What is What

Here is a REVIEW of the full show.

BELOW: playing in the studio in the run up to the opening

"Little Friends" - Bill Shannon 2013 12guage brass plate w/patina cut and formed 3"x2"

This post is intended to be a roundup of recent activities and not the final word on any of the works here.

ABOVE: "Liquid Light" Site Specific Video and Performance at Long Pond, Wellfleet MA presented as a part of Fleetmoves Dance Festival 2013. photo by Whitney Brown. This work focused on the kinetic nature of the video rig and its placement in a large body of water to allow for a live birdseye view of my continuous circuitous performance in the water for the camera above. I wanted to show and perform the fluidity of my many years of swimming to the audience on the shore. The only sport of my childhood years that was medically approved. "Dancer in Chair" and new street persona after the jump.

Above: Used Dance Shirt. Part of showing of work at Dance New Amsterdam. Just occured to me I need a "performance artifiact" tag

Above: Inspired by the Cubist painting movement This piece remixes the mundane architectural details of the space that surrounds it. I built this piece over the past six months at home, Tech Shop Pittsburgh and Dance New Amsterdam. Still creating new content for it. 10'x10'x8'

ABOVE: temporary arrangement of found objects and fabricated elements untitled

I have fabricated several small metal characters in light metals like brass, silver and thin sheet steel over the years. I have taken these small creations and built or arranged little worlds that the characters I fabricated then exist in. I change these micro-installations...

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.

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.

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.

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: 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.

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