So I lucked out and attended the 01SJ in 2006, which was such a cool event that I hoped it would return as promised. Sure enough, it did, and this one was different but just as amazing. Fewer events, but the SubZero street fair and a bit more focus on local artists was much appreciated. I attended almost all of the events I wanted to (missed the DJ Spooky event and the Target Day in the Park events on Saturday due to a conflict) over the period of a number of days.
Wednesday – Opening ceremonies; this was the only opportunity I had to see the “High ‘n’ Low Rider” sculpture (a scissor lift with a hydraulic platform on top that danced and spun by remote control) and I’m glad I saw it. Apparently, they were running on battery power so they had to somewhat limit movement, but still it was an impressive piece of machinery-art. Wish I could have seen more, I don’t know if they ran it after the opening ceremony. I really appreciated the anodized metal, chrome, and automotive paint used to detail the piece. Next up was a walk over to the city hall rotunda, to see the place lit up via projection from the inside (as opposed to the lighting from outside at the ’06 event) with animated computer-generated tentacles growing slowly from the first floor to the second. Last was the “Portal, Wormhole, Flythrough” projection sculpture, which alas looked more impressive during construction. The concept was to show tunnel fly-thru’s from various computer games and movies and whatnot, but many were low-resolution or not even oriented correctly, breaking any sense of illusion.
Thursday – Movie night for me, I spent the night watching movies starting with the shorts at the “Future Films” exhibition (only caught 30m or so.) After that, at 6pm began the playing of Cory Archangel‘s “Untitled Translation Exercise”, wherein he had some Indian actors (?) re-dub Dazed and Confused with little/no emotion. I haven’t actually seen the original movie, but it was still enjoyable and amusing to see re-dubbed by folks who probably have little idea what they’re saying. (Sorry, this could be taken the wrong way, I see it more as a view of how what we take for granted in American culture is Ameri-centric and how it loses meaning when seen from other cultural viewpoints.)
This was followed by “Spectropia” by Tony Dove and R. Luke DuBois–an “interactive film performance” where the two film makers used computer workstations with IR motion sensing to do things like control the pacing and editing of the film during playback, plus typing on the computer to control speech/video synthesis characters that interact with the audience. Nice ideas, a bit rough on the execution.
Saving the best for last, “Late Fragment” was not only an amazing film(s?) but a surprising amount of work to develop three films with storylines that cross at “hubs” and where the viewer (using a DVD player) can follow one character’s story or switch to another. The switching was fairly seamless and felt like we were watching a professionally-edited movie with a heart-wrenching trio of storylines. Only minus was not being presented with an example of how the story would play out with different choices. Still, I’m going to pick this DVD up, it’s a landmark piece of work along the lines of TimeCode. Excellent chat with one of the directors after made it worth sticking around for, wish I could have asked more questions. Wonderful Q&A.
Friday – Left work early, visited the San Jose Museum of Art for their exhibitions (Superlight, Robots, and some post-minimalist exhibition). Superlight had some very interesting pieces, namely Shih Chieh Huang‘s “Twilight Zone” sculptures — animated fantastic creatures fabricated from the fetishistic computer parts from the casemod subculture, sculptures hanging from the ceiling that blink, make noises, and inflate and deflate plastic bladders (made from plastic bags used in packing, I believe). Completely mesmerizing. Also particularly of note was Genevieve Grieves‘ “Picturing 
the Old People”, which were HDTV’s turned sideways and arranged side-by-side, playing slow video loops of classic scenes being set as if they were turn-of-the-century photos of frontier folk and Native Americans in their staged b/w photos common in that era. (A-la David F. Barry‘s highly-staged 19th century portraiture, which I happened to see at the Museum of the Rockies in March, how coincidental!)
Also jumped over to the Discovery meadow to check out “Homouroboros” by Peter Hudson (apparently a big Burning Man sculpturist.) The sculpture is an interactive experience where participants drum on digital drum pads long enough to get the monkeys to rotate around. Looking through the LCD shutter eye holes of cabled masks, that make the rotating monkeys into a zeotrope animation. Amazing work.
Vietnamese food for dinner (uninspired, alas), then on to the SubZero fair. The museums on First were a good way to spend the remaining hours of light while the fair was finishing setup, probably my favorite pieces were at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles including a video of water-soluble dress designs, a dress made out of videotape where the tape records the making of the dress, and a pair of outfits woven with wires and LED’s and the San Jose Institute for Contemporary Arts which had two amazing portraits by a very talented painter, very large pieces that capture their subjects with great emotion and use of color (actually not part of the 01SJ but nice nonetheless).
The fair was definitely the highlight of the 01SJ this time around, there was so much to see and do and to take in. Folks were very happy to chat about their art, and I enjoyed watching the works of the graffiti artist Sean Boyles and two of his friends on a side street, along with the antics of the Minneapolis Art on Wheels (MAW) collective projecting on walls and working with the Graffiti Research Lab to make large-scale digital graffiti projections. Music was awesome as well, and the crowd was big but not overwhelming. MAW folks were even kind enough to give me one of their hand-printed flyer, which I will cherish. Nice bunch of folks, who I hope will make their nearly-cross-country journey again in the future to visit us in the Bay Area. (Yuri’s Night Bay Area would make a great forum for their work, as with Boyles!)
Saturday – Spent recovering from the busy week, going to a friend’s wedding (Chinese seafood feast!), and a quick visit to the VIP reception on top of the Tech for some photos and taking in the view.
Sunday – A bit more taken in of the Museum of Art, some Vietnamese sandwiches (YUM) eaten at the park while watching pre-teen skateboarding and then the California Theater for “Beyond the Score – Classical Music Exposed – The Rite of Spring”. I’ve been a fan of Stravinsky ever since I heard the excerpt of The Rite of Spring on the Fantasia soundtrack, and it’s amazing to listen to the “Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky” recordings, so I was happy to hear that this was part of the VIP ticket. Apparently, according to the ticket agent, it was never relayed to the Symphony that this deal had been struck but she honored my pass and gave me a seat in the middle of one of the back-most rows, which was a very good spot indeed. Only problem was an 
occasional weird positioning of horns when they echoed off a side wall, and a bit of muddyness to the sound, but still quite good for a free (well, sorta free) seat. It was great to hear the history of the composition of the piece, woven with the orchestra playing excerpted passages compared with traditional tunes played on traditional instruments. After the intermission, the whole Rite of Spring was played straight through by the orchestra, a very fine performance, true to the Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky take, and generally well played and conducted. It was quite surprising to me how loud a full orchestra can play, I can imagine how that must have felt for the first time, when the riots erupted. (I enjoyed the end-note of the symphony so much that I bought my wife and I two tickets for the Russian Piano Competition happening on the 14th of June.)
Summary: 01SJ was a stand-out art and cultural event that I am extremely happy to have been to, and I greatly hope they’ll be back in two years. It was a little rough around the edges but I was so happy to have some real culture in my backyard. As a friend mentioned, every other year is a good pace, giving artists and organizers some serious time to get ready for the next one.
Reminds me of 
Gonzalez-Torres is posthumously honored by being the second artist to represent the US at the 
Ran across her art in the 
Worthwhile graffiti art, worthwhile 
