Robischon Gallery Opening & Karaoke Convention 08

Tonight we had the pleasure of attending two gallery openings, the first was at the Robischon Gallery where Partly Sunny prints (made by Ben) were on display, along with the work of other Dialog:City participating artists, such as Ann Hamilton, R.Luke Dubois, and DJ Spooky.

It was nice to see the Partly Sunny prints immediately upon entering the gallery. There were also some postcards on the table by the door, and it was thrilling to see how eager gallery-goers were to fill them out! There was a great turn out for opening night, and we enjoyed the mild Denver weather as we traversed from Robischon Gallery to the Supreme Court restaurant where Daniel Peltz (Assistant Professor of Film/Animation/Video at RISD) premiered his interactive performance piece, "Karaoke Convention '08" (http://karaokeconvention.com/)







Karaoke Convention 08 created quite a buzz inside The Supreme Court restaurant, there were many television cameras and media contacts there. The performance started off with the Mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper, giving a re-speech of Barack Obama's "Yes We Can" speech (originally given in South Carolina Democratic Primary).

Karaoke Convention 08 works just like traditional karaoke, with the words appearing on a screen and the performer on stage with a mic in their hand, but instead of song lyrics it has the transcription of the speech, and instead of music the sound track is sounds from the audience, or the hush of an attentive crowd.

Original speech by Barack Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iVAPH_EcmQ

By Mayor Hickenlooper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OSAN8IOfQE

Robischon Gallery

Just some more shots of the opening. 

I still cant believe our show posters were hanging in the same room as Ann Hamilton. We all have something to say right! what an amazing night one i will never forget. thank you all for making this happen. 

Karaoke

We went to the Karaoke Convention this evening. The piece, by RISD’s own Daniel Peltz, turns recorded political speeches into a karaoke speak-along. There were some very inspired renditions of Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul and John McCain. I found the whole experience unexpectedly arresting. Seeing and hearing the words of these speeches out of the context of the “original” speaker seemed to reveal the content of the speech and the character of the speaker more clearly than when they were spoken by candidates. Obama was especially interesting, because although his speaking tempo is restrained each speech has an enormous amount of information.

Dialog:Denver

Dialog Denver opened tonight at the Robsichon Gallery in LoDo (Lower Denver). Ben’s prints had pride of place – directly in front of the entry door and to the right of a beautiful sculpture by Anne Hamilton. The show featured work by DialogCity artists and Denver-base artists who are showing at the Unconvention in the Twin Cities in the beginning of September. The spurse collective had some very lovely drawings.

Partly Sunny in Denver

The White Walls of a Gallery

Arriving in the space on Sunday was very sobering. Even after all the work that was done by Kate Thiel and the folks at the Denver Pavilions it still felt raw and challenging. It wasn’t until the white walls of the tyvek started to go up that the "gallery" emerged.

The boards are arriving

The project boards started arriving from our friends at eblueprint today. Its like getting presents, just a few at a time.



We got them just in time for the Docent Training.