International Networked Performance

In partnership with the 2010 FUSEBOX FESTIVAL and New York City based artist/curator Jorge Rojas Co-Lab presents Low Lives 2 featuring:

A 2010 Streaming Class Portrait
Since 1999 Michael Smith has been taking his students to the Sears Portrait Studio to sit for a group class portrait, a picture that later may become their only memento and reminder  of a semester spent together with Professor Smith. For Smith, it is not only a reminder of time spent with his class it is also and a not so subtle reminder of years passing. When looking over a group of the Sears Class Portraits it’s apparent that the project is a chronicle of aging, the students stay the same age as Smith gets older.
For Low Lives 2, Smith and his performance art students will animate the Sears Sessions and sit together for a live tableau vivant portrait for online viewers. Quiet and still, the sitters will attempt to hold their poses and freeze a moment in time.

About Low Lives:
Now in its second year, Low Lives is a one-night exhibition of live performance-based works transmitted via the internet and projected in real time at numerous venues throughout the U.S.  Low Lives examines works that explore the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. These networks, though seldom utilized for performance art, provide a new alternative and efficient medium for presenting and viewing performances. 

Organized and curated by Brooklyn-based artist and curator, Jorge Rojas, Low Lives embraces works with a lo-fi aesthetic such as low pixel image and sound quality, contributing to a raw, DIY and sometimes voyeuristic quality in the transmission and reception of the work. The international artists and artist collectives participating in this exhibition will transmit their performances from countries including Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Singapore Trinidad & Tobago and from the following cities in the United States: Austin, TX; Houston, TX; Nashville, TN; NYC, NY; Miami, FL; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Las Vegas, NV; Gunnison, CO; San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL and Los Angeles, CA. 

“Low Lives is about not simply the presentation of performative gestures at a particular place and time but also about the transmission of these moments and what gets lost, conveyed, blurred, and reconfigured when utilizing this medium,” states Curator Jorge Rojas. Rojas, whose artwork has increasingly involved performative elements and live video streaming networks, proposed this exhibition to each of the presenting partners because of their commitment to experimental art, performance art, new media and framing local and international art-making.

Artists include: Amelia Winger-Bearskin, Lawrence Graham-Brown, Hector Canonge, Alexis Caputo, Vienne Chan, Osvaldo Cibils, Gabrielle Civil, Marcus Civin, Chris Coy, The Bridge Club, Francesca Fini, Linda Ford, Lynne Heller, Anni Holm, Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa AKA Devil Bunny, Las Hermanas Iglesias, Michelle Isava, Tina La Porta, Elizabeth Leister, Luke Munn, Olek, Wanda Ortiz, Jacklyn Soo, Michael Smith, Sam Trubridge with Rob Appierdo & Stuart Foster, Migdalia Luz Barens-Vera, Marcus Vinicius, Martin Zet, Agni Zotis.

As a new addition to this year’s exhibition, presenting partners contributed to the curatorial process and evening’s program by presenting a live performance at their venues. The following artists and venues will present live performances on the night of the event:
Lawrence Graham-Brown-Co-presented by Aljira and El Museo del Barrio
Michael Smith- Co-presented by Co-Lab and Fusebox Festival
Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa AKA Devil Bunny-Presented by Galeria de la Raza
Alexis Caputo- Presented by Diaspora Vibe Gallery
Gabrielle Civil-Presented by Obsidian Arts
Marcus Civin- Presented by The Temporary Space

Low Lives 2 will be presented at the following venues:
El Museo del Barrio: 1230 5th Avenue, NYC - 8:00pm – 11:00pm  
Galeria de la Raza: 2857 24th Street, SF - 5:00pm – 8:00pm  
Diaspora Vibe Gallery: 3938 North Miami Ave., Miami – 8:00pm – 11:00pm  
The Temporary Space: 1320 Nance St., Houston - 7:00pm – 10:00pm  
Obsidian Arts: 3501 Chicago Avenue South, Minneapolis - 7:00pm – 10:00pm  
Terminal: APSU- Clarksville - 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Co-Lab: 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Studio 304: 304 Boerum St., Brooklyn - 8:00pm – 11:00pm  
Live Broadcast: www.ustream.tv/channel/low-lives-2 - 8:00 – 11:00pm (EST)

About FUSEBOX:
The Fusebox Festival presents contemporary art and performance that spans form and geography. The festival acts as a catalyst for new ideas, new artistic models, new languages and approaches to help us better fully engage with the issues and questions that define and inspire us as artists and audiences.

Fusebox is an annual contemporary art and performance festival that takes place in Austin, TX each April. This year’s dates are April 21 - May 2.

For Information and Tickets visit www.fuseboxfestival.com

About Michael Smith:
Michael Smith is a video/performance/installation artist known for his eponymous performance persona named Mike, the central figure in an ongoing series of large-scale narrative based projects.  Mike, an innocent who continually falls victim to trends and fashions while traversing an imperfect landscape, allows Smith to create an unsettling mixture of humor and pathos while commenting on discrepancies and absurdities in our culture. 

Smith has shown his work extensively around the US and Europe at a variety of venues including museums, galleries, universities, festivals, nightclubs, on television and in the streets. In New York City he has had solo shows and screenings at The Whitney Museum, The New Museum, The Leo Castelli Gallery, The Christine Burgin Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art.  In 2007-08 Smith’s retrospective “Mike’s World: Solo and Collaborative Works by Michael Smith and Joshua White (& other collaborators)” was exhibited at the Blanton Museum in Austin and at The ICA in Philadelphia. Smith was included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial and “The Pictures Generation: 1974-1984”, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Fall 2009, he and Mike Kelley presented “A Voyage of Growth and Discovery” at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, NY. 

Michael Smith received his Bachelor of Arts from The Colorado College and attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program.  He has taught in the Master of Fine Arts programs at Yale, Cranbrook, UCLA, Art Center, Columbia, CalArts and is currently an associate professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.

He has received numerous awards including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and most recently from The Center for Advanced Visual Studies at M.I.T, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation.

www.mikes-world.org