It's a pleasure to write about another web-based art project out of Portland. Local artist Ethan Hamm has created EmailErosion.org as a kind of John Cage inspired, spam effected study in information entropy. Yes you can see it live at the Art Institute of Portland February 2nd but I think the online version with webcam updates every 10 seconds will be more like watching an online art execution... and therefore more interesting. Made possible by a grant from Rhizome.org

The Oregonian's art blog penned by TJ Norris, is it art? (scroll down), has a nice interview with budding art impresario Gavin Shettler. Ok, the whole; I'm not a curator but I know some people who think they might be curators and I talk to them and they think I'm a curator... attitude wears a little thin. We don't need more art, so much as more opportunities to display good art in Portland and that does take having an eye (just to figure out who else has an eye). I've harped on the Portland Art Center before but it looks like they are improving their programming through subcontracting out to the Portland Modern publication and deviating from their previous 2 year schedule. This latest PM issue is excellent, where the previous two, although well intentioned were uneven or worse. Lets hope PAC ups their ante like Portland Modern has, and they do seem to be more responsive to valid critiques than some other orgs in town. These wondertwins will combine their powers on First Thursday too through an exhibit at PAC and the nearby Ogle Gallery. Shape of a bucket of water... form of an eagle!

Lastly, since we are talking about curators Edward Winkleman has a great post on his curator of the month while Tyler Green discusses why MOCA's Ecstasy show is so nice in part 2. It's true New York museum shows often feel cloistered, whereas many MOCA shows have a nice expansive quality.... lets call it free-range arting. Actually so many museum shows are micromanaging crowd dynamics now they make me feel like a molecule of water in a fluidynamics experiment... I'd prefer museums be more than "cultural plumbing."

Oh yes and latest my critical i article is out as well.

I am very interested in this Email Erosion project. It seems like one of those pieces that can either be fantastic, or else abysmal. No grey area.

Also, nice article on Drizzle, Jeff. All the info in there is basically common sense, but I suppose most artists arent exactly "common sense" kind of people. It is an interesting read.

I'm glad to see that "Email Erosion" has sparked some interest.

There were some issues that arose at the last minute that is preventing the installation from having Internet access in the gallery... which is catastrophic for artwork that is supposed to be triggered by email.

For the opening event we simply had the installation function at random, but at this point we have it shut down until we can resolve the Internet connection issue. I expect sometime next week it will be up & running again. I'll post an announcement on the project website at www.emailerosion.org when that happens.

"Email Erosion" will also be part of an online exhibition next month that is being hosted by Rhizome.org... So there will be an opportunity to see the installation (at a physical location to be determined) in March as well. We're viewing February as something of a "beta-test" for the installation.

In the Art Institute gallery we have another biodegradable foam sculpture that visitors are asked to directly sculpt by spraying it with colored water (instead of doing it indirectly via email to a robotic artwork). The human-powered artwork wasn't impacted by a lack of an internet connection... which leaves us with a real John Henry outcome.

Ethan
www.emailerosion.org
www.ethanham.com