Toxic Titties is a collaborative of feminist artists working with performance, video, and film, bringing a subcultural phenomenon into the frame of conceptual art. Using pleasure and play, the group mutates with each performance to include a multiplicity of participants and embody queer perversions of cultural ideals. Through failure and excess, Toxic Titties simultaneously invokes and destabilizes collective identity formations. The TTs have appeared as camp counselors (Camp TT), police officers (LATT), a feminist militia (Toxic Troopers), blushing brides (Toxic Union), members of a lost art movement (The Mamaists), high society art patrons (Be My Patron), and B-Movie lesb-sploitation starlets hell bent on world domination (Invasion of the Toxic Titties).


DRAW A LINE AND FOLLOW IT
Exhibition opens Wednesday 21 June 2006 from 7 - 9 pm
Exhibition runs Thursday 22 June - Sunday 20 August 2006
Titled after LaMonte Young's "Composition 1960 No. 10," a performance score consisting of the instruction 'Draw a straight line and follow it,' this exhibition traces connections from George Brecht, Jackson Mac low, Yoko Ono, Mieko Shiomi, Robert Watts and others to a contemporary generation of artists that share an interest in the Fluxus practices of the 1960's and 70's. These LA-based artists were invited to explore Fluxus objects in the Jean Brown Collection at the Getty Research Institute. Each picked a score to instigate a new work - producing drawings, installations and performances (planned and spontaneous) throughout the summer at LACE.
Young's score was dedicated to the artist Robert Morris, and it has been interpreted by a number of artists over the years, including composer David Tudor and artist Nam June Paik. Thus a piece that was composed by one artist and dedicated to another has served as inspiration for additional artists to create unique works of art based on a simple instruction. In keeping with this tradition, LACE asked an initial group of four artists not only make a new piece for the exhibition, but also to each invite another artist to participate. Each new artist was then invited to add another artist until a total of 16 were chosen. Three bonus participants, Peter Frank, Ben Patterson and the LA Art Girls, have also joined the project.
ARTISTS IN THREAD ORDER
Alexandra Grant → Steve Roden → Jacob Melchi → Ethan Ayer
Darin Klein → Enrique Castrejon → Ming-Yuen S. Ma → Rheim Alkadhi
Mercedes Teixido → Tran T. Kim-Trang → Carole Kim → Angie Bray
Martin Venezky → Gail Swanlund → John Sueda → Brian Roettinger
Peter Frank + LA Art Girls + Ben Patterson
posted by Chad

West Hollywood Takes Aim at Marijuana Law
City leaders in West Hollywood California adopted a resolution on June 20 calling on sheriff's deputies not to target certain adult marijuana users. The resolution directs the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which contracts with this left-leaning city, not to "target adult marijuana users who consume this drug in private and pose no danger to the community." Minors and drug dealers would still be subject to arrest, and smoking in public would still be prohibited, the resolution says. The resolution is not legally enforceable, but sends a message that law enforcement officers should "leave the pot smokers alone" and go after more serious crimes, said Councilman John Duran, the resolution's sponsor.

posted by Chad

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Nitzer Ebb released their first 'best of' collection, Body of Work on Mute last week. As any good fan already owns most if not all of the tracks included on Body of Work, what we're really interested in is Body Rework, a collection of remixes set to be released on July 31st.

Included are classics such as Thomas Heckmann's rendition of Join in the Chant, as well as a host of brand new remixes. Notable new work includes:
Let Your Body Learn by Terence Fixmer
Control I'm Here by The Hacker
Lightning Man by Motor
and not one, but two versions of Getting Closer by Black Strobe

The French may not have won the World Cup, but they currently dominate electronic body music.

posted by Michael Doyle

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Via Capitol C

posted by Tenzin Phuntsog

Friday, July 07, 2006

The Invisible-5 audio project, which highlights environmental hazards along California's Interstate 5, is featured in the July issue of Metropolis: Not Just Another Roadside Attraction

"While commuters and truckers cruise along I-5 at high speeds, there is nothing tangible to alert them to the poisonous messes -- and the typically low-income minority communities fighting to have them removed -- just to the east and west all along the route. However, if you download the audio files and follow the cues (typically an exit sign or another prominent landmark) from the Invisible-5 Web site, the mundane landscape comes alive with the voices of resident activists articulating not only their struggles against major polluters but neighborhood histories, personal anecdotes, and compelling insights into what it is that makes a place home."

How about Invisible-75?

posted by David R.

Discarded matresses make nice cassettes and synths.

posted by Michael Doyle

Tomorrow at the Trumbullplex
4210 Trumbull, Detroit

7:00pm saturday, july 8, 2006

prurient (hospital records)
aaron dilloway (hanson records/wolf eyes)
withdrawal method
midlife vacation (viki/mammal)
metal dungeon (time stereo)
roxanne jean polise (xdiedentourey/apop)
haunted castle
our brother the native (fatcat records)
jason zeh

then (7/13)
moons
villa valley
siberia (hazmat/max cloud/anothony miller)
elijah church & will soderberg

all proceeds to benefit tarantula hill

posted by Doc

Los Angeles' first Biofuel dealership opened recently in sliverlake. Lovecraft Biofuels and the Biodiesel Coop, two fledgling L.A. businesses working hard to get their communities off the petroleum addiction and onto the veggie oil program. With a brand new service station in Silverlake and a mobile fueling site currently parked in the West L.A./Santa Monica area, access to clean fuel is gaining speed. Lovecraft will convert your diesel automobile to run on waste vegetable oil (from the local greasy spoon) or straight/pure vegetable oil (not previously used to make fries). You can also get your grease from them, as well as biodiesel for unconverted vehicles. These guys are doing some ambitious networking to get fueling stations set up all around the country.
The coop has a membership program for distributing fuel. They are working to drum up interest in localized areas with their 12′ trailers full of biodiesel. As interest grows and more members join, the coop hopes to dot the city with fueling sites, and ideally, to have more fully established biofuel stations take over in response to the anticipated demand, ideally using solar and wind power to operate the facilities.

posted by Chad

Thursday, July 06, 2006

The new exhibition Brave New World celebrates the work of trailblazing filmmaker, photographer, and performance artist Jack Smith - a man whose '60s cinema defined the word "transgressive." In his honor, contemporary artists Zackary Drucker, Candice Lin, Lisa Oppenheim, and Mark Verabioff use Smith's decadent themes as a starting point for their own startling works. In conjunction with the exhibit, Lizabeth Oliveria presents a rare screening of Smith's notorious, and oft-banned 1963 film Flaming Creatures. In the course of 45 minutes, the film achieves much of what directors like Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, and John Waters spent entire careers trying to express.
Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery is at 2712 S La Cienega Blvd, Culver City, 310.837.1073

posted by Chad

Video story about the Packard Plant from the Detroit Free Press. The Packard Motor Company shut its doors fifty years ago this month, leaving the 47 building, 3 1/2 million square foot complex mostly unused for half a century, with the exception of a handful of small businesses, ravers, urban explorers, and graffiti artists. Oddly enough, in all the times I've explored the plant, I have not once seen as much as a rat or cockroach living there... (*coughs up mysterious black dust*)

posted by Michael Doyle

The Coney Island Parachute Jump, called "the Eiffel Tower of Brooklyn," is to be illuminated by night starting tomorrow. Designed by Manhattan-based Lights Project LTD, the design will use a combination of floodlights and LEDs that can be seen from as far away as the Verrazano Bridge.

Within each setting, hundreds of mini sequences transform the jump from a stagnant tower into a canvas for a crazed, kinetic light show that can simulate fireworks, mimic musical rhythms and visually chime out the hours. The result is very much in the character of Coney. "I think it captures the 21st-century Coney Island, where we recognize that an amusement park is important to the soul of New York City," says Dick Zigun, founder of Coney Island USA and spark plug behind much of the area's artistic revival.

posted by Michael Doyle

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Even more Dethlab news/LINK Festival update:

Just added to the Machines That Feel program, Spectral Mornings will be perfroming live, along with 800 Beloved. We are thrilled to have two exceptional, genre-defying live acts make their debuts at CAID. This will also be the Detroit debut screening of RELINE2, a collection of work by ten artists who "investigate modern mythology, examine environments, explode form, and play with similes between machine and body. From buildings ripping apart by unseen forces to characters on strange journeys in wild imagined spaces, these videos explore the integration of technology into every strata of our lives."

The LINK Festival is July 29-30 at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit.

posted by Michael Doyle

"New York City's angriest yodelling banjo player" Curtis Eller brings his tales of pigeon racing, Coney Island, performing elephants, Buster Keaton and snake handling back to Detroit's Lager House next Thursday, July 13th.

I say this every time Curtis rolls through town, but highly recommended for anyone who enjoys vaudeville antics (he started his career in the circus at age seven), and Weimar Revival and American Gothic music, such as Nick Cave, Dresden Dolls, American Mars, Blanche, 16 Horsepower, Devotchka, Thomas Truax, etc.

Additionally, Dethlab will be curating records in support with what may be perceived by some as a most unusual set. We're looking forward to putting aside the dancefloor rockers for an evening in favor of intricate, often melancholy selections from the likes of Cave, Waits, Costello, Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Circlesquare and Joy Division. We will be exploring the same dark corners of contemporary culture, only without the constraints of the dance club setting.

posted by Michael Doyle

In DethLab news: brand new bio, and upcoming events, incuding:

SOLVENT live, 7.21.06 at OSLO
800 BELOVED live, 7.29.06 at CAID
MOTOR live, 8.4.06 at OSLO
LOWFISH live 9.29.06 at OSLO

posted by Michael Doyle

If you can't make it to AngloMania at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before it closes Sept. 4th, Style.com has some exhibit highlights from our favorite rebellious Brits, including Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Philip Treacy and John Galliano, put into context with historical British fashions in wonderfully decadent and witty vignettes.

Some of our favorites were Francomania, featuring a dress by Galliano for Dior and a raven headdress by Stephen Jones, Death Bed, including an aluminum spine corset by McQueen and Shaun Leane, and The Gentlemen's Club, featuring pieces from McClaren and Westwood's Sex and Seditionaries lines of the 1970s.

Gastronomic highlights of this past weekend's visit "home" included the wonderful Marlow & Sons, a gourmet grocery and intimate dining room featuring fresh oysters and a connoisseur's selection of dried meats, cheeses and other delights, adjacent to Williamsburg institution Diner, as well as Frank on 2nd Ave., where we dined on the best beef carpaccio and squid ink fettucini ever. Our new friends from Europe approved.

Also, 1,000 thanks to Cowboy Mark for his hospitality this weekend!

posted by Michael Doyle

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

"Robot Sexie Time" is here...

posted by chris

Saturday, July 01, 2006

There is something very fucking seriously wrong with Miami.



Friends With You

Friends are extracted from an unimaginably small microcosm. They are microbes that have been enlarged one billion times their original size. They live in your breath and under the part of your brain used for wishing. Lieutenant Captain Lee Karl discovered a world very much like ours. The only difference being that ours is made up of plants, animals, and humans, and this sub-amoebic world contains an unexplored realm of living organisms. The few strains of organisms that survived the
enlargemnet process have been carefully studied and tested. And we have concluded that these new "Friends," have actual life enhancing skills. The friends have magic powers never before seen, and are improving lives one person at a time. Share your wishes and desires with your new friends and watch as everything you ever dreamed of becomes a reality! Welcome friends into your heart and home and start living better TODAY!

Of course they associate with our friend Otto...

posted by Michael Doyle

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