I was finishing up my thesis at Cornell University and taking double loads of classes in art and cognitive psychology in addition to Spanish. Note the lightsaber, Motorola v200 (Awesome for texting, but the speaker broke 3 times and I swapped out for Nokia 3660 the first camera phone in the US) and various cords and a gigantor thermal wax printer (which I still own).
Enjoy the ten-year Wayback Machine, with a surprise popup of Pete Ippel 2002…and yes all the images were shot with a Sony Mavica 640×480 px and written to a 3.5″ floppy disk.
So this is where the magic happened…lots of Mt. Dew Code Red, sleeping under my desk with a blanket and the computer fan blowing hot air on me to stay warm…then waking up to go to drawing class at 9am, grabbing a strawberry Pop-Tart on the way…
Thank you goes to all my friends and collaborators who provided wonderful support and helped me finish my Thesis “Priorities” on time.
Pete Ippel "Blue Room" Studio - The birthplace of Hypermodern Art, Cornell University
2 Lightsabers, Lappy, CAT5 cable, and a Spanish Book...Typical Studio Equipent
Pete Ippel in "Blue Room" studio 2002, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Tectronix 300i Thermal Wax Printer, Macintosh, 2 servers, and a IBM Pentium 95, and the first computer I ever owned: the Compaq 1535 DM
2002, running Windows 98, this was right before I first installed Redhat Linux...
SHARISM is a Mind Revolution: The more you share, the more you receive. It is a ideology which promotes the sharing culture and economy as a way of thinking.
I was sitting on the #3 bus on the way to the Starlight Room sitting in the middle of the back row of seats, when we made the stop by Japan Town, and a French tour group was chatting and then they got near the back door of the bus, took one look at me, and sat in the Handicap seats up front.
Those that support conceptual art (performance art, video art, social sculpture, happenings etc.) art are mocked by those that do not understand it…and the myth of disbelief, shock, and awe is perpetuated by popular media.
Shovel by bsabarnowl http://www.flickr.com/photos/bsabarnowl/
The concepts surrounding this type of art are not new…specifically Praxis’ work MONA: Museum of Non-Visible Art is based on its predecessors. They generated support for their museum in a contemporary way through Kickstarter with the video below:
Even the name Praxis is a lifted reference.
The history of conceptual art that James Franco tries to explain (the fellow on the Jimmy Kimmel Show) has strong roots in the Bay Area, as does video art. That’s why I chose to study for my MFA in New Genres at the San Francisco Art Institute. The Bay Area boasts artists: Tony Labat, Linda Montano, Doug Hall (AntFarm), Sharon Grace, Paul Kos, David Ireland, Karen Finley, and many, many more.
The Museum of Conceptual Art was created by one of my mentors, Tom Marioni. Tom is a big fan of Marcel Duchamp and the Readymade. Hypermodern.net represents 12 years of conceptual art education and I’m constantly asked, what for?
Simply, as Cathy Malchiodi writes, the massively important restoring power of imagination.
The phrases “art heals” and “art saves” have become ubiquitous and will continue to circulate; like many catch-phrases, they are just too cool to go away. Like any popular slogans, they blur real meaning; in this case the actual purpose of art is often forgotten.
Cathy summarizes further synthesizes and interprets Ellen Dissanayake’s book What is Art For?
1) Makes life special.
2) Engages the senses.
3) Involves rituals.
4) Enhances community.
When was the last time you went to an art show and got an experience, a prize, a few bucks, and a great story and thought differently about the present moment you just experienced. Free Memory. Free Money. Free Ideas…and a 2 minute smile free from economic stress. Or was it referencing the financial collapse, throwing money in a hole, and making peons work for it doing crazy tasks that don’t mean anything by diverting their own lust for financial gain? Why did they follow the rules of the over arching system? The title of the piece of mine is “Free Money, Sticky Fingers” made at SomArts. Check out their open call for more art in the hole.
Sound like art?
Yes.
Sound like MTV’s Jackass?
Yes.
Sound like conceptual art?
Yes.
Is everything art?
No.
Is everyone an artist?
No.
That’s why I can auction a crispy 100 bill and get $115.00 for it and be present in hundreds of people’s minds.
When critiquing or defending artwork remember three core concepts: intent (what did the artist want to express), context (where, when, and who are they showing it to), and liability (will it put the artist or anyone else in danger, will it cost money from the artist or public, does it exclude anyone, does the artist take responsibility for the piece).
It’s about knowing that life is finite, as is energy in any given form or shape. Energy flows out and in, to and from any vessel, and energy cannot be destroyed.
ROMA O MORTE (Rome or Death): Rome, Italy 2003 by Pete Ippel
It’s the longing and the emptiness that allows for the kinetic and dynamic to enter. Harmony is false, because it denies flow. Being full is false, because it denies longing.
Openness allows for boundaries to exist, just as boundaries allow for openness…Thereby creating a vessel for energy. If there are no boundaries, there can be no peace nor present.
Greetings, friends, when was the last time you decided to fix something? How about the last time you destroyed something. Did you feel a sense of freedom after each moment? How were they different?
So today is a very important day, because it’s June 6th, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of ALLRISK. And what that means is similar to other ideas about “if you love something give it away”,”If it doesn’t please you, it’s distracting”…sort of pruning…it’s like tending plants.
So Today on the Internet I was using Twitter microblogging service, and I have that set up so that it pings everywhere, and today I proposed an action, because lots of things come out of action, like value.
Value comes out of action, and memory comes out of action, importance comes out of action. So today is important because approximately a year ago I took some risks and made some plans to change my life…to take risk for myself, and go after relationships or to take a flight that I didn’t even know if it would potentially happen and it ended up happening.
So this is about cutting up a shirt. This is my favorite shirt. It’s the shirt that I was wearing when I did the “Best Dressed Man competition” in San Francisco. This is also the shirt that I wore when I saw Maya about a year ago on that trip I was talking about to Venice.
I received a letter from her today and it was great. And it’s about not knowing what path you’re taking, being true to yourself and making decisions.
So I’m going to make this shirt better by cutting it in half.
And the reason that I’m cutting in half is because I already like it, and I think by performing this action something is going to change here. I’m going to use this shirt in a project, I’m going to make this shirt better. It fits with my Open Fashion concepts and makes a lot of sense to do it, and it’s sort of taking apart something that you value…and you can add more value to it by doing an action to it.
So there it is, it’s cut in half.
So now I suppose we can do some other modifications, but essentially everything that is associated with this, the memories, the actions, can be re-told and shared through it’s creation through its perceived destruction. But by actually destroying this object in some regard, I’m actually giving it an opportunity to have a new life.
So here we go, it’s in another piece here, the collar is already cut in half, so I guess we’ll do another modification here.
There we go it’s in two pieces, and I can easily make it three by simply undoing the buttons. So I’m going to keep modifying this shirt.
And I hope you can all understand the great number of metaphors that this is embodying both personally and for you, the viewer.
