Alex Rivera's Web Project

Visiting filmmaker Alex Rivera shared with Aurora all sorts of video work, shorts and awesome films; nevertheless, his take on the immigration issue does not end there. He is also working with Angel Nevarezon on a web project called Low Drone which consists of a remote controlled low-rider spy drone that jumps in between the US and Mexico in order to increase the level of satire surveying the US border patrol.

Aurora visiting artist, Ximena Cuevas

The Yes Men in the "special edition" of today's New York Times.

If you had the chance to see The Yes Men in 2005 at Aurora, you might be interested in what they came out with:

In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street. Early this morning, commuters nationwide were delighted to find out that while they were sleeping, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had
come to an end...

Toypunks Rocks the House

Aurora Picture Show hosted filmmakers Chris Nelson and Carl Wormley (pictured) this weekend with a screening of their recently completed documentary Toypunks featuring designer toy creators Bounty Hunter and Frank Kozik. Nelson and Wormley filled audience members in on the highlights of shooting in the Harajuku shopping district of Tokyo and plans for a next installment of the documentary series. To hear Chris Nelson's interview about Toypunks on KUHF-FM (Houston's NPR affiliate), download the interview from the station's website here.

Extremely Shorts Rock the House

Aurora closed our the first half of our calendar year with a packed house for Extremely Shorts Eleven. The weekend kicked off with four hundred plus attending a "Best of" Extremely Shorts screening at
Discovery Green Park(photo provided by Arie Moghadden-thank you Arie), followed by three screenings at the Aurora home venue of new shorts from emerging film and video artists hosted by curator Ed Halter. This years top three films were David Purdie's "Astrowhirled", Sarah Grass' "I'd Rather Have a Puppy" and Brandon Van Meter's "Who I'll Be." After several hours of karaoke the final night of the festival, Aurora is ready for some much deserved R&R. Please join us again in August for Houston filmmaker Chris Nelson's screening of Toypunks. Get ready for toys, fashion, and punk rock!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

You Are Here Symposium: Instant Replay

If you missed the December symposium You Are Here, you can watch video documentation online (courtesy of Bree Edwards and Johnny DeKam).

You Are Here- Nato Thompson

You Are Here- Matt Coolidge/CLUI

You Are Here- Institute for Applied Autonomy

You Are Here- Matt McCormick 1

You Are Here- Matt McCormick 2

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.

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!

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!

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!

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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!

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

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;

A Buzz That's Never Been

Aurora is abuzz with international publicity and blog posts surrounding the exhibit "Never Been to Houston," which was co-curated by Aurora Picture Show and Jon Rubin. With information being posted in Croatia, Italy, and Scotland, Aurora really is BIG in Europe. Here are some of the highlights:

Italy
Iran
Scotland
Croatia
More Croatia Coverage
And More from Croatia

Anyone speak Italian? And, for those who want to hear more, join us for a gallery talk with Jon Rubin (on his first visit to Houston!) at 6:30 p.m. April 11 at Lawndale, 4912 Main.

Kia Neill Joins the Aurora Team

Welcome Kia Neill! In addition to being our fabulously friendly new membership contact, Neill is a fine artist, who completed her MFA from The University of California, San Diego in 2005, and her BFA from The Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. She grew up in the northern suburbs of Chicago, and relocated to the Houston area last summer from Los Angeles, CA. Neill is very excited about Houston's immensely vibrant and arts-supportive community, and the many relevant and bracing contemporary artists, writers and collectors that reside here. We hope we have hooked her into staying a long time;-)

Never Been To Houston

This image (by Lindsay Perth, Edinburgh, Scotland) is one of 100+ photos that make up the exhibition Never Been to Houston, curated by Aurora Picture Show and Jon Rubin, at Lawndale Art Center through April 14. More than 20 worldwide participants (who have never been to Houston) were invited to contribute photos of what they think Houston might look like, using their own city as the subject. The contributors upload images every day to a photosharing site that is projected live on a large projection screen at Lawndale gallery. The exhibit evolves daily, as the contributors continue to add photos and respond to other contributions. Read all about it in the Houston Chronicle.

Contributors include:

Blue Rihn Productions: Jan Van Woensel & Vanessa Albury (New York, NY USA); Takayuki Yamamoto, Japan (Nagoya, Japan); John Marriot (Toronto, Canada); Lindsay Perth (Edinburgh, Scotland); Francesco Nonino (Bologna, Italy); Elena Perlino (Saluzzo, Italy); Sean McFarland (San Francisco, CA, USA); Amirali Ghasemi (Tehran, Iran); Peter Edmunds (Canberra, Australia); Ana Rodriguez (Quito, Ecuador); John Marriott (Toronto, Canada); Marko Pekica (Zagreb, Croatia); Elia Patricia Pekica Pagon (Zagreb, Croatia); James Charlton (Auckland, New Zealand); Jon Rubin (Pittsburgh, PA USA); Eiji Watanabe (Nagoya, Japan); Sean McFarland (San Francisco, CA, USA); Heidi Hove Pedersen (Copenhagen, Denmark); Kurt Keifer (Seattle, WA USA).

Anna Bids Auf Wiedersehen

After three months as the Aurora Intern Extraordinaire, Anna Ballheimer bid us Auf Wiedersehen in order to finish her degree in Cultural Design in Dinkelsbuhel, Germany. Ballheimer was the force behind the newly organized and appropriately "pretty" Aurora video library, and also served as Aurora's main functionability barometer with her famous catchphrase, "That is not working, girlfriend." Though we realize the importance of completing her undergraduate degree, we hope she'll come back to Aurora soon to remind us who's the boss and shower us with more German chocolate. God speed Anna to Germany and back.

Dance Power

The January screening of the DC cable access show Pancake Mountain turned into one big kiddie mosh pit at Aurora Picture Show. Learn the latest dance moves (through photographs) from these hipster toddlers and tweens on the Aurora Flickr site. Warning: Kids, don't try these moves without a parent or adult companion nearby. You could bust a groove or break something expensive.

Read Amy O'Byrne's report on her PM visit to Aurora Picture Show.

The success of Pancake Mountain has lead the Aurora powers-that-be to revive our Popcorn Kids screening series. You and your small humans will love coming to Popcorn Kids events, which highlights alternative kids shows geared toward pre-K through elementary school-age children and their parents. Check our website for updates on the series, or e-mail suggestions for kids screenings to Andrea Grover.

On a related note, those Dutch are planning to use dance floor energy to power their nightclubs!

Photos by Steve Patlan

Sundance Bound

Aurora foxes Grover and Harvey are heading to Sundance this week. Naturally, our main purpose is R & D (research and development for you non-NASA types), so we will be seeing the latest in short films and animated shorts, documentaries and naturally investigating just how one makes a margarita in a dry state like Utah. Tough job, but someone has to fall on the sword........Wish us luck an let us know if anyone else is heading there as well.

For you name-droppers, artists from past Aurora screenings at Sundance 2007 include Nick Broomfield, Paul Chan, Martha Colburn, Mike Plante, Nicolas Provost, Jay Rosenblatt, and Travis Wilkerson, plus our friends Chris Wilcha (The Target Shoots First), Mark Elijah Rosenberg (Rooftop Films) and Ruby Lerner (Creative Capital) will be there to share their brains.

Aurora Makes Headlines

While the Aurora staff would like to think that we have trendsetting status (at least among the four of us), we were thrilled to find out that the Greater Houston Convention and Visitor's Bureau has graced us with that recognition (don't laugh). This week, Aurora Picture Show, will be honored along with The Art Guys, Chloe Dao, Rick Lowe, Carolyn Farb, and Lauren Anderson, as part of Houston's "headliners and newsmakers" event in appreciation of local media. We'd like to thank the fans, without which none of this would be possible, and the academy, of course.

Pancake Mountain Is Here

This weekend, Scott Stuckey's alternative kids show, Pancake Mountain, comes to Aurora. Amy O'Byrne, one of the show's producers and characters is arriving with new footage from episodes 9 and 10 featuring acts like Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins, Built to Spill, The Flaming Lips, X and more.

The first 10 people to each showing will receive free Yummy-Scrummy Pancake Mountain pancake mix!! So, make sure to beat the competition and be the first through the door. Shows are on Saturday, January 13th at 10 am or Sunday, January 14th at 3pm.

Creative Capital Grant Applications Open Soon!

2007 is the year for Film/Video (and Visual Arts) grant applications to the world's greatest funder for artists: Creative Capital Foundation. What makes Creative Capital Captain? They don't just give you cash--they provide professional development support, and real life funds for things like childcare, a personal assistant, and other items which open up new paths to productivity. The online inquiry form will be available beginning February 5 - March 5, 2007. Go get it! You can check out past fundees on the Creative Capital Channel website.


Pictured: Still from Jem Cohen's Chain, a previously funded Creative Capital film/video project.

Aurora Announces New Headquarters

1524 Sul Ross: Aurora's Future Office/Library
Originally uploaded by Aurora Picture Show.

Great News. Aurora announces our new headquarters. Starting December 15th, Aurora Picture Show is moving on down to the Montrose, taking over a house at 1524 Sul Ross, in the heart of the Menil Campus. The new digs will have room to showcase Aurora's video library, and enable us to make it available by appointment for any and all film fans. Just imagine your own private A/V Geeks marathon! Screenings will still be at Aurora, 800 Aurora Street, complete with disco ball and everyone's favorite under-five hosts, Gigi and Lola. Come by and see us next time your at the Menil.

Bill Daniel on CINEMAD

Reading in FUNdamental.

Read an interview with Bill Daniel (at Aurora December 16-17, 2006 with WHO IS BOZO TEXINO), who tells all to CINEMAD:

http://www.iblamesociety.com/cinemad/interviews/billdaniel.html

This excellent interview is conducted by MIKE PLANTE, no relation to Robert.

Aurora eBay Super Seller Sale Sells OUT!

Aurora posted a few must have books, DVDs, and CDs here:

Aurora Holiday Shop

John Edward Ross and Laura Harrison on KUHF 88.7

Planning to come to Elements this weekend at Aurora? Listen to a preview and interview with the two artists on KUHF.

Phantom Captain a Hit

The reviews are in and Phantom Captain is a hit! Andrea Grover's Apexart exhibit showcasing the art world's use of "crowdsourcing" has received notices in Flavorpill, Gothamist, Saatchi Gallery, and now Time Out Magazine. Read the latest from Time Out here...

Mini Fundraiser Fumiko-style

Former Aurora board member and volunteer champion of the world, Fumiko Chino, has surprised us with an eBay on-line auction benefiting Aurora Picture Show. Featured items are anime and manga DVD titles (Orphen, Saint Selva, Sister Princess, Gravion Zwei, Wandaba Style, and more), and a mixed lot of Farscape DVDs! Bid here, bid now, viva Aurora!

Anna Travels 4719 Nautical Miles!

Aurora has a wunderbar new intern, Anna Ballheimer! Anna hails from the idyllic town of Dinkelsbuhel, Germany where she was raised in a family-run youth hostel-- a 500 year old grain storage facility. She has a degree in Cultural Design, which Anna describes as "something between making art and selling art." Besides working in the family business, she also worked in a castle, which gave us slight inferiority complex when she first came to Aurora. Anna is working diligently on the future Aurora public video library. Check back for the grand opening.

Anna illustration by Annika Mayer

Aurora Adds a Guy

Welcome Guy Harrison, Aurora's new Facility Manager! A long-time Volunteer Coordinator for the Aurora, Guy has finally been suckered, I mean hired, as a full fledged Aurora staff member. Besides his time at Aurora, Guy spends his daytime hours working away at School of the Woods Montessori. While he can sometimes be found repairing and building things around the school, his main job consists of waving and greeting all the kids on the playground in response to "Hi, Mr. Guy." At home he hangs out with three dogs (Iggy, Trixie and Buddy) and two cats (Squeaky and Lucy) and a motorcycle (which he hasn't named). He's all giggly with pleasure at being part of the Aurora crew!

Aurora Friend Takes on ANT

Local filmmaker and Aurora friend Laura Harrison has Texas on her side. Harrison just received a grant from the Texas Filmmaker's Production Fund (from Austin Film Society ) to help her complete her documentary ANT, about the 70s art/architecture collective Ant Farm, who were best known for the iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch. Harrison has previously received grants for the film from the Graham Foundation and Cultural Arts Council of Houston and is aiming for a finish date of Spring 2007. Also the force behind the films Secret People (2000), Thurmond, W. Va (1995) and more recently, Voting in America, Harrison is well on her way to an ant-tastic production, no doubt! Congrats Laura!

Grover Creates a Phantom

Aurora Founder Andrea Grover (aka boss lady to us) has spread her curating wings to New York and is taking no prisoners as she shows the big apple just how it's done. Grover has created a show for Apexart gallery entitled "Phantom Captain: Art and Crowdsourcing", dealing with the new trend in "user" made art. The show runs Wednesday, October 18 to Saturday, November 25, 2006 and features some names Aurora fans may recognize such as Jeff Howe, Peter Edmunds, Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July, Aaron Koblin, Davy Rothbart and Allison Wiese.

Watch out NYC - Grover can not only tango with the best in media arts, but can balance a two-year old on her shoulder while running a projector, and can take down some talented opponents (or Aurora staff) in a mean pool game too.

For those of you who need more Grover, like everyone does, there is more info on the Phantom Captain exhibit, here.....
www.apexart.org

Aurora Staff Return From Outward Bound Experience Intact

Following the Aurora Staff's return from our retreat with mother nature and fellow media arts enthusiasts (read geeks) which you can read about below, we dove right in with a screening weekend September 15-17 from Brent Hoff of Wholphin, the DVD Magazine from McSweeneys. Friday nights' event was graciously hosted by Domy Bookstore and included highlights from Spike Jonze, Miranda July, and Lisa Chang, among others. The full program (which any good Theorist would require) is listed on the Aurora website under calendar. Here is a shout out to Brent who suffered through Houston humidity with the dignity of any new mixed breed mammal. Thank you Brent.

Aurora Staff Sighting in Oregon

From September 10-14, 2006, the Aurora staff (Melissa, Delicia, and Andrea) went on retreat to the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, Oregon. Told through photos on Aurora's Flickr site is the story of their profound bonding experience, plus drinking, pool playing, and WHITE GRAVY. The retreat was conducted by NAMAC and The Learning Commons, and focused on leadership styles/learning styles. If you can guess each of our Learning Styles (Theorist, Pragmatist, Reflector, or Activist) we'll give you a free All Access pass to Aurora for one year (that's free admission to all $5 screenings). First correct reply wins!

Another Aurora Wedding

Andrew Ladd and Fumiko Chino tie the knot at Aurora

Aurora Picture Show has been the home to 15 weddings, and the latest was the marriage of our dear friends Fumiko Chino and Andrew Ladd on September 2, 2006. Fumiko is the former Art Director of ADV Films, and Andrew is a very smart Computer Science Canadian (CSC). Aren't they a lovely couple?

The first couple to be married at Aurora was Bill Davenport and Francesca Fuchs in 1999, followed by Pat Phipps and Claire Chauvin. Other Aurora unions included Scott Calhoun and Lisa Cooley, and Dianna Ray and Kathy Johnston.

A/V Geeks HQ

Last week I infiltrated the high security compound known as the A/V Geeks Headquarters, home of 16mm film collector Skip Elsheimer and Germaine Fodor in Raleigh, NC. Skip and Germaine live in an eight bedroom boarding house with 18,000 films, misc. film strips, a telecine, assorted projectors, and a whole lot of small objects that *could* choke a toddler like the one pictured here (Gigi). Perhaps in retaliation, Gigi inserted an everything bagel into their VCR.

Every good Aurora-ite knows about Skip's ongoing thematic screenings of educational films, which have screened at Aurora every year since 1999. But did you know that Skip is also in the business of film transferring and stock footage licensing? Among his clients are Wonder Showzen, VH1, The History Channel, and other people he asked me not to mention.

The complete A/V Geeks photographs are on the Aurora Flickr site.

The Yes Men in the News

The Yes Men (Mike and Andy) at Aurora December 2005

The Yes Men have successfully pranked again. This time "Andy" posed as a HUD representative in New Orleans.

Diane Shamash

Diane Shamash, curator, writer, public art presenter, and founder of Minetta Brook, passed away on Sunday, August 13 at her home in New York. I had the privilege of working with Diane on the Floating Cinema in Houston this past June. Diane was a visionary, affable and elegant woman, whose demeanor earned her the ability to produce some of the most challenging large scale public art works. Among her many accomplishments was bringing to fruition The Floating Island by Robert Smithson, 32 years after his death. Diane also was behind Riverrun-- projections on New York's Holland Tunnel ventilation system (a collaboration between Minetta Brook and the Whitney), The Thames and Hudson River Project (a public art collaboration between New York and London) and many others. For someone who could move mountains in the public art realm, Diane was rarely in the spotlight but the impact of her vision is lasting and beautiful. She will be missed.

Seattle Post Intelligencer obituary here.

Floating Cinema

June 10, 2006, fireworks, fried food, jugglers, CCR, live TV coverage, and then quiet, structuralist landscape films. These are professional photos from the Buffalo Bayou Partnership's grand opening of the Sabine-to-Bagby Promenade in downtown Houston. Andrea Grover of Aurora Picture Show and Diane Shamash of Minetta Brook curated the films, which included Peter Hutton's Two Rivers, James Benning's Ten Skies, and Andy Warhol's Sunset. The floating cinema is the creation of artist Jon Rubin.

As you can see, there were thousands of viewers, and we are now considering contacting Guinness Book to see if we broke the world record for attendees to a structuralist landscape film screening.

Top two photos by Jim Caldwell
Bottem photo by Raymond Groscrand
(Courtesy of Buffalo Bayou Partnership)

Take Me to Monkeytown

The July 27 show at Monkeytown was chest-poundingly good. I screened the Best of Aurora, Volume 3 (Jona Bechtolt, Tommy Becker, Andre Silva, Gerald Straub, Jim Finn, Skip Elsheimer, Eileen Maxson, Jeff Butterworth, Adad Hannah, Arthur Jones, Matt Hulse, Enid Baxter Blader, Bill Daniel, Andy Mann), and got to reconnect with some top Aurora buddies.

The Monkeytown screening room is a theater in the square, with gi-normous screens on all four walls, a killer sound system, and futons with coffee tables for food service. Initially I thought the four screens would be distracting, but not at all. The brain works miracles when given too much information, and settles into plain old stereo vision. Monkeytown started out in the apartment of Montgomery Knott, and was later underwritten by some investors who thought it a pretty good idea. I agree. The current home of Monkeytown is a storefront on 3rd Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It's more comfy than Alamo Drafthouse, Austin-- the futons and coffee tables invite people to lounge and hang out. I wonder if Montgomery was influenced by Alamo, as he is a former Austinite.

In attendance at the screenings were your friends and mine: Colleen Burke (We Ragazzi), Mary Ellen Carroll, Nick Hallett, Sara Hines (Apex Art), Arthur Jones, Ryan Junell (Slomo Video), Kyle Lapidus (Lovid), Marisa Olson (Rhizome), Caspar Stracke and Gabriela Monroy (Mostra), and Butcher Walsh. There was also a big group from an design agency called Farenheit 212. I read somewhere that Jonas Mekas once said that advertising professionals were some of the biggest clients for film rentals from Filmmakers' Coop.

Stovepipe and Scanner

And another thing... Our neighbor and long time friend Michael Stovall was an animator on the film "A Scanner Darkly." Mike and his wife Miss Anne (Stovepipe Design) have designed the last three Best of Aurora Picture Show program books. And when we built a wheelchair ramp at Aurora, Mike and Chris Lockwood (Aurora's full time volunteer designer for the last 5 years) poured the cement for the landing. Brawn and brains, all in the family.

Speaking of Best of Aurora, Volume 3 in the series will be at Monkeytown, Brooklyn on July 27, 2006. Free admission if you wear cowboy boots. More on that later.

Movie Graham

Graham Reynolds, the Austin-based virtuoso behind the band Golden Arm Trio and alum of many Aurora programs (he played live scores for three shows and GAT was the official band of Carlos and Andrea's unholy union), created the soundtrack for the soon to be released A SCANNER DARKLY, directed by Richard Linklater. The soundtrack is on sale now, and the movie opens July 7.

Though music is not expressly part of our mission, a few interdisciplinary musicians have vibrated the walls of our old church. Who? Calvin Johnson, Khaela Maricich, Phil Elvrum, Jana Hunter, Jody Hughes, Dat Politic, Slump, Childcraft, Loreta Kovacic; and offsite Aurora shows Jona Bechtolt, Extreme Animals, TV Sheriff, My Robot Friend, who am I forgetting? Help?

Delicia Harvey, Come On Down!

No, she's not a contestant on The Price Is Right, she's Aurora's new Associate Director! Aurora is delighted to welcome Delicia Harvey to our staff. Delicia will take her post at Aurora in August 2006. She comes by way of The Alley Theatre, where she was Public Relations Manager, and has formerly worked for Landmark Theatre Corporation and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Film Department. Delicia has an MA in Public Communications from Fordham University, and a BA from University of California, San Diego. Please join us in welcoming her to Aurora.

What Happens at Aurora Stays at Aurora

Aurora spares no expense when it comes to our visiting artists. Here we see Extremely Shorts 9 juror Kevin Jerome Everson receiving a substantial honorarium in $5 bills.

Pictured below are some of the annual picnic attendees, and an unnamed karaoke victim. More pictures can be seen on our Flickr site. Thanks to photographers Marisa Avelar and Steve Patlan!

A Comeback for Allison Wiese

Viewers may remember this former cast member at Aurora, First Mate Allison Wiese. Wiese was the first employee at Aurora beyond Captain Andrea Grover, and was hired in January 2002. Since her departure in 2004, our first mate has been on a Nantucket Sleigh Ride of adventures, with exhibits and artist residencies across the whole US of A!

Hold onto your lifevests, because for a limited two-week engagement, First Mate Wiese will return to the Aurora to batten down the hatches, and work during our 8th Anniversary weekend (Extremely Shorts 9, June 24-25). Come sing some shantees with her at the annual anniverary picnic on Sunday, June 25, 6pm-10pm!

Ethan the Greyhound (1994-2006)

Yesterday, June 1, was Ethan's last day with us. After his companion, Patti, died on May 1, Ethan's health rapidly deteriorated. Like an old married couple, one died right after the other.

Ethan Sleet was his racing name and his racing statistics are still on-line. He was a solid third placer a few times before a hip injury placed him in early retirement--lucky for us, because we adopted Ethan in 1996. Ethan was the first canine resident of Aurora, and is best known for actually being able to say "Aurora." We had visions of Ethan saying Aurora at every screening, but when we actually tried our pet trick before a live audience, Ethan just wandered down the aisle looking for lovin'. Apparently, he didn't like to show off.

Two of the finest pets ever, Ethan and Patti R.I.P.