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Berkeley, CA
2006 - 2007
Inspired by an anomalous radio signal detected
by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the First Intergalactic Art
Exposition introduced the public to abstract art from elsewhere in the cosmos,
and broadcast terrestrial abstraction to audiences throughout the universe.
"San Francisco-based artist Jonathon Keats often becomes so fluent in
scientific systems that he pushes extreme rationality into the zone of
absurdity," Irene Wu wrote about the exhibition in Rhizome News. "His larger project deals
with the culture of investigation, the sibling sciences of transmission and
decryption, and a meditation of what data gets discarded, valorized, or reified
in our culture."
View
the short documentary by Benjamin Pierce.
San Francisco, CA
2007
Speculations
presented the first public offering of vacation properties in the six extra
dimensions of space posited by string theory. One hundred and seventy-two
extra-dimensional subdivisions in the San Francisco Bay Area were sold, all in
the one- to two-figure price range. A walk-in architectural model of Tesseract
House -- the ideal four-dimensional home away from home -- was exhibited
together with comprehensive architectural blueprints. In a review for Flash Art, Marcia Tanner wrote that Speculations
"combines scientific assumptions, epistemological investigations, and
sociocultural observation, pushing them to their reductio ad absurdum limits.
.... Ultimately, the piece
addresses Martin Heidegger’s fundamental philosophical question -- “Why is
there something rather than nothing?” -- in terms of artistic practice and the
artist’s role, but with a delicate jab to our ribs."
Hear the public radio interview with Nathanael Johnson.
My Cage (Silence for Cellphone)
2007
My Cage is a four minute and thirty-three second
interlude of digital silence distributed free as a cellphone ringtone. Bootlegging
John Cage's 4'33", My Cage provides an experience technically more perfect
than Cage's live silence. A remastering, "My Cage" is also a remix,
introducing serendipity, delivering performances unpredictably, whenever calls
come unexpectedly. The silence may take place without the listener being aware
of it. Or the listener may hear a call - phantom silence - when there's no one
on the line. Reviewing My Cage for Sequenza
21. Galen Brown called it "both hilarious and brilliant....
Cage’s recontextualization of silence/environmental noise is taken to a new
extreme."
See the public response on Annalee Newitz's Wired Blog.