What is What

BELOW are a few recent photos. I try and focus on some thought or statement with these. Bank Owned is particularly relevant to this era where taxpayers are giving money to a government that is paying banks that fail billions to stay afloat while regular folk suffer with unemployment and degradaton of their quality of life. The McMansion on the right side of the frame is an icon of the banking debacle and wild nature in the distance puts it all in scale.

Salt Lake City Utah

Pittsburgh, PA

INNOVATION and ACCIDENT. This past spring I taught a semester long course at Pennsylvania State University called Innovation and Accident. The course involved some reading, some development of tools to define failures in communication and to then address those failures via innovative solutions. The course peaked with a student presentation of different approaches and strategies to problems they defined within their own very personal landscape. The solutions final class involved a group outing to a Nuclear Reactor site used for research on the edge of the main campus of the school.

I was sent these images by VIDF with no information about the photographer. photos by Chris Randle. ChrisRandle.com.  The stills are from my performance of Spatial Theory at the Vancouver International Dance Festival. I performed the evening length work two nights. I believe these stills are from the first night because the audience was so interactive and one of them threw me a bottle to have a drink during the section of the show where I keep crashing. Anyway I will update the site with the photographers name when I find out.

Images from my recent trip through Sweden.

ABOVE: Driving down the east coast of Sweden I came to this lovely bridge with a smooth underbelly.. being from the city of Steel and Bridges I had to jump off the E4 and capture the structural beauty of this amazing bridge

ABOVE: My host in Stockholm Dansens Hus. photo by Arto just in case you missed how low the camera was to the ground.

spatiotemporality is a solo exhibit by Bill Shannon at DNA galleries featuring two video installation works, (clik thru for vids ) "Bench" a three channel six camera composited in the round street capture and "The Evolution of William Foster Shannon" a 20 Screen video wall documenting and mixing the diversity of performance and video projects over the past 20 years. The works are on display thru June 18th daily from 10am to 8pm 53 Chambers st.

The event is called AfterHours.  I will be showing a new video sculpture that is site specific to the HH plaza courtesy of Douz and Mille and performing live dance and performance with a select group of dancers, DJs and VJ.

here is the link to tickets and more info. http://hirshhorn.si.edu/afterhours

I am very excited about the new content. Still editing the video to get the right look and choice speeds. using Adobe AfterEffects to enhance my Final Cut.. a world of difference.  This image  is a good indication of the fractured multi-angle reimagination of the dance that the work inhabits. its a shape shifting as if looking through a prism reimagination of the body. editing the Crik footy now. thanks to Douz and Mille and DNA

ABOVE: Artist and Dancer, "Cricket" performing in front of the capture rig at Dance New Amsterdam for a new untitled video installation work in progress

ABOVE: Classic "Wall Stall "  executed in a Falling Style   Shannon Technique 2010 photo : BC

The basic trick sequence involved in the "Wall Stall" from Shannon Technique is to plant the vertical 
oriented crutch ahead of your body and lift into it as you are also dropping the horizontal crutch down. 
Holding onto the horizontal crutch with your armpit tightly is essential because it will be bearing weight 
of the freeze which wants to push the crutch saddle out of its hold. Once your armpit is tight on the 
horizontal crutch you can drop your weight into it with a hip hold or a lobar toe thread.  While you are
placing the horizontal crutch you are also dropping weight out of the lift into your vertical crutch. Your 
arm over the vertical crutch should immeidately slide out of the saddle position and into an elbow saddle 
hold as the horizontal crutch is now in place to take the weight. Once your hip is rested on the 

ABOVE: Classic "Wall Stall "  executed in a Bboy Uprock Style   Shannon Technique 2010 photo : BC 


horizontal crutch and your elbow saddle hold is in position on the vertical crutch you can tweak the 
freeze variations while using your weight against the wall to stay secure. Here is where you grimace or
go no-handed no-footed etc. .. This holding of the freeze will be fun until your armpits bleed and the inside 
of your elbow is bruised real good. all dancing hurts a little doesnt it?  NEVER QUIT  To exit out of a "wall 
stall" you have what I call a" rewind"  in which you simply pull your weight back up into the vertical crutch to 

ABOVE: Still from BENCH, intersection of GRAND and WOOSTER, MANHATTAN NYC JULY 2008. I chose this as a still because it shares in one frame the public gaze ( as embodied in the driver ) and a reflection on the surface of the car of my video capture and mobility apparatus.

While I was editing a new version of my 2008 video and performance work "Bench" today I realized I might want to share more what is happening in my creative work even if it is a small thing.  This BENCH piece I have featured here previously and have installed as an "in-the-round" work. Now I am recreating an HD single screen composite of the video. I want this edit to be seen especially as it includes a new landscape arrangement of the six channels that pulls all the screens in one continuous line. I enjoy this aspect of the video because it ties together front and rear more intuitively. This work may be included in a museum group show which I will not disclose yet until confirmed. Its deadline time.

ABOVE: Streets of Manhattan Winter

The crisp light and air of a dry northeastern winter's day beckons me to don all manner of warm clothing and partake of all manner of painkillers and break out into the streets for a deep session of the dancing and skating hybrid I have dubbed Steppin' Roll.  I truly appreciate the onset of winter because it frees the streets of laggard indecisive pedestrians, recreational skaters or bicyclist and gawkers. In the gift that is winter most pedestrians in the street are trudging in a straight line hurriedly often running to just get back to their warmth and cover. The bikers on the street at say, 15 degrees Fahrenheit, are almost all very experienced and there are veritably no street skaters out. The frigid days of winter also keeps people in their vehicles behind glass eliminating the habit of spewing some unintelligible crap from the open window that would, during summer, sneak into my flow just under my headphone volume level to inform me of their presence.

blackbook cellphone grabs

ABOVE: My first draft illustration of a useful seated position for a pedestrian crutch user. This depiction of the elbow lo-mid holding position leaves the individual hands free while the nested crutches function as a casual arm rest. This position is especially useful at crowded events such as parties and concerts. It has been my experience that not only will drunk or high people find a way to trip on a crutch tucked into a corner but they are also likely to pick up the crutches and "have a go" at them without asking first. This seated while holding position makes both of those regretable scenarios far less likely. .. more drawings after the jump...

This is Stepping Roll. I created the root of this form to simply walk long distances while living in Chicago. The skating depicted in this video is me pushing the boundaries of what I am capable of and not an everyday type of activity for me. I do want to get this style on tape and uploaded for the world to enjoy and hopefully adopt. So clik thru for the background info.

When I create what I would consider "Performance Art" it is a far cry from my dancing that is known all over the world. While the dancing is artistic and performance based, for my purposes its many manifestations loosely fall into overlapping categories of dance, drama, action sports and clowning. I realize when having to write about this latest performance/video installation project that for some gut based reason it is only the really hard to process performance work, the type of performance that leans on the audience, that I would describe without hesitation as "Performance Art." When it comes to real down and dirty "Performance Art", the ART and my life are intertwined so closely that it would be nearly impossible for me to write about or consider them independently.

ABOVE: Invisible Series #4  NEW ANGLES AND FOOTAGE

and WITH ALL THE PAIN I AM DEALING WITH .. IT IS STARTING TO LOOK VERY APPEALING.. too bad it typically does not last more than ten years..this is a less bloody example.

ABOVE: total hip replacement how to video.. dont try this at home and dont try this without good medical insurance and dont try this when you can bear the pain and or limitation of what you were born with.

Took a very quick run into the streets today to do a promotional photo with a very important photographer to my career. Brian Cummings. it was a rush but we got something in the can. Here are some pics.

ABOVE: Top Rocking old school hand style utilizing Shannon Technique for Dance on Crutches in a saddle to wrist-hi-mid split. photo: Brian Cummings

ive done more writing on this than i can publish yet.. still cutting away at it. suffice it to say my work is not always uplifiting nor is it always celebratory or funky, sometimes, as in the case of this piece the work is meditiative and almost still. but no matter what the work is i promise you, dear audience, it is always coming from a real place and is an authentic document .

ABOVE: the ringing of the bell  ( composited stills )

ABOVE: "Invisible Series #4"  9' x 10' x 10'  7 channels sd video synchronous projections, color / stereo

ABOVE: technical assistant and all around great guy Will locking down some rigging and looking as if he is immersed in the work..

well i thought i would do better buti have not posted in ages. been working on a new video sculpture. this work can be used in both live and prerecorded ways. this version is a gallery project so the work will be recorded and compressed for motion triggered looping playback..holoscreens, micro-projectors, lighting, spatial balancing, performance, compression.. etc etc etc.. click through for pics and a blink of a video test. back soon with more writings and work.