Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Weiss Talks


Bart Weiss, founder of the Dallas Video Festival, hosted two screenings of the "Best of Fest" from the past twenty years of his festival at Aurora Picture Show this weekend. He also kicked off Aurora's debut salon series with a short talk entitled "What is Video Art?" at Aurora's video library on Sunday. Weiss walked visitors through the main periods of video art history and some of the more defined genres such as performance-based video art, showing samples of works from William Wegman and
Ant Farm, both of which are available to view for free at Aurora's video library, 1524 Sul Ross.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Harrell Fletcher is a Member, Are You?



Join or renew your Aurora Picture Show membership now and be entered to win a limited edition Harrell Fletcher print made exclusively for Aurora Picture Show. All new or renewed memberships, purchased between now and June 30, 2008, will be entered for one chance to win this special artwork.

A participant in the 2004 Whitney Biennial, Fletcher´s work has been shown at SF MoMA, the de Young Museum, The Berkeley Art Museum, and Yerba Buena Center For The Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area, The Drawing Center, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Sculpture Center, Domain de Kerguehennec in France, and The Royal College of Art in London. In 2002, Fletcher started Learning To Love You More, an ongoing participatory web site with Miranda July. Visit the
Harrell Fletcher site for more about his work.

Join now for a chance to win this exclusive work by clicking
here to become a member.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Aurora Does it Again




Aurora Picture Show rounded out another successful annual multimedia festival last Saturday, with the final performances of Media Archelogy: Live and Televised. This year's performers included Negativland, who performed at Rice University; Brent Green, who performed with musicians Howe Gelb (of the popular band Giant Sand), Jeremy Gara (of the band Arcade Fire) and Thoger Lund at the Orange Show and artists Tara Mateik, and Shana Moulton, who performed at DiverseWorks. Photos featured include shots from Tara Mateik's "Putting the Balls Away" and Moulton's "Cynthia's Moment." The artist-heavy week drew great audiences and closed with an extravagant brunch hosted by Hotel Icon's new restaurant Voice. Our thanks goes out to all the Media Archeology artists, sponsors, volunteers and Aurora staff who helped make this a festival like no other.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Aurora Adds New Faces to Advisory Board

Aurora Picture Show has added some familiar Aurora friends to the official Aurora family. Curators Bree Edwards and Astria Suparak have graciously agreed to join the Aurora Advisory Board. Welcome Bree and Astria!

Bree Edwards is an independent curator and cultural producer who has held the positions of Program Manager at the Mitchell Center for the Arts at the University of Houston and Curator of Public Programs at the Asheville Museum of Art. In Asheville she organized a year-long, interdisciplinary series focused on the legacy of the experimental college Black Mountain College (1933-57). She has organized numerous group exhibitions and screenings and her writing has been published by The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Museu do Chiado in Lisbon, as well as appearing in various blogs and art publications.

Astria Suparak is the Director of Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. From 1998-2000 she directed the weekly Pratt Institute Film Series in Brooklyn, which included live music, performance and installations. In 2006 she became the inaugural director of the contemporary art space The Warehouse Gallery at Syracuse University, organizing acclaimed and sometimes controversial exhibitions including Faux Naturel, COME ON: Desire Under the Female Gaze, and Networked Nature with Rhizome. Her conceptually and aesthetically diverse shows have exhibited and screened at sites including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Kitchen, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Yale University School of Architecture, The Liverpool Biennial, P.S.1, Anthology Film Archives, International Film Festival Oberhausen, Eyebeam and Participant, Inc. Gallery.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Grover Cleans Up


Aurora's fearless Artistic Director Andrea Grover cleaned up this past weekend at the DiverseWorks Gala. Grover was one of three "visionary" honorees for the evening which included Project Row Houses' Rick Lowe and Fotofest founders Wendy Watriss and Fred Baldwin. Other honorees included artists Mel Chin , William Steen, and Sharon Engelstein and patrons Cindy Bishop and David Donnelly (Cindy is also an Aurora Board member!), Charles Mary Kubricht, Ron Sommers and Jeff and Toni Beauchamp. Congratulations Andrea! (Photo features Andrea Grover and Delicia Harvey).

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Mapping/Tactical Media Brain Trust


This weekend's excellent symposium YOU ARE HERE, curated by Bree Edwards and co-presented by Aurora Picture Show and the Mitchell Center for the Arts, is immortalized via live blogging on Matt McCormick's Action Items.

The symposium featured artists and curators working with mapping and tactical media, including Matt McCormick (who performed his live score to his film
Future So Bright), and talks by Nato Thompson (Creative Time), Rich Pell (Institute for Applied Autonomy), and Matthew Coolidge (Center for Land Use Interpretation). Coolidge has begun a longer term project in Houston, investigating the ripe-for-the-picking Gulf Coast. This weekend the CLUI field office (a mobile trailer) arrived and was plunked down on the edge of Buffalo Bayou. So begins our journey...

Big thanks to curator (I mean cultural context provider) Bree Edwards, and Karen Farber and Nancy Zastudil of the fabulous Mitchell Center for the Arts at UH for making this event happen.

Pictured:
ISee (created by Institute for Applied Autonomy) a web-based application charting the locations of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance cameras in urban environments.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007


Aurora Picture Show and the Menil Collection enjoyed a night in the park last Saturday. In association with the Menil Collection's exhibition A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s, Aurora presented works by some of the artists working during the time of Nauman's early experiments in film and video. Artists featured included John Baldessari, Vito Acconci, William Wegman and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. We'd like to thank Steve Seid from Pacific Film Archive for helping us pull together this screening and the Menil Collection for the opportunity. Also, if you missed this wonderful evening of early conceptual video in the outdoors, please join us Saturday, January 12, 2008 for another screening in the park -- this time featuring works from contemporary artists forging new paths in film and video. Save the date!

Monday, October 22, 2007

Aurora Advisory Board Member at MOMA

Aurora Picture Show's Advisory Board Member Kevin Everson has a series of screenings coming up in New York. Short films by Everson will be screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York tonight, Monday October 22, at 7:00 p.m. and Thursday, October 25 at 6:30 p.m. The screenings will be in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2, T2 at the Museum of Modern Art located at 11 West 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

Congratulations Kevin!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Rachel Blackney, Come on Down!


The Aurora girls (and one Guy and a Lama) are extremely excited about adding a new member to their team, Rachel Blackney. Newly engaged, Rachel recently moved to Houston to be with her fiancee, Dave, who works in sports radio. She is thrilled to be joining the Aurora Picture Show as Operations Manager! For the past four years, Rachel lived in Austin where she worked for the Austin Film Society as Director of Operations. She was responsible for the management and booking of their non-profit production facility, Austin Studios, along with oversight of general operations including the internship program. Prior to that, Rachel lived in Los Angeles for several years working in Hollywood for several television and film production companies, before returning home to Texas. Rachel attended the University of Texas at Austin and studied Radio/Television/Film. Returning to Houston is like coming back home for her, as she grew up here and her family still resides here. During her time off, you will find Rachel at Memorial Park running with her two dogs, Coach and Madden. Welcome Rachel!

Monday, September 17, 2007

One Month: Two Opportunities to Give


October brings many opportunities to show your love for Aurora! On October 4th, the Seventh Annual Aurora Award Dinner honors Steina and Woody Vasulka, founders of the legendary interdisciplinary art center, The Kitchen. This intimate evening and fundraiser is a rare opportunity to mix and mingle with these pioneers of electronic art. For tickets and table information, visit the Aurora website. Next, belly up to the bar for Aurora on Sunday, October 7th at everyone's favorite drinking spot, Poison Girl (1641 Westheimer). For one night only, bar proceeds after 5 p.m. benefit the Aurora Picture Show. So show you care, and make that a martini!

Monday, August 27, 2007

Successful Texting


Aurora's joint event with the Houston Center with Photography on Friday night, entitled "Spin 3: Txt Me L8r," drew texters and photography enthusiasts alike. The exhibit, curated by Aurora and HCP, explored the potential for distributed creativity through the use of cell phone technology. Artists and the general public were invited to sign-up to receive text messages with specific photography assignments sent throughout the course of the exhibition. Two screens were set up in the galleries showing both the slideshow of "Txt Me L8r" participants and a slideshow of cell phone photos taken that night by attendess of the event. See more photos on the Houston Chronicle website.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Take my class, please


Andrea Grover is offering a class at University of Houston, School of Art this Fall

Intermedia Course:
Participation Art: From Social Sculpture to Distributed Creativity


What was it about the social climate of the 1960s that gave way to group-participation, happenings and actions? And can today's networked communication give the crowd even greater creative agency? This course looks at the history of participation art from the 1960s to present, and examines the social and technological trends that have ignited a new genre of democratic art-making--incorporating ten to ten-thousand participants in the creative process. Students will become familiar with seminal participatory art works of the last 40 years, read critical texts on Social Sculpture, Distributed Creativity, Gift Economies, and Relational Aesthetics, and finally, collectively create a new "crowdsourced" work of art. Course #: Art 4397 / Section #15735 or Art 6397/ Section # 3344. Visit www.uh.edu for enrollment info!


Image: Ant Farm,
50x50' Pillow, 1969

Monday, July 09, 2007

Grover Gets Wired

Aurora's Founding Director, Andrea Grover is interviewed this week in Wired by Leah DeVun for a story on art and crowdsourcing. The interview was a result of Assignment Zero-- itself an experiment in crowdsourced journalism.


Friday, June 29, 2007

Karaoke, Take Me Away


This weekend marks Aurora Picture Show's 9th anniversary, and 10th installment of Extremely Shorts: Works 3 Minutes and Under. One hour of short films and videos were selected by this year's juror, Jytte Jensen of MoMA, and will be screened three times during the course of the weekend. Sunday ends with the ritualistic backyard or indoor (depending on the gods) picnic and no-holds-barred karaoke singing. FYI, I have reserved all Peggy Lee titles, so don't even think about it, sister.

Pictured: Carlos Lama and Nancy Novotny

Monday, June 04, 2007

Aurora in New York Magazine Online


Look at all those pews. Isn't Aurora photogenic? Aren't we proud to be in New York Magazine's online Weekend Escape Plan?

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

And the Winners Are

Thank you to everyone who bought a raffle ticket for Aurora's mini-fundraiser! We shuffled and shook a hat full of tickets and (drum roll please) ....the winning tickets belonged to Paul Nelson and Stewart Davis. Congrats Paul and Stewart! We wish you two the best of luck (not that you need it;-) in Vegas or wherever your airline vouchers take you.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Raffle Time


Support Aurora Picture Show's Mission with Aurora's Summertime Raffle

Aurora Picture Show (800 Aurora Street, Houston, TX 77009) is raffling off two packages to Vegas's Cinevegas Film Festival, taking place June 1st - June 16th, 2007 at the Palms Casino Resort. Two prizes will be drawn and each of the two winners will receive two rountrip airline vouchers on Southwest Airlines and 20 tickets to the film festival. The raffle tickets are $10 each and each ticket purchase enters you in a drawing to win one of these exciting trips to Vegas.

The Aurora Picture Show Raffle ENDS MAY 20, 2007, and WINNERS WILL BE AWARDED MAY 21, so buy your tickets now and enter to win a getaway to the film festival "...that mixes pure pleasure with a mighty serious ambition for discovery" (Variety)

Go to Aurora's homepage to buy a ticket now!

Friday, April 27, 2007

Bad-Ass Here: Quintron & Ms. Pussycat at Aurora's Media Archeology Festival (Orange Show)

John Carrithers contributes this lovely video of the fun times at this year's Media Archeology: Below-Fi Festival. I was in the pool, were you?

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Media Archeology Hits Below the Technology Belt


Aurora's biggest and bestest annual festival of unclassifiable a/v performance starts this Thursday, April 19 and runs through April 21 at Aurora, Domy, and Orange Show. MEDIA ARCHEOLOGY: BELOW-FI is curated by musician/a/v curator Nick Hallett, and brings to town BRUCE MCCLURE, RAY SWEETEN, NAUTICAL ALMANAC, DYNASTY HANDBAG, TRISTAN PERICH, QUINTRON & MISS PUSSYCAT, and MIGHTY ROBOT. If you are interested in live, multimedia performance that crosses platforms, genres, and astral planes, Media Archeology is the festival to attend. Plus, it's fun, like a big nervous party.

Pictured: Dynasty Handbag who performs Friday, April 20, 8:30pm at Domy Books;