art

AL GORE: Green Energy by 2018 (7/17 Speech)

Yesterday Al Gore Spoke in Washington DC to issue a generational challenge to repower America. He wants to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years. Here’s the a simple example of why we have to do it, as the same issue is causing economic, national security, and environmental chaos.

We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we’re holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

Check out we can solve it for more info on how to get the word out, and make lifestyle changes. Now the next step is to start thinking about how to make The Fantastic Solution to Global Warming actually happen.

Pete Ippel’s “The Fantastic Solution to Global Warming”
Let’s get some funding for green science!

Technorati Tags: art, artist, environment, california, carbon dioxide, contemporary, diamonds, exhibition, fantastic, global warming, green house gas, hypermodern, Icthus Gallery, Ippel, Mission, New Genres, Pete Ippel, photo, photography, San Francisco, solutions, sustainablilty, Video

I found these from my last semester at Cornell University when I was taking 29 credits and applying to grad school. I really had to prioritize, (the first time in my life since the 6th grade that I didn’t have track practice every day) hence my thesis show was named PRIORITIES. I’ve notated the results next to the goals.

1. Stay fit, 165 lbs. of twisted titanium (presently 161)
2. Finish graduate applications (accepted to SFAI, SAIC, and SVA)
3. Graduate (BFA art, BA psychology)
4. High jump 2.18 and constant over 2.06 (2.03m 2004 is my post collegiate PR )
5. Enjoy company of others (This is certainly an ongoing project)
6. Be true when deciding grad school (Um, I was true when I decided to live in San Francisco…SFAI was tough to deal with at times)
7. Thesis show that is amazing (check out PRIORITIES I was very happy with it)
8. Publish results from psych study (I had the stimulus drawings published, you can see what personal projects I was working on in the research section of hypermodern.net)
9. Get good hand care, no nail biting (this has come a long way, but I still bite rarely, especially during basketball season, than goodness for Orbit gum I really like Bubblemint)
10. All sport champions (Phi Delta Theta New York Alpha Chapter was second in 2002)
11. Turntables and DJ gigs. (Never got a gig, but did DJ some parties at CU, and used the turntables I got in my thesis video)

There are three main basics in economies of the past, let’s say 70 years ago (these are estimates scrawled on the back of an envelope).

1. Commodity (3%)
2. Goods (17%)
3. Services (80%)

Now there is a fourth.

4. Experience

Here’s how it plays out with Starbucks (again estimated on the back of an envelope).

1. Commodity - bean (pennies)
2. Goods - coffee ($.05 - $.20)
3. Services - paying employees ($.50 - $1.00)
4. Experience - sitting and reading, listening to music, comfy chair ($2.00 - $5.00)

Something to ponder the next time you sit down to the Venti double non-fat-soy-latte. Also are people buying art because they want to talk to the artist? This is what Damien Hirst is banking on.

Check out the book Experience Economy, or wikipedia

Hirst hopes to revolutionise art market with ‘Golden Calf’ - News, Art & Architecture - The Independent

a collection of previously unseen work by Damien Hirst that will be auctioned off this summer in a move that could revolutionise the sale of contemporary art.

A living artist has never before put a collection of brand new work straight on to the open market. Such pieces are usually sold through galleries and art dealers, usually to buyers who are known to them.

This method gives more control to the artist and opens up the sale to a much wider group of prospective buyers. Yesterday, art experts were predicting that the auction – the highlight of which is the gold calf, Hirst’s largest ever formaldehyde work – could mark a turning point in the way artists sell their work. Indeed, Hirst himself hinted that “the world’s changing – ultimately I need to see where this road leads”, adding that such an auction “[felt] like a natural evolution for contemporary art”.

GAAA! 12 million pounds to a single artist…how does Hirst get that market up so high? A true artrockstar, oh how I want to play these games…How about the goal of making the worlds most expensive piece of art…100 million dollars for the platinum skull covered in diamonds? Is it the fact that it’s produced by Hirst, the fact that it’s got material (diamonds and platinum) worth, or branding and marketing, a status symbol to own the most expensive and luxurious object…or is it as Tom Marioni has defined the artist as an individual “getting away with something”?

This is a quick once-around of “The Fantastic Solution to Global Warming and Other Conundrums” at Icthus Gallery in San Francisco. Thanks to Mark for the video.
The Fantastic Solution to Global Warming and Other Conundrums - Pete Ippel from Hypermodern - Pete Ippel on Vimeo.

The show is open until May 31st, 2008 so if you’re in the city, come by between 10am and 5pm weekdays. Or you can email me at pete @ hypermodern.net and schedule a special showing

I have been moving forward with my show installation bit by bit, and have been working on being diligent with my time while still having time to decompress and relax. Thank you for respecting my need to focus on myself a bit during this potentially stressful period.

I have keeping an old Chinese saying in mind, as excerpted from the Gold Mountain Monastery newsletter based here in San Francisco.

“I make my own destiny and seek my own fortune; fortune and misfortune are not predetermined but acquired by my own actions.”

The newsletter continues…

If we want to stop being muddled and attain understanding, we must first do our best to get rid of our bad habits and faults, for only then can our wisdom shine forth…

This day is already done,
And our lives are that much less.
We’re like a fish in an ever-shrinking pond.
What joy is there in this?
Great assembly!
We should be diligent and vigorous,
As if our own lives were at stake.
Only be mindful of impermanence,
And be careful not to be lax.

Moving forward, I do feel as though my artistic life is at stake at the moment, and I’m investing all my resources to make sure when the opening comes, I’m ready. Procrastination is a fault that I’m growing out of as I have more experience.

I’ve been handing out cards, getting photos ready, and making plans. I also just got a fortune cookie: “You believe in the goodness of mankind”. I do, and I’m excited to share in the joy more each day.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“The Fantastic Solution to Global Warming and Other Conundrums” An art show by Pete Ippel
May 16-31, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, May 16, 6-9 p.m. with DJ music and indoor-jumping photo souvenirs for guests. EDITORS: You, your reporters and photographers are welcome to cover the event.

Icthus Gallery
1769 15th Street (between Valencia and Guerrero), San Francisco, CA
Gallery hours, weekdays, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; weekends, by appointment
Admission, Free

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For more information, contact, Pete Ippel, artist
Phone, (415) 425-8863
E-mail, pete at hypermodern.net
Web site, http://www.hypermodern.net/archives/fsgw/

“The Fantastic Solution to Global Warming”, 40 x 60 inches (101 x 152 cm), gouache, ink, pencil, and watercolor on paper

SAN FRANCISCO, Monday, April 28, 2008 - The Fantastic Solution to Global Warming and other Conundrums is an exhibition of new artwork by San Francisco based artist and athlete Pete Ippel. In this collection of drawings, photographic prints, and videos he explores themes ranging from nuclear waste processing to the pairing of art and sport.

In Ippel’s brightly rendered, fantastical 2-D world, a box of lightning, some incandescent light bulbs, and a gigantic, biological-organic turbine are coupled with wind, tide, hydroelectric, nuclear, volcanic, solar, and geothermal power sources to sequester carbon dioxide. Under intense heat and pressure, in a star-powered fusion-cooker, diamonds are produced, thus solving the dilemmas of green house gases, vacant mines, and human rights issues associated with diamond mining.

The exhibition also highlights artifacts, photographic prints, and video informed by Ippel’s work as an athlete and a coach. After completing a successful collegiate track and field career as a high jumper in New York, Ippel made the move to San Francisco to pursue a Masters of Fine Art in the New Genres Department of the San Francisco Art institute.

It was here in the Bay Area, inspired by local artists Tony Labat and Tom Marioni, where Ippel began to craft projects that married his passion for jumping to his artistic practice.

“When I saw that Tony had devoted a year of his life to boxing, and Tom was drinking beer with friends in the name of art while making movement based drawing and prints I felt empowered,” said Ippel. “And I’ve been fortunate to spend time with both of them here in San Francisco. I really respect their work,” Ippel added.

“The Jump Series” grows out of the tradition of New Genres where actions are performed for the camera. The body of work is based on the premise that to push of one’s self off any surface and into the air by using the muscles in one’s legs and feet is a glorious and enjoyable act; essentially human flight. The modes of lift-off on display include skateboarding, high jumping, jumping off of architecture, leaping into panoramic scenes, jumping over objects, and choreographed jumps with other individuals. Ippel utilizes a tripod and a remote control or the camera’s self-timer to execute this body of performative photographs.

TSP Athletics, also on display, is a competitive vertical jumps team, social club, and acts as a collaborative vehicle to generate images of athletes in flight. It blurs boundaries between art and sport while acting as a vehicle to temper the shock of moving away from traditional competitive athletics.

“When you have something obscure like the high jump that has been your top priority for so many years, it’s foreign when it’s gone,” says Ippel. “Because I went directly to SFAI from Cornell, it was quite a challenge to no longer have the support of my team, nor be able to celebrate my athletic gifts in competition. I went through a real period of grief.” Ippel satiated his needs by creating a one-person team and traveling alone to meets a few times a year. “I made a uniform, started a website, and I kept in touch with my jumping peers. When I was at the meets after being away for so long, I started to see the beauty of the action and the camaraderie and wanted to capture it, and still keep it active in my life.”

The project has developed as an answer to what collegiate athletes do upon graduation to keep in touch, keep jumping, and make art.

Since its inception in 2004, TSP Athletics has grown to include former NCAA qualifiers and university record holders. Ippel’s plan is to produce limited-edition prints with participation by distinguished jumpers who are invited to be athletes-in-residence for TSP. In the frame of social sculpture these artists/athletes will each, contribute to the TSP Archive to add to its expanding collection of images and memorabilia.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Pete Ippel was born in Oak Park, Illinois, USA and has been surrounded by the arts since birth. He moved to Morris, Illinois in 1989 and started to participate in athletics rather than dance. After high school, Pete attended Cornell University where he earned a BA in psychology and a BFA in photo / digital art making. He continued to follow his sporting dreams in the high jump, which culminated in a school record leap of 7 feet 1/2 inch in 2001. In May 2004 he attained an MFA degree in the New Genres department of the San Francisco Art Institute. Presently Pete is a practicing artist whose work is in numerous private collections. He’s also the residence manager for the San Francisco Ballet, a fitness professional, coaches basketball and track at University High School, and still high jumps from time to time.

When I was a child, I was very adventurous. I have many scars on my body that remind me of stories…

I was born near Chicago Illinois in a small town called Oak Park.
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I lived at the corner of East Avenue and Randolph Street in an apartment with eight other families. Many of the families had children my age.

I was the only child in my family, had curly blond hair, I was tall for my age, and usually wore very colorful clothing. My mother shopped at used clothing stores, and bought me one pair of new shoes a year because I wore everything out so fast.

My parents made a rule that I was only allowed to watch one hour of television per day. The two shows I watched religiously were Alf and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. But I always wanted to watch more cartoons, and my parents said no.

Because of this restriction, my favorite thing to do when I was a child was play outside with my two best friends Gary and Sam

Every day the three of us would meet to ride our bikes around the front and side yards of the apartment. We invented all sorts of games. And spent a lot of time hanging from trees, and combining sports. The best one was baseball on roller-skates, I got a concussion, but that’s another story.

One day Sam was sick and I wanted to ply outside. I walked over to Gary’s door, rang the bell, and asked his mother “Can Gary come out to play?”

“Of course,” she replied, “but I have to go to the store, so can he stay over at your house later?”

“My mom said he’s welcome any time.”

Gary came out and we started looking for something to do. Around the corner, near the alley, was a shopping cart. We decided that it would be a great idea to give rides to each other. Gary was a year younger and a little smaller than I was. We decided that he should get the first ride, and I should push.

I had used a similar cart at our local grocery store, named Jewel. The cart was tall, awkward and rusty. The wheels didn’t roll straight, and the basket was bent to one side. It looked like a car had hit it.

Gary climbed in, and moved up to the front of the basket. He wrapped his fingers between the metal bars and got a good grip. He was bracing himself with his knees pressed into the front corner, and his head poked out and looked like a gargoyle.

Immediately I lunged at the orange handle, and started to push with all my strength. I began to run very fast. Gary and I were laughing together when all of the sudden there was a crack in the sidewalk. The cart stopped instantly, and the ejection of Gary’s body began. His fingers were still between the metal of the cart, and because of this, his feet went over his head and it looked like he was standing on his hands or diving into a swimming pool.

While Gary was upside down, my body stayed in the same path, and I crashed into the card with much force. Both of our bodies and the cart tangled into one great heap of metal and flesh. Gary landed on his face with the cart on top of him, and me on top of the cart. His cheek looked like ground beef.

Both of us got up with fear in our eyes…(but not because we were bleeding)

“Oh no! I ripped my pants and got blood on my shirt!” Gary shouted. “My mother is going to KILL me!”

Both of my palms were skinned, and I replied, “Well, try not to bleed on it…”

We thought and thought, and finally came up with a story of how we got hurt. And decided that falling out of a tree seemed reasonable. After all, Sam had broken his arm falling out of a tree earlier that year.

The door to my family’s un air-conditioned apartment was open to let in the fresh summer breeze so we just walked right in. I shouted up the stairs, “MoooOOOOoom, Gary fell out of a tree, and skinned his face.”

She reacted quickly and covered the wound with aloe and vitamin E, and for the rest of the day we got to stay inside and sit on the couch…

The biggest surprise to us, was that she never yelled about the clothes, the best part, for the rest of the day we got to watch all the television we wanted…

Pete Ippel utilizes a box of lightening, a gigantic biological-organic turbine, wind, tide, hydroelectric, nuclear, volcanic, solar, and geothermic power to sequester carbon dioxide and produce diamonds, thus solving the dilemma with the green house gas, carbon dioxide, vacant coal mines, and the problems with blood diamonds in Africa.

Materials: gouache, ink, pencil, watercolor
Dimensions: 40 x 60 inches (101 x 152 cm)

“In art, everything is a lie, and the facts of external reality are only a means to the greater guidence of the instincts” (120).
-Aaron Scharf Art and Photography

“…art is not just nature, but is the interpretation of nature through human feeling and human genius.”

-Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran

Pete_Ipp.jpg

Originally uploaded by hypermodern

Moving along with the Fantastic Solution to Global Warming…

Fun in the Sun: A mini Aqua musical inspired by Esther Williams and Bert Kaempfert from Hypermodern - Pete Ippel on Vimeo.
Directed by Pete Ippel http://www.hypermodern.net

Dancers: Leta Biasucci, Rebecca Rhodes Eline Malegue, Mitch Gill, Graham Maverick, and James Shee

Filmed by Nans Pierson

Music by Bert Kaempfert and Mitt Gabler “L-O-V-E”

Performed Saturday, January 26th at 100 Performances for the Hole (Notes Going Up and Down) for the Garage Biennale http://www.garagebiennale.com

I just was looking through the Audubon Magazine and was happy to find some images that really intrigued me. Clean graphic style, and lovely subject matter…Read more of the Audubon article about Charley Harper.

I found this bit of paper and it gives some insight into what I was thinking about at a second year New Genres graduate student at the San Francisco Art Institute.

What kind of projects are you interested in? Network art, installations / large prints, compression algorithms, Nano-fabrication

What would you like to get out of this class? Coding and access to others interested in art/tech/psych/science…field trips.

So Sunday we went to Novato, Casey and I did anyway and we hit the bowls for a while, and he was working on a bunch of grab airs out of the pipe…I wish I could do that stuff, but I’m so concerned about slamming my knee again, I’m even wimping on the rock -n- roll to fakie…

I did really pump the bowl fast, and tried to get some footie, but I was zoomed in with the wide angle (don’t ever do that) without knowing…anyway, after a little lunch at Mc Donalds, (and I accidently ordered a Mc Grillrather than a reagular Mc Chicken (for an extra 2 bucks)! I won’t make that mistake again. We stopped at the headlands on the way back and just chilled at the beach for a while, watched the surfers and stuck our feet in…very, very cold.

We checked out the center for the arts there as well, and the studios are gargantuan, and my goodness, they even had industrial toilets, and a kitchen where the resident artists get FREE FOOD!!!

So Casey is applying next year…

For Comet things are coming along, I’ve started doing the preliminary drawings of the Bomb Squad, and the new decks should be out soon, I’m looking forward to rocking on one of the new beefy park decks…Word on the street is 38 inches of twin tail/carbonfibery goodness…

Free Memory II was a success, and went a lot faster this time, only 23 minutes. I am still looking for a job, and it’s getting really scary, because I don’t know if I’m going to make rent this month. I have to do a lot of searching for funds before Friday. Open studios was well attended I think, however, since I’m not a painter, I felt a bit out of place. Perhaps if I get my film developed and make some more big prints I’ll be ok. My work is strong, but I am not sure how many people actually looked at it at the open studios. I gave away some stickers, so maybe they looked at home.

Feels like network art is the wave of the future, but I need funds now.

mmmmm

Psyched about open studios tomorrow, I will be showing this new work. Talked to the rentals for a long time tonight, and they’re finally getting plugged in. IM, email, and internet at the same time! Wheeeeeeee! Anywho, I went out to eat tonight for the first time since Tizz left, and I can say for $4.88 you get the best meal in the hood from Cancun Burrito Mojado.

Got plans for Turkey Day. LA baby, just got to figure out when and how to get there. I’m stoked, and need to figure out rent first. Maybe I can trick or treat to 802 houses for a dollar each, if I start now, perhaps I can finish by Nov. 1.

Look for part two of Free Memory tomorrow at 12:00 noon UN plaza (don’t forget to set your clocks…)

So I went to San Francisco Art Institute (from this point on SFAI) to see ANYA GALLACCIO talk. Finally something that didn’t suck. The last few speakers I’ve seen makes me wonder what I’m paying for and question why I didn’t stay home to pick the toe jam from under my nails. I have to say that she was at least a dynamic speaker. Her art…well, I’d say one thing, I’m not so much an art criticbut more of an art Cynic. Bottom line is, I have respect for her presence and her persona. That’s what’s selling her work (and most artists for that matter) dispite what she says about wanting to have an attachment to her viewer and place. She was from London at the right time, and rode the same conceptual train as Damien Hirst and the rest of those folks on the other side of the pond. I want to get that gig, having larger than life “art status” and work that is enjoyable. I just want to break even, set my own schedule, and be present for my kids and wife when I have ‘em. That’s what art is about for me, “artrockstardom” (a term I coined at my last year at Cornell University. Living it is doing it, and doing it now.

“We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic innovation itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
-Paul Valery