The Ups & Downs

Announcing:
The Ups & Downs
At Betalevel
September 2008 – May 2009

The Ups & Downs is an installation series. The show goes up, the show goes down. Opening party on Thursday night and closing party the next night, on Friday. No time for exhibitions. Low impact, ephemeral and immersive art. People with lots of People. The market. It’s a party. Time for the underground. It’s a ball. It’s for The People. This has been made for you. Do I know you? The show must go on. Installed and De-installed. Up. Down. Now what? Now then…


The Ups & Downs is:

Pablo N. Molina
Thursday, September 25, 2008, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Friday, September 26, 2008, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Continuing an exploration of human-media interaction, Pablo N. Molina’s newest work uses digital projection and custom software to create a dynamic spatialized interface where human movement is processed and extended. An immersive and responsive video display and digital sensory framework will track both presence and movement to produce an intricate and reactive environment. Meaningful conversations between human stimuli and data processing are temporarily registered as visual and auditory output. Viewers should feel free to explore and discover new modes of action and reaction. The purposely open-ended coding framework allows for completely unexpected, though never random, modes of feedback.

Pablo N. Molina is a Los Angeles and New York City based video, lighting and sound artist. His work has appeared in several galleries and numerous theatrical, music and dance performances including pieces by Carl Hancock Rux, Neil Denari, Karin Coonrod, Bebe Miller, Aimee Michelle, Lars Jan, Mira Kingsley, Sam Gold, Chi-wang Yang, Benny Sato Ambush, Cloud Eye Control, Rachel Boggia and High Jinks Dance Co. His digitally generated video content was prominently featured in Linkin Park’s recent Projekt Revolution world tour. He is currently collaborating with MODE Studios in Seattle to develop a large scale interactive video and sound installation commissioned by a prominent Fortune 500 company. Pablo teaches video design and programming at CalArts.


Marcus Civin and Candice Lin
Thursday, October 23, 2008, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Friday, October 24, 2008, from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

When the wind got too rough, and the ship was pitching, sailors took an axe to the mast, so the lighting wouldn't catch. We were at the top, in the crow's nest, tangled in the nets and in the tatters of the sails. When it was all over, we climbed out and found we had washed upon a beach of graphite sand. Shipwreck! Enormous Crow's Nest built to reach the ceiling, stuck in and consuming the underground space at Betalevel.

Candice Lin and Marcus Civin both attended Brown University at the same time but never really met there. They both lived in San Francisco but never met there, though they had friends in common. A mutual friend, Maggie Foster, encouraged them to meet up in LA. As a result, they have been exchanging ideas for the last 2 years. Candice is planning an exhibition for Chung King Projects. Marcus is almost finished his MFA in Studio Art at University of California, Irvine.


Dan Richert
*sc3gzr*
Thursday, November 13, 2008, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Friday, November 14, 2008, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

*sc3gzr* is an interactive gamepad-controlled text stream filter designed around pattern-based text filtering functionality similar to that found in the UNIX tools grep and sed. Filtering patterns are determined by control messages sent from the gamepad. *sc3gzr* is an experiment in non-linear text presentation.

Dan Richert is a programmer and digital artist. His work primarily focuses on computerized text and audio generation, recombination and breakage.


Danielle Adair
January 2009

Danielle Adair’s work utilizes performance, video, sound, text, and multi-media installation to address current events in phenomenological ways. By realizing work through different forms, she aims to avoid any particular narrative trajectory, and to, in turn, heighten sensitivity to one's social and theatrical surroundings. The subject matter of her recent projects include mental illness within current diagnostic understanding, systems of education, and wartime experience.

Danielle Adair is an interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Most recently she has performed and/or exhibited work at The Museum of Contemporary Art - Los Angeles, the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater, UC Santa Cruz, Beyond Baroque, and Track 16 Gallery. Currently she is at work on a performance-essay based on one female soldier's experience while stationed in Bagram, Afghanistan.


Skullphone
March 2009

"Skullphone" is an artist who works anonymously in city streets and deserted highways, incorporating his artwork into the urban environment. While ten foot tall posters loom high above building walls, small supporting incarnations blend into utilitarian spaces including gas stations, public bathrooms, parking meters, roll-up gates, and trash dumpsters—the unique platforms and non-blank canvases from which Skullphone "speaks".
Skullphone's monochrome pieces revolve around the central image of a skull holding a mobile phone, and usually take the form of classic wheat-pasted posters. Interpretations reflect modern fears about phone radiation and technology, and at the same time the image says something wider about the darker side of consumerism and the commodification of life.


Liz Glynn
April 2009
THE DECLINE AND FALL
Trash predicates revolution.
Ruin leads to rebirth.

Liz Glynn's practice seeks to embody dynamic cycles of growth and decay. Through a production process which combines transformative recycling with traditional sculpture techniques, she creates objects which are fragile, temporal, and cannot cheat death like the mythologized museum artifact. For The Ups and Downs, Liz will present a new series of actions which consider the relationship between garbage and revolution in the twenty-first century.

Liz Glynn uses objects and actions to explore the ambition of empire and the pleasure of ruin. Recent works include the 24 Hour Roman Reconstruction Project at Machine Project, and the In the Beginning is the End, a Processional for Los Angeles in Chinatown. Her work has been presented at venues including Acuna-Hansen Gallery (LA), John Connolly Presents (NYC), and will be included in an upcoming project at LACMA. She has attended residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and soon will travel to O'artoteca in Milan. Reviews of her work have been published in Art Lies and the Los Angeles Times.