Though watching Ryan Trecartin’s films aren’t entirely a waste of time, it sure feels that way at the time. The hyper-intense mix of screeching voices, messily-costumed performers and banal scenarios come across like a reality tv show of drag queens on crack.

Ryan Trecartin, Still from A Family Finds Entertainment, 2004. Image: kera.org

Watch one of Trecartin’s videos on Youtube, HERE.

The videos on view at Toronto’s Power Plant (until May 24, 2010 - click HERE) reminded me of the at-first-hideous-but-in-hindsight-kind-of-brilliant film Idiocracy, “about the demise of North American civilization. America, 500 years into the future, has become a place where advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant resulting in a uniformly stupid human society.” (Thanks, Wikipedia - and Jennifer)

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Here’s Bravo’s glimpse behind the scenes of Canadian Art magazine and the Canadian Art Foundation where I work part time.

Click the image to make it larger, or click the link below to watch the program. Image: VoCA

The clip of the program Arts & Minds gives a good look at the people and ideas behind the magazine and some of the Foundation programs.

Click HERE to view the clip.

DESIGN IS THE NEW ART.

Art used to be able to change the way we see the world, but aside from the terrifying German artist Gregor Schneider, we can’t really think of any that does today. Design, on the other hand, has been proven to house displaced people, heal the terribly ill, rescue the desperately poor, possibly even save the environment.

David Rokeby, Quaver, (2002-2010), interactive video installation, still. Image: parinadimigallery.com

Canadian artists like David Rokeby (whose show at Pari Nadimi Gallery just opened in Toronto) designs computer interfaces for his artworks that have been used for medical purposes. Amazing.

Ever since Bruce Mau brought his overly wordy, curatorially-challenged but conceptually brilliant exhibition, Massive Change to the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2008, we have known that Design Can Change the World. Add Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity, who gave a riveting talk at OCAD earlier that same year, and the message is clear.

We can no longer sustain design for design’s sake. It’s an outdated idea. Design must be used to solve problems, and educational institutions should be the ones preaching this to students.

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So last week, we accepted an invitation to the “Cast and Crew” screening of artist Daniel Cockburn’s debut feature film, You Are Here at the Royal cinema in Toronto.

All images stills from You Are Here. All courtesy Daniel Cockburn.

Cockburn has, since about 2000, been at the top of VoCA’s list of ‘Most Promising Young Artists.’ He works in video, with an occasional – excellent – foray into performance. In 2007, he also made a conceptual book work, Visible Vocals. Find it HERE.

In 2003, his excellent video Metronome, was featured in a screening I curated in London UK, where it was well received.

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In recent years, among Torontonians, there seems to have been increased interest and passion for the city.

I heart Toronto. Image: igougo.com

Spacing magazine, Yonge Street, Blog TO, Torontoist, Murmur, the ROM and the AGO, Waterfront Toronto’s plans for the city (heavily covered by the Globe and Mail’s Lisa Rochon), they all speak to wanting to better our urban environment.

A recent article in the Toronto Star says:

“For decades, there has been talk of an actual, physical museum, where Torontonians could learn about the history of this piece of land from the post-ice age era through our ongoing waves of immigration.

As recently as 2007, the museum project was (to be) built inside the old Canada Malting silos on Queens Quay. But then came the recession,…and the funding and political will fell through (again).”

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SmallTalks is a series of very short podcasts hosted by the fascinating artist Darren O’Donnell, who, “like a log drifting downstream, will snag people on the bank to slow his progress toward death, and chat with them about their aspirations.”

Artist Darren O’Donnell. Image: 2.bp.blogspot.com

Created in response to a life with too much time spent on the road, Darren will be interviewing people around the world and describing the sensation of weak knees in the face of vast heights.

Darren talks with people that he meets and finds interesting, and even offers introspective commentary from a restroom. (He’s trying to use the restroom as a place to rest, he says.)

All SmallTalks are available HERE or you can follow Darren’s twitter feed for updates HERE.

Read more about Darren O’Donnell’s work, including Mammamlian Diving Reflex and Social Acupuncture, HERE.

Some of the visual artists who will be exhibiting new works at the Vancouver 21010 Olympics:

Eric Metcalfe, Insectarium, 2005. Image: winchestergalleriesltd.com

1. ERIC METCALFE AND GEORGE LEWIS: IKONS

Ikons is a collaborative interactive art installation Vancouver performance and visual artist Eric Metcalfe and legendary American composer, trombonist and intellectual George Lewis.

For the piece, Metcalfe has created seven vibrant hand-painted sculptures, each about eight feet tall, that will house sonar sensors and speakers. The exhibition space will be full of recorded music composed by Lewis and performed by Vancouver’s contemporary/classical Turning Point Ensemble.

Ikons runs January 28 to February 28 from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Five-Sixty, 650 Seymour Street, Vancouver. Admission is free. Click HERE for a map.

More, including Etienne Zack, David Hoffos and Don Ritter, if you click over…

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Scott Treleaven was born in Toronto, Canada and graduated from the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD) in 1996.

Scott Treleaven, My Ever Changing Moods, 2009, ink, photographs, watercolour. Image: kavigupta.com

Now based in Paris, he has shown in Chicago at Kavi Gupta, in New York at John Connelly Presents and has had a limited edition book published by Printed Matter Inc.

He is probably best know for his film The Salivation Army (2002), which caught the attention of the Village Voice in 2003, screening worldwide, most notably in the official Art Basel film program in 2004 and at the Museum of Modern Art in 2006.

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Dogs.We’ve been thinking about them a lot lately. Toronto is full of dogs. It’s a very dog-friendly city, aside from the over-salted winter sidewalks, which can be tough on paws.

William Wegman, Basic Shapes in Color, 1993. Image: dreamdogsart.com

With all the dogs comes bizarre dog owner behaviour. You see more and more people carrying their dogs around, like a living handbag, or a security blanket.  Can’t they walk?  And of course the outfits!  Some owners even dye their dogs fur.

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Do you ever notice how sometimes you go into a shop, or eat at a restaurant, and you can just tell–usually by the outfit and the attitude–that you’re being served by an artist or, more likely, an art student. They seem bored, and clearly dislike their job.

Rikrit Tiravanija makes art. Image: columbia.edu

Every job holds creative potential, and every act is a creative act, as many artists–particularly practitioners of relational aesthetics– have noted. In fact, every situation holds potential. We saw the film Invictus recently, which is, in part about the revelations that Mandela came to terms with while in prison.

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