a few hundred came out for the performance. Some sat on blankets with picnic suppers & drinks, while others stood front and center watching Johnny and Steve work their laptops. Johnny utilized the architecture of the site as projection surfaces and it was amazing the see video that at one moment was bouncing off the cement pilings of the Sabine Street bridge and at the next moment reflected back up from the water in the bayou. This was a true site-dependent installation and very cool! I am excited to see upcoming public projects from the Buffalo Bayou Partnership. -Here is the article in the Houston Chronicle about DeKam Vs. Nalepa

Houston premier of DeKam vs Nalepa

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-04T23:18:59-06:00

Houston: Join us this Thursday for a one-time-only, site-specific spectacle on the Buffalo Bayou. This environmental light and sound installation is the creation of video artist Johnny DeKam and composer / laptop musician Steve Nalepa. The show utilizes a special multi-moving mirror projection system, adding a new dimension to the visuals. Stroll beneath the bridges of the Sabine Promenade to experience DeKam's abstract moving geometries and architectural juxtapositions against Nalepa's electro-ambient "Left Coast Liquid" music. Here is a peek at the site Produced by the good folks at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts

Launch of An Atlas of Radical Cartography

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-03T12:18:29-06:00

I am so excited about this project/publication! Thursday, December 6th @ 7PM - Free Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen Street, New York City between Stanton & Rivington (Near 2nd Ave- F/V) Reading: Mogel & Bhagat "An Atlas of Radical Cartography" Please join editors Lize Mogel and Lex Bhagat to celebrate the publication of "An Atlas of Radical Cartography," a collection of 10 maps and 10 essays exploring social issues from globalization to garbage. Cutting across the boundaries of art, literacy, and activism, radical cartography calls upon us to utilize maps as political agents for social change. For more information & to order your own copy: An Atlas of Radical Cartography

We were here

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-02T12:23:27-06:00

Up: Matt Coolidge from The Center for Land Use Interpretation Down: Rich Pell from The Institute for Applied Autonomy Yesterday at The Aurora Picture Show Matt McCormick's blog has great coverage of the weekend

Where am I?

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-01T13:00:59-06:00

Nato Thompson, Matt McCormick & Rich Pell- locating themselves

Matt McCormick at the Aurora Picture Show

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-12-01T10:44:46-06:00

Last night You Are Here was kicked off with Matt McCormick's performance Future So Bright: Live. Todays events begin at 1:00 with Nato Thompson's talk about Experimental Geography, followed by a talk by Rich Pell from the Institute for Applied Autonomy. There will be a coffee break around 3:00 that will be followed by Matt Coolidge from CLUI with his talk Points of Disinterest in the Gulf Coast Region. See you at The Aurora!

Hey Now

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-25T08:32:52-06:00

I arrived in Houston last night to start working on You Are Here, the upcoming weekend of performances and talks that I have curated. So far my favorite reaction from the local press has been this comment: I keep looking at this press info and thinking, "This has got to be the most esoteric subject to be the focus of a two-day seminar … ever!" And since I am back in Texas, I cannot resist posting one more scene from David Byrne's True Stories. This Hey Now clip features Spalding Gray and an amazing gang of wild children.

Good luck to Your Daily Awesome

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-22T21:38:01-05:00

I was sad to read that the blog Your Daily Awesome has come to an end, as it is one of my daily favorites. But I love that YDA's last post was this clip "A History of Texas" from David Byrne's movie True Stories. This movie was my quirky introduction to living in Texas and I knew that I had to buy the dvd when we moved to Houston. Numerous times I have quoted moments from True Stories to someone in passing and it is comforting to know there are others out there who recognize the odd brilliance of this film! Good luck to you Mr. YDA & thanks for all the great bits this year.

Homesickness- amazing places to live

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-21T14:30:51-05:00

Heading back to Texas

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-18T09:50:44+00:00

Heading back to Texas for two projects that we've been working on NOV 30 & DEC 1 Aurora Picture Show DEC 6 Steve Nalepa Johnny DeKam Mitchell Center for the Arts

Radio Silence

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-12T19:57:35+00:00

Finished our last show of the EU tour!!! For the next week we will be in a seaside village on the North Sea with no internet, phones or stores. We will observe a bit of blogger radio silence and enjoy this remote holiday. See you in a few days.

Waiting for Godot in New Orleans

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-09T17:21:55+00:00

Last April at the C6 Symposium Creative Time Director Anne Pasternack mentioned an upcoming project with artist Paul Chan that took my breath away. Together they were working towards presenting Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot in the streets of the Lower Ninth Ward & Gentilly neighborhoods of New Orleans. I was thrilled to read that Waiting for Godot debuted on November 2 in the Lower Ninth Ward and is being performed tonight in the Gentilly neighborhood. "More than a play, the work is a socially engaged performance at the heart of a national crisis" said curator Nato Thompson. For more about this inspiring multi-phased project go to the Creative Time website. This statement is taken from Paul Chan's statement about the project: I have seen landscapes scarred by disasters of all sorts. In Baghdad, I saw kids playing soccer barefoot on a wide boulevard and around the concrete rubble that came from US troops shelling the buildings near the Tigris River. I thought I saw the same kids playing in the ghost town known as downtown Detroit on a side street during an enormous labor demonstration in 1999—with shoes but no shirts. Life wants to live, even if it’s on broken concrete. ...The streets were still, as if time had been swept away along with the houses. Friends said the city now looks like the backdrop for a bleak science fiction movie. Waiting for a ride to pick me up after visiting with some Common Ground volunteers who were gutting houses in the Lower Ninth, I realized it didn’t look like a movie set, but the stage for a play I have seen many times. ... The bare tree leaning precariously to one side with just enough leaves to make it respectable. ... What’s more, there was a terrible symmetry between the reality of New Orleans post-Katrina and the essence of this play, which expresses in stark eloquence the cruel and funny things people do while they wait: for help, for food, for hope. ... Standing there at the intersection of North Prieur and Reynes, I suddenly found myself in the middle of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

crew dinner

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-08T17:02:08+01:00

Photos by Stew

Bike City USA Portland, Oregon

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-07T15:20:23+01:00

Seems the NY Times & I are having both having a love affair with this bike city! Article: In Portland, Cultivating a Culture of Two Wheels Video: The Business of Biking

diversion - from our year of hotel rooms

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-06T15:17:53+01:00

Untitled 17 (hotel) This is one of my all-time favorite photographs & I have a print of it hanging on my wall at home (when I am there). The photographer is Lucas Blalock, who recently relocated from the wilds of North Carolina to concrete & steel of New York City.

Durango, Spain

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-04T20:38:33+01:00

Today we are just outside Bilbao, in an airplane hanger styled convention center, nestled by Bavarian looking hills. All of the glass walls are etched with 00011000, making it apparent that this building was pitched to the local community as a hub for showcasing some type of high-tech media. Currently there are several huge New Media centers being established all over Spain, but this one certainly did not live up to its future-land promises. My guess is that this building was conceived around the time that the Guggenheim Bilbao was built. It is ironic to be surrounded by all this computer code etched glass & unable to find an open WiFi connection. The endless garage doors and poured concrete floor make this most artists dream studio & it is actually a totally beautiful building. But it is less than ideal for a rock show! This will be our final show in Spain, as tonight we head for France.

Rollin rollin rollin, keep those wagons rollin

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-04T18:43:51+01:00

This has been our route- with only one week to go!

Madrid

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-03T13:55:53+01:00

not really... Johnny took this photo as we passed through the beautiful south of France on route to Spain.

Escape from Italy

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-11-01T21:04:22+01:00

We are all thankful to be done with the Italian shows, it is so difficult to work there. This morning I woke in Switzerland, beside this lovely community of garden sheds. I have always wanted to do a photo series of these little garden villages, which I have also seen in Sweden, The Netherlands & England

Beautiful

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-31T19:26:55+01:00

Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House in Palm Springs, California From the New York Times: The Kaufmann House is one of the best-known designs by Neutra, a Viennese-born architect who moved to the US in the 1920s and designed homes for the few decades for many wealthy West Coast clients. His buildings are seen virtually was the apotheosis of Modernism's International Style, with their skeletal steel frames and open plans. Yet Neutra was also known for catering sensitively to the needs of his clients, so that their houses would be not only functional but also nurture their owners psychologically.

Mark Dion on art21

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-31T18:22:33+01:00

Mark Dion's segment in the Ecology episode of Art21 Season 4 will air Nov 11, check your local PBS station for the time. Other new episodes organized around the themes Romance, Protest and Paradox will air on Oct 28, Nov 4 & 18

Milan day 2

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-30T02:06:43+01:00

Tonight may have been the best show of the entire tour. In these photos you can see our video show.

Milan

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-28T17:30:30+01:00

Bus driver JS gives us some tips on where we might find food on a Sunday afternoon in Milan & a cut-up video from our afternoon out on the town.

Show #42

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-27T11:20:44+02:00

We have past the midway point in this tour and tonight will be our 42nd show since July. This week we are in Italy. After shows in Bologna and Rome, we have reached Southern Italy and I can almost smell the ocean. I wish I could comment on all the wonderful food, coffee and architecture of Italy- unfortunately, I have not experienced much of it on this trip. What I can say is, Italian crews are very talkative & they often drift off for breaks. Here is a quick little cut-up from the pre-show in Bologna.

visualblogging

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-25T11:47:47+02:00

To help ease homesickness and domestic urges, I have the blog 3191 set as my homepage. Each day Stephanie and Mav post a new set of images, although they live 3191 miles apart.

12 German hours to go

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-23T10:00:13+02:00

I wish that I had taken photos of the last 3 venues we played at because they have been totally different. Today we are in Stuttgart (home of the Mercedes Benz & Bosh spark plug) in a metal-clad exhibition complex. The show will be held in a large 1970s conference hall. Finding the hall this morning was straight out of Spinal Tap ("where is the stage?"). Last night we were in the city center of Erlangen, in a cool little brutalist theater from the 1960s made of dark wood & poured concrete. The audience was amazing, especially since they normally present classical concerts this theater. The night before we were at Kultfabrik, in a tented hall in the industrial edges of Munich. The concert hall was located in a huge factory complex where noodles were made. The factory turned party complex was very popular during the rave era. I am told that kids would come from all over Germany, in camper vans and party all weekend long. But the heyday of rave parties is over and now the place now looks like an abandoned squat. Making the 3 tons of lighting, audio and instruments fit into these varying spaces is the daily trick. Good thing I work with such an amazing team.

The People's Bath

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-19T10:08:16+02:00

Müller'sches Volksbad

Munich

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-17T13:52:16+02:00

Chinesischer Turm Bier Garten in the Englischer Garten ...Mon Oct 22 - Stadthalle - Eriagen, Germany Tue Oct 23 - Messe B - Stuttgart, Germany Thurs Oct 25- Land Rover Arena- Bologna, Italy Fri Oct 26- Palaottomatica- Roma, Italy Sat Oct 27- Palasport- Andria, Italy Mon Oct 29- DatchForum- Milano, Italy Tue Oct 30- Palasport- Padova, Italy Wed Oct 31- Eulachhalle- Winterthur, SWI Fri Nov 2- Barcelona, Spain Sat Nov 3- Madrid, Spain Sun Nov 4- Bilbao, Spain ...Wed Nov 7- Nancy, France Fri Nov 9- Newport Centre- Wales, UK Sat Nov 10- Civic Hall- Wolverhampton, UK Sun Nov 11- King George's Hall- Blackburn, UK

simply cool

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-17T13:10:08+02:00

Arcade Fire's live video show looks great! I especially love those little video whales stationed around the stage. Does anyone know their video designer?
Power Out / Lies from casiotone on Vimeo.

Wembley Arena dramatic start

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-17T12:17:37+02:00

Cruising into the final show before our break we were feeling confident and relaxed as we set up and sound checked at London's Wembley Arena. We had a nice break before the show time, but hit a nerve wracking speed bump moments before show time. During the change-over following the opening band, we turn on all of our cameras and the large projector that hangs from the front truss. But the projector would not go on- it just sat there emitting no light. I heard Johnny call from Stage Left for the production manager- Oh No! We had a tense meeting on stage and decided that Plan A involved the French lighting technician strapping on his harness and climbing up onto the truss to manually boot up the projector. Imagine this scene: the audience of 7,500 all worked up from the opening band are standing amongst the empty beer cups waiting for the main act. Then just when they think the show is about the start, this guy starts to climb up the truss ladder and is hanging 30 feet above them in the air. The crowd hushed as they watched Andre climb, I started to bite my nails and thought I might throw up, until a guy in the front row said "Man, I never saw a black Spiderman before". It was a welcomed bit of comic relief in a really tense moment. Despite Andre's best efforts the projector would not turn on and he was called back down. By this time we were holding up the start of the show and everyone was getting anxious about going past the 11:00 curfew if we did not get the show started right away. On stage Johnny was now consulting with both the Production and Tour Managers. We decided to go with Plan B. They would drop the curtain to start the show, Johnny would stand on the drum riser at the back of the stage with the projector remote and I would start the video show from back stage- with our fingers crossed that it would all work. The lights went out, I hit play on the mixer and Johnny hit the power on the remote & thankfully everything connected, the projector shot out that magical beam of blue light and we had a show!

music for the hours between dusk and dawn

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-16T19:08:23+02:00

I have a post upcoming about our dramatic final show at Wembley Area in London. But having just finished the 16 hour drive to Munich & my brain is fried from the ride and the 15 episodes of Perry Mason watched onboard (from the box-set that Ross loaned me before we left the US). Posting the full story might take a day.... In the meantime, check out DavidByrne.com for the curated radio program ROAD TRIP. Songs for the vagabond, wherever you may roam. Lots of good Texas songs in there, especially Fort Worth Blues by Guy Clark. Just click on PLAY MP3 STREAM at the top of the page.

10 countries in 20 days

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-11T15:46:25+01:00

There is a moment each morning when I am unsure what language to use when saying "good morning" to the local crew. Thus far we have been to ten countries and done eleven shows in twenty days. This schedule does not leave much time for site-seeing, but I am trying my best to pay attention to cultural differences from my limited points of view. Today we are in Glasgow and tomorrow Manchester. Here is a map of our travels thus far...

Jahrhunderthalle Hoechst, Frankfurt

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-08T12:07:44+02:00

The story of this venue is that it was built as a Social Hall for the workers of the chemical factory, but over time it became too expensive to upkeep and was sold to the city of Frankfurt for one dollar. What a Sci-fi landscape it must have been in that utopian futureland of domes, plastics and chemicals. Check out the slide show of this beautiful building, which is surrounded by cornfields and trees.

Düsseldorf

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-07T11:02:06+02:00

The Camp crew, my extended family- came to the Paris show. It was great to see them & it seems like life in France suits them. You should check out Bob Camp's site & blog. He is a great illustrator & cartoon producer/ director, who co-created The Ren & Stimpy Show and was more recently a storyboard artist on the films Robots & Ice Age: The Meltdown. The audience in Paris was amazing & everyone left France recharged, ready for a break in Düsseldorf. Yesterday was our first true "Day Off" since September 22th and after 14 days of 16hour workdays & endless travel - we were ready to relax. The sunny Saturday afternoon was perfect for a bike ride along the Rhine River, followed by an afternoon of window shopping and beer drinking.

Antwerp

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-04T11:29:20+02:00

Not really... Johnny took the photo in Portland, where it was brilliant blue but here in Antwerp the sky is a dull gray.

Dzien dobry from Warszawa

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-02T13:03:16+02:00

Breakfast choices: rhubarb Yogurt or a powdered Union Steak? The highways in Poland are the worst roads I have ever experienced. We are traveling on a 2 lane road with 18 wheelers covered with tarps and suddenly the road will drop off into the shoulder or a giant pothole. These roads make the BQE look like the Autobahn! All the bus boys are sleeping or watching videos in the back lounge. It is just me and the amazing German drivers, up front listening to Toto & other 80s Rock music. We watch the miles between us and Warsaw disappear into a countryside of cinderblock houses and cabbage fields. There is simply nothing can be done that we are 4 hours late for Load In, the drive from Hannover to Warsaw is simply too long. The transformation from platform to stage takes about 6 hours. Wish us luck - as today we will only have half the time to complete the job.

Hello from Oslo, Norway

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-10-01T16:32:49+01:00

OUCH! The Dollar to Euro conversion sucks! 1 Eur = 1.4 Dollars

We are in the NY Times

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-28T14:45:32+03:00

While dining at Le Pigeon in Portland, Oregon we were photographed (lower right corner) for the NY Times article In Portland, a Golden Age of Dining and Drinking

Viking Ferry

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-28T11:51:03+03:00

Just arrived in Stockholm after an 11 hour ferry ride from Helsinki- it was beautiful.

Our new bus rocks!

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-27T16:47:17+03:00

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Back on tour- Helsinki

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-23T08:18:52+03:00

There are some perks to the total disorientation that comes with 24 hours of plane travel, and walking along a lakefront park at 6AM is one of them. Helsinki was almost silent as the sun rose and the park was FULL of bunny rabbits. (Click the image above to start the slideshow) Tonight, after our first day of production with the new team we will go to the Saunabar. Yes that's right- a bar inside of the sauna.

It has been a whirlwind visit to New York City and we are already re-packing our bags for the upcoming 1.5 month European tour. On Friday we fly into Helsinki and today I am searching everywhere for my leather jacket to stay warm on those cold Finnish nights. I am really excited that the website for You Are Here went live today. You Are Here will be two days of events that feature contemporary artists and researchers working with mapping and tactical media. I have been dreaming about a mini-festival like this one for years & am thrilled to work with each of the presenters involved with this project. We also could not ask for better collaborators than the inspiring staff at the Aurora Picture Show and the Mitchell Center for the Arts in Houston, Texas. It should be a great weekend- hope you can join us!

Around Jupiter

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-16T01:06:21-07:00

After a day of the Affair at the Jupiter art fair, which included a little lunchtime conversation with blogger and Portland arts writer Chas Bowie, we headed over to Le Pigeon for a farewell meal. There was a photographer from the NYTimes there taking photos for their upcoming food section article on Portland restaurants. (UPDATE: Here is the article from the NY Times on-line)

Portland Report

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-13T17:05:18-07:00

After a week it is time to post about about our time in Portland, Oregon but I hardly know where to start. This is an amazingly beautiful city that hardly seems American with all the bike riders and dynamic, mixed-use neighborhoods. On the Art front: The TBA festival is happening this week and there are performances taking place in theaters and clubs all over the city. ... While we've attended less TBA shows than hoped, we did see Mirah & Spectratone International's late night show Share This Place, a 12 song cycle about 6 insects... yes, songs about bugs. All the late-night TBA 'Works' performances are held in the lovely Wonder Ballroom, which feels like a Vermont Grange Hall dressed up prom (in a good way). Share this Place was a unique trope, reminding me of David Byrne's song cycle Here Lies Love, about the life of Imelda Marcos. It was a special event, but one that left me hungry for Mirah's indie pop songs, but the song Community stood out. ... At times I was slightly distracted that Johnson's edits did not sync up with the music, but her color palette worked so well with the space and the music that I was able to overlook this. ...On Saturday night we traveled across the Burnside Bridge to attend YACHT's 30-minute set that was part of the NW MusicFest. ... He was a full-on one man show, accompanied only by his laptop and his girlfriend (for one really cute song). ...This morning I was on-line checking out Ultimate Blogger 3 (Jona from YACHT is a co-instigator & it is a TBA co-production) and while it took forever to download the videos using the shared wireless connection at the Jupiter Hotel, Ultimate Blogger 3 is some funny stuff! ...We stopped for some coffee at the local favorite The Albina Press, and the guys from Ultimate Blogger 3 showed up and started shooting video outside the coffee shop. ... In fact, as I type this post, the staff of the Jupiter Hotel are getting ready for the "Affair at the Jupiter" Art Fair (which kicks off tomorrow). ... While the Jupiter is clearly a hipster hotel, I recognize the good design of a hotel that houses a tattoo parlor, adult sex toy shop, nightclub and hair salon. It is exciting and a little overwhelming that all of this activity is happening all around us, we sure picked a great week to visit. With all this happening in Portland it might seem crazy that we would rent a car to head up above the treeline to Mt.

One day on rock tour with the video crew

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-07T14:25:13-07:00

While our experience is not the same for all bands touring, I thought I would paste together some photos from this past month to illustrate what we’re doing out there on the road. We, the 16 members of the crew, split up onto two busses, ride from venue to venue and often the distances are long (for example crossing the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah- shown above). ...The lighting department gets to work right away, marking the floor with chalk to indicate where the points for the truss will be, while the local riggers climb up into the catwalks. ... We hang it either from a flying house pipe “upstage” (the back) or on a 40’ truss that the lighting department carries along for us. ...Our video world consists primarily of 5 large custom designed cases– containing: a Mac Book Pro, a Mac Pro media server, a Novation Remote Zero midi controller, Grass Valley Indigo AV mixer, 16 LCD monitors of various sizes, a Knox 4X4 matrix router, a JVC hard disk recorder, the joystick controller for the remote cameras (6 tactical cameras & 3 pan-tilt-zoom cameras), a Canon XH-A1 HDV camera, 3x Panasonic 5k lumen projectors, and 5x 3k lumen projectors with moving mirror units attached (used as a video lighting effect). ...Around noon, the lighting crew has all the truss in the air, and the backline crew arrive to unpack the instruments, which they consistently arrange for each performer on stage. ... Sometime we have time after lunch to relax a bit, as the band arrives around at 4:00 PM for sound check. ...There is a lull in the action after sound check and the crew uses this time to eat dinner, take a nap or work further on set-up. ...Johnny is controlling the live mix and processing with VDMX software (which he created) and I am controlling the live cameras, using a PTZ camera controller, which looks a bit like a video game joystick. My live shots are fed into Johnny’s master mix and he pulls these shots up onto the big screen during moments when the performers are doing solos. Each night the set lasts for 2 hours and we are working the screen for the entire show, alternating between video clips, animation, live real-time effects and the live cameras. ...Breakdown is intense, as the stage is suddenly filled with the local crew (who have been waiting in the wings) and everyone is pulling cables and disassembling and packing everything on stage. ... Usually there are fans waiting at the edge of the stage begging for a copy of the set list from that night’s show or hoping for discarded guitar pick or drumstick. But I stay focused on my task, which is to disconnect my cameras’ cables and get them off the stage as quickly as possible. ... One of us from team video must stay and monitor the load-out until every one of our cases are back on the truck. ... While there is a little unwinding to be done when the work is all done, eventually we all head for our bunks as the bus pulls out.

Portland or Bust

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-07T11:53:41-04:00

For the next 10 days we will be posting from Portland, Oregon where we will attend the Time Based Arts Festival hosted by the Portland Contemporary for Contemporary Art and catch some of the shows that are part of this weekend's Musicfest NW

Barge Music

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-05T13:08:25-04:00

For the past year a few of us have been talking about creating a mobile cinema that will tour the US either via boat or RV. We have been brainstorming about funding sources for this endeavor and dreaming about what it will look like. So given all this planning for the future- I knew that I just had to stop while I was passing through New Haven, CT to check out Point Counterpoint II. This is the music barge that was designed by the architect Louis Kahn in the 1970s for the conductor/ captain Robert Boudreau and the American Wind Symphony Orchestra. I first heard about this amazing vessel in My Architect, the movie about the life and work of Louis Kahn, made by his son. The center portion of this 195 foot barge consists of the stage and the living quarters are on either side. The stage is concealed while traveling by a steel canopy that rises up on large hydraulic lifts, creating a roof to cover the performers. There is an echo of this hydraulic stage in the Frank Geary designed Concert Hall located within Millennium Park, Chicago. It is also exciting to think about Jennifer Siegal/ OMD's Globetrotter mobile theater design as a contemporary take on Boudreau & Kahn's vision. I wish I knew the status of the boat- as it seemed slightly out of commission sitting in the New Haven harbor. Hopefully it will leave the North East before the winters come, as I would love to see this structure come to life! photo by Michael Martin

Summer Vacation- Finally!

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-09-01T15:23:31-04:00

"There is No Place Just Like This Place Anywhere Near This Place So This Must Be The Place." We are on a beach vacation in Guilford, CT-- home of 'The Place'. BYOB and pull up a stump to sit upon, because as they say "magic happens when you roast clams on a wood fire". Opened in 1966, this alfresco restaurant cooks everything over a 20-foot-long fireplace. Students who work there start out at the corn station; after a year or two they are moved to lobsters. All other fire-roasted entrees- steak, salmon, chicken, bluefish, and the clams- are cooked at the front of the fireplace by those with the most experience.

Have bike will travel

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-30T13:36:15-04:00

Having fully embraced this nomadic lifestyle, Johnny & I decided that it was time for some bikes. Yesterday we purchased a pair of Dahon folding bikes & they are an amazing design. This morning we spent two hours riding along the Hudson River, on the West Side Waterfront Greenway path and then pedaled home for lunch. Yesterday we rode around Central Park, where we spotted Brad Pitt riding in a horse and buggy, surrounded by paparazzi. I cannot wait to explore cities all over the world on these folding bikes. We also ordered the Airporter suitcase, which allows us to check the bikes as luggage when we fly and store them in the bus bay while on tour.

Upcoming European tour

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-29T07:16:40-04:00

Aug 27- Sept 4 - New York City ...Time Based Arts Festival at PICA & The Affair at the Jupiter Art Fair Wed Sept 26 - Ice Hall - Helsinki, Finland ...Tue Oct 2- Torwar Hall- Warsaw, Poland Thurs Oct 4 - Lotto Arena - Antwerp, Belgium ...Thu Oct 11- Carling Glasgow Academy- Glasow, UK Fri Oct 12- Carling Apollo- Manchester, UK Sat Oct 13- Wembley Arena- London, UK ...Thurs Oct 25- Land Rover Arena- Bologna, Italy Fri Oct 26- Palaottomatica- Roma, Italy Sat Oct 27- Palasport- Andria, Italy Mon Oct 29- DatchForum- Milano, Italy Tue Oct 30- Palasport- Padova, Italy ...Fri Nov 9- Newport Centre- Wales, UK Sat Nov 10- Civic Hall- Wolverhampton, UK Sun Nov 11- King George's Hall- Blackburn, UK

Love from Jersey

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-24T17:20:56-04:00

THIS PLACE IS HUGE !!

Video Killed the Radio Star

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-24T10:13:36-04:00

As we approach New York City and the end of this US tour leg, I am thinking alot about music videos. Maybe it is because I am a first generation MTV kid, reared by Martha Quinn on the "I want my MTV" slogan? Last year when we toured with Thomas Dolby, it was amazing to see the crowd react to his Blinded me with Science video-still fresh after so many years. Dolby is a first generation MTV rock star. But times have changed and MTV's recent shift to "reality shows" holds little interest for me. Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry are today's masters of music videos. Also Warp Films, a digital film studio in the UK that is connected to Warp Records and Cunningham is working on some interesting projects. Closer to home, Portland-based filmmaker Matt McCormick has recently made good videos for some West Coast bands. Perhaps the most interesting development in the genre is how YouTube allows us to mine this evolution in AudioVisual history. The first video to be played on MTV was Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles. ...talking heads - Once in a Lifetime http://www.youtube.com/watch? ...talking heads - Burning Down the House http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=6oVuLJS_Eok&mode=related&search= ...http://www.youtube.com/watch?

Time Lapse Load In

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-20T09:39:23-04:00

In Detroit we took this time lapse series to document the Load In process. This particular day was not as dramatic as a Load In that takes place in a big hockey arena, where there is only a big platform in the center of the room when we arrive. But this old theater was a beautiful reminder of Detroit's boom-times . The quicktime movie is a bit like an electronic flipbook. We are planning to take another series this week, which will go from the moment we arrive on-site until the end of the show- almost 12 hours later. As of today, we have 7 days left on the US leg of the tour!

Super towers of the future

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-18T10:19:08-04:00

Today we are playing at an outdoor amphitheater in Toronto, which stands in the shadow of the The CN Tower, "Canada's wonder of the world". This tower was built in 1976 and is still the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, although a proposed tower in Dubai is set to surpass it in 2009. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Toronto was a booming 'City of the Future' (much like Dubai today) and the tower was a potent symbol of the strength of Canadian industry. The CV Tower has even been named one of the Seven Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. There are several other significant towers in the world, but Berlin & Seattle have my two favorites. Berlin's TV Tower/ Fernsehturm was built between 1965 and 1969 by the former German Democratic Republic, as a monument to the power of Socialism in Germany. On my 30th birthday, Jdk & I went up there to celebrate while looking down upon the dynamic Alexanderplatz and surrounding Berlin. The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington was built in 1962 for the World's Fair and stands as a reminder of the sci-fi Future City, a vision that looks so retro today.

Canadian Carnyland

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-16T15:09:25-04:00

Crossed the US border to play our first state fairground show in the rain

Rock Gods

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-14T18:34:26-04:00

When we arrived in Baltimore this morning, I was surprised that it did not look like a set from a John Water’s film. The waterfront area where we are tonight looks more like Boston or Annapolis with mega-shops, restaurants, and sailboats. You know, nice but a little dull. So I found a bookstore and picked up Metallica and Philosophy: A Crash Course in Brain Surgery, which claims “Metallica is the “thinking man’s” metal band and the headbanger’s CNN”. Not sure if this Professor of Popular Culture will deliver on bringing me into the fold of Metallica’s music via theory, but I figured that if I was ever going to read this book, being on the road with a metal band was the right time to do it. We leave the US tonight for Quebec City – Viva La Quebec! Photo by Bill Worsham, my bus mate from the lighting team

Txt Me L8r is coming to an end

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-14T18:18:04-04:00

This crowdsourced exhibition is coming to its grand finale on August 24 at the Houston Center for Photography. If you cannot attend the opening/ closing party, you can look at the photos throughout the month on the flickr site

Hello Cleveland

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-11T18:03:35-05:00

The weather here is amazing with a light breeze and sunshine. It feels like a real beach day. We are playing tonight at an outdoor arena along the river and throughout the day Great Lake tankers and tour boats have been passing by the venue. They make me long to live aboard a houseboat- trading in the dirt and grime of the highway for the open seas.

Video World

breeedwards@mac.com — 2007-08-10T14:29:51-05:00

This photo of us was taken by Andrea Grover, while she was hanging out backstage in Houston. We arrived in Chicago this morning & since it is a union theater, we had to wait on their guys to set up our gear. This makes for a slow moving morning, but it is much easier on the body. Our video show has been getting better and better each night and we are now using the live cameras throughout the entire show. On occasion we do still miss a cue, but for the most part, I think we are really starting to rock! Today I learned that artist, Bill Viola designed the video for a Nine Inch Nails tour in early 2000. I hear they produced a DVD of that tour, which I will have to look for. Rolling rolling rolling - we leave for Cleveland tonight and have the day off in Detroit on Sunday!