Cropped Will Cardini artwork

April 20th, 2008

An Owl Minion

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 1:00 pm

prepares a human body for sacrifice

April 13th, 2008

Impossible Objects #2

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , — William Cardini @ 4:37 pm

Impossible Objects #1 available
in comic book form
e-mail [REDACTED]@gmail.com for a copy

October 13th, 2007

The Return of the Miizzzard

Filed under: Art Shows — Tags: , , — William Cardini @ 2:46 pm

The Miizzzard has (as some of you may be aware)
been lost in the swamp for several months now.

At 7:11 p.m. on November 7th, 2007, the Miizzzard will make his triumphant return to the A7X! Be there* by 7 p.m. to witness this event, for he will return precisely at 7:11 p.m.!

*The Miizzzard will roll into Austin at 7:11 p.m. on Alexander St., between MLK & Manor (this street connects to the Creative Research Lab / Flatbed Press parking lot on its east side) and will emerge from his quasi-space vehicle at the southern end of the street, where there will be a sign proclaiming “The Miizzzard Returns!” This event is in no way affiliated with the Creative Research Lab or Flatbed Press.

September 17th, 2007

N e o – A r c a d i a

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 9:46 pm

was destroyed June 30th
by bumzzz fruuum the fuuutur
stranded in the present.

May NEO-ARCADIA
live long in our memories.

It was a fluorescent dream of a city.

Mark P. Hensel and his Blue Tarp

Filed under: Artwork,Manifestos — Tags: , , , , , — William Cardini @ 9:23 pm

The blue tarp interests me as a material and as a symbol. I first began to use it when I went on Land Arts, a study-abroad program between UT and the University of New Mexico where we went on two three-week-long camping trips throughout the Southwest and down into Mexico. Since everything we brought for camping and art-making had to fit into two duffel bags, the tarp had to double as part of my bedding and as an object for performances and sculptures.

photo of me lying down, wrapped up in a tarp, against a rock wall
This photo isn’t from Land Arts; rather, it’s from Nohegan art camp at McKinney Falls State Park just south of Austin, TX; but I’m wearing my Land Arts clothes and I have my Land Arts tarp. July 2006.

I am intrigued by the idea of making my sculptures into animate beings, because of a fascination with transformative processes: in folklore, clay becoming the golem; in science-fiction, machines and blobs becoming alive; and in the Catholic Church, wine and bread becoming the blood and body of Christ. Therefore, when we went to Utah’s salt flats or were camping near the edge of a mesa, I would set up the tarp with rope or by holding it up myself so that the wind in these environments would make it move and flail about as if alive.

video still of a tarp dancing in the wind on the Bonneville Salt Flats
Video still of a tarp dancing in the wind on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Fall 2004.

The reason that I use the tarp in particular rather than any other large of piece of fabric, synthesized or grown, is that it is a pre-packaged commodity, made in China from plastic and already cut to the size that I want, complete with grommets for easy fastening. It is ubiquitous but used for a variety of purposes related to sheltering and protecting things because it is resistant to weather and amorphous in form, foldable into any number of shapes. Its lack of specificity is what makes it useful; but it can also be menacing because one is never sure what is hidden beneath it.

After I returned to Austin from Land Arts, I began to take more advantage of these aspects of the tarp, taking a video where I wave the tarp in the air and animating over the footage so that the tarp seems to transform into different monstrous faces and abstract forms.


Fugue video. Fall 2005.

In my performance for the Grid show, I wanted to tackle the tarp from the opposite end: rather than the tarp becoming alive, I wanted something living to become the tarp. I used call-and-response so that it did not seem like I was a madman in my own world, pretending to be a tarp, rather the audience was with me and assisted me in this process. Also, up until that show I had always used the same tarp that I had taken with me on Land Arts; but because of the size restriction I bought another (the same brand because I prefer that particular shade of blue) and cut it and hand-sewed it with fishing line so that it was four by eight feet and still had its grommets in the right places for me to attach it to myself and the fan. I now plan the creation of a tarp monster, a mechanism that moves in ways unpredictable and independent of myself, a machine with an unknowable interior.

photo of me laying down in front of a box fan in an art gallery with a tarp attached to my body
close-up photo of me laying down in front of a box fan in an art gallery with a tarp attached to my body
Photos of my “Becoming Tarp” performance at the Grid show at the Creative Research Lab in Austin, TX. Jan 2006.

June 29th, 2007

Post Script

Filed under: Artwork,Fiction — Tags: , — William Cardini @ 10:45 pm

He would sit in his apartment in the nights of heat and rain and weave, or fold paper, or sew; and as he carefully and drunkenly constructed these illusory selves, he thought of the person who he wanted to be, and he thought of a feminist class he had taken in college, and it was one thought rolling thru his head in time to the music and the wheels and the dawn that would come and pass once more: “Biology is no longer destiny.”

***

“When I was a little kid, I would sit in the bath tub and play with all the shampoos and bubble baths that were sitting around the rim of the tub. I would mix them together in a little plastic cup, and think that if I mixed them just right, and drank it, I would be transformed into Bowser, and I could romp around the town, breathing fire and destroying stuff.”

New Blog Posting of an Old Event (May 2007)

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , , — William Cardini @ 9:47 pm

Performance at “Hacking Utopia(s)” at Current Space, show curated by Michael Benevento and was open from May 11th to June 5th

Here are close-ups of the photographs on the wall, plus a bonus photo, all five done in collaboration with Anne Dunckel:

New Blog Posting of an Old Event (Last Weekend of April, 2007)

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , , , , , — William Cardini @ 9:38 pm

Neo-Arcadia the Fourth (Fyooozzzboxxxx 2007)

A Being in the Digital Realm

The Digital Being Enters the Toxic Material World

The Digital Being is Dying and Must Be Healed

The Digital Being is Revived and Mystically Reborn

The Holy One Speaks to Citizens of Neo-Arcadia…

…As We Serve the Digital God in the Temple of Transfiguration…

…And Johnny Ciscernos Gives Us the Celestial Music of the Spheres.

New Blog Posting of an Old Event (March 2007)

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , , , — William Cardini @ 9:35 pm

Neo-Arcadia the Third, “The Fourth Yuga” (where did the second go? good question.)

Neo-Arcadia Event

We are destruction.

(Ya no, this duznt even mayk any cents to me any mawwwwwwwwwwwwwwr.)

New Blog Posting of an Old Event (Jan 31 2007)

Filed under: Artwork — Tags: , , , — William Cardini @ 9:21 pm

Neo-Arcadia the First was either a “gooooal” or a rawwwring failure.

The Completion.

When the portal opes its mawwwww wwwwwwide wwwwwunss mawwwwwwwwwwr

You know you wanted to see this.

Lanneau, ekskyooz me, I meant Karl Sapien, and I were either “just married” or transported into the twelfth dimension.

Last but not least, thank you all for your support!

Mike Wachs and Beatrice Thomas forevz!!!

Luv yooz guyzzzzz