What is What

ABOVE: Abnormal Smoke from Reactor # 2 Oct 22nd smoke @ 1:05. Fukushima

particle and jetstream maps after the jump

 

ABOVE: Dance Delight Magazine Cover Shot 1999 This came out right when I was first hitting New York hip-hop and jungle clubs. Basically I went wherever the circle was alive. Eventually I discovered how crazy the Club Shelter Circles were under Robbie Promoter with Timmy and many other stellar house Dj's. Up until Shelter I was never that much into house music but progressive vocal house was a whole new world. So danceable and Funky.

click thru for the interview

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ABOVE: interview in Japanese

ABOVE: Video Documentation of TRAFFIC from my trilogy of street works that are designed to preserve the authenticity of my interactions with pedestrians, crowds and traffic in the street.  The " ticketed" audience rides along for direct observation of me in the street as I work with whatever situation comes along, be it kinetic sociological or stylistic. Chicago Trib review and more after the jump

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ABOVE: HOW TO HANG YOUR HAT ON A CRUTCH WHEN A CORNER IS AVAILABLE AND THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE ELSE TO HANG IT.

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ABOVE: original notebook scan. Illustrated Notes on Cultural Phenomenology; The Condition Arriving and notions of invisibility within its context. I have posted this same image in the 2D section of this site but it is cleaned up of all the writing.

ABOVE: an excerpt from Traffic: Chicago. "my left foot" means for the bus to speed up..

This text about Traffic I have cut and pasted from a grant proposal and modified slightly -after the jump-

THISISWHATIS "Traffic"

ABOVE: A graphic I created for a project that I never realized .. a project about personal space in the digital era.. the title was "mywirelessistouchingyou" I think the graphic is pretty cool, not stellar or anything just funny and provocative.

I keep dancing to stay sane, to stay grounded. I touch the ground. I have little else to hold forth against the tide of misery besetting the world at the hands of gangsters protecting scientist with fancy titles and technical arguments.These nuclear scientist are stone cold. Playing We-can-make-it-state-of-the-art.

Fukushima HORROR OF HORRORS.. WHAT DARK DEATH HAS BESET OUR MOTHER. GE YOU BRING GOOD THINGS TO DARKNESS.

Hubris. They can play GOD. But, when it comes to nuclear power, there is no art in the balance of failures to innovations only human tragedies hidden under layers of loud blanketing lies and obfuscations.

ABOVE: THE LOGIC BEING HUMANS HAVE ACCIDENTS BUT NUCLEAR SCIENTIST DONT

 

ABOVE: Working on some new stuff in a studio before taking it to the world..here is a still. The grey tubes are super light weight foam recycled from thrown out materials in Brooklyn. I like the antlike relativity of scale that the large bundle places my body in. Taking it out of the street context to share it in this studio theater backdrop isolates the design of the character. Variations after the jump.

Photos: Brian Cummings 2011

ABOVE: A Sweeper-Kickout Crossed-Up Heel-Hold No-Handed Rotation performed in Helsinki in the year 2002. A highly technical combination move that is near impossible to pull off beyond a 360. A progression from Sweepers combined with the kickout and heel-hold moves.

ABOVE: A video laying out the basics of Shannon Technique recorded around 5 years ago. I need to upres this on Vimeo but in the meantime its really all about the content.

Credits:

Concept: Bill Shannon, Production Bevis Evans-Teush, Camera Dave Burns, Production Assistant Clyde Jones
Special Thanks: Heather Lynch, Leah Lizarondo and Iffith

ABOVE: A video of The Sweeper-Spin (starts at :09) edited to show progression from Standard Sweeper. ( see Introduction to Shannon Technique for context )  The move reflects technical progression by way of physical limitation. For more writing about this lopsided progression of my dance Clik " read more" below.

ABOVE: I know I have posted several versions of this video work however I am preparing a new shoot and am editing it in different ways to try and figure out the best strategy for the live shoot. Some lighting issues and the slight jiggle of the rig are two problems that will be solved in the next version of this series ( as opposed to the next edit of the existing series) Hang on to the end for some extras and B-Roll stuff.

I recently Performed in Torino Italy. I was performing primarily for pedestrians, tourists and local people who happened to pass me by. My Italian language skills being next to nothing forced me to stick to entirely non-verbal means.

ABOVE: With the right angle and framing a George Romero horror narrative emerges from a lighthearted moment of creative improvisation with the environment and random people. Chance is my guide and light my primary subject. It always has been. Photo by Andrea Macchia

 

 

 

ABOVE: This is a still of me communing with a canine audience member in Pittsburgh a few years back. Posting this up because I am looking forward to my European street performances coming up this spring 2011.

ABOVE: BENCH Alternate Edit

ABOVE: i have been dumpster diving a sign store now for years now and I am completely out of space to store anymore. I have enough letters now to write out a new message in three foot high letters of varied fonts. The truth is I love making multi-channel surround and multi-channel composite video works but lately I have fallen back into a place where the physical handmade object is reborn in the spirit of my imagination. - cont.-  I truly hate the materialism of it all when it comes to the video installation challenge. Conversely I see the material of rusted thrown out garbage decaying to a point where it becomes alive.

BELOW: Warsaw, Poland. A bas-relief of a mother with child from the socialist realism era within Poland slowly decays in the acidic rain as a late capitalist cultural force represented by ZORK leaves its global human scrawl beneath it.

ABOVE: POLAND a quick pic of the Warsaw Center City. I am performing at www.cialoumysl.pl with DJ Brian Coxx

I have been taking lots of pictures long before the digital era when I was given a Kodak instamatic rectangular black box. Now with the ability to share it has changed the game for me. In earlier years a contact sheet was printed negatives stored away and that was it. If an image was particularly well done I would give it to my friend who worked at a lab and he would print them 8 by 10 color on the side for free. Each image now is a passing thought whereas before it was a work that earned its right to be printed. I love photography. I am not a photgrapher.