About the Lecture
For Keller and Dixon humor is both a common coping mechanism for life’s ailments and a lens that allows them to revel in failings and celebrate futility in their creative work. As multidisciplinary artists and designers, each uses a specific working methodology – Keller operates with intentional, clever endurance while Dixon employs quick and novel intuition. When working together, they march forward by embracing merriment in absurdity. In this lecture, Keller and Dixon will trace their bodies of work through parallel, syncopated, and divergent paths of inquiry. In their lecture they discussed the importance of intentional and accidental misinterpretation as a means of understanding the contemporary human condition; the necessity of mirth in their working lives and partnership; and the laughable ridiculousness of life’s supreme ability to complicate communication.
About the Lecturers
Keller and Dixon are artists/designers working collaboratively and independently in Homer, Alaska. Both received Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art + Design and Masters of Fine Arts from the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Dixon straddles a wide set of mediums in her playful and process-oriented work. With a foothold in graphic design and creative direction, she often reaches into broader terrain including experiential work, installation, and product design. Her projects are spurred on by the fallibility of communication, attempts at connection, and unintended output. Dixon received a U.S. Presidential Award, a place in the permanent design collection at the SFMOMA, and the honorable ranking of Art Director’s Club (ADC) Young Gun. Her clients have included the New York Times, Nike, Volkswagen, and Coach. She acted as Design Director for installations featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale and has shown at the Walker Art Center, the Smithsonian Design Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.
Keller is attracted to the uneasy tension generated by our ubiquitous use of technology. His work utilizes entertaining misuses of technology and failures of communication that result from brute-force manipulations of appropriated material and rules-based systems. He has received acclaimed attention for his ongoing series consisting of a self-portrait taken every single day for the past 17 years called The Adaptation to My Generationand digital manipulation via an algorithm of The Simpsonsamong other projects. Keller’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the 2012 transmediale in Berlin, the Australian Centre for Photography in Paddington, and the Seoul International Media Art Biennale in Korea.
JK KELLER + KEETRA DEAN DIXON’S SUGGESTED READINGS
The suggested reading list includes various reading and media recommendations provided by the lecturer. This list of materials can include projects authored by the lecturer or others, and provides further insight into the guest’s sources of inspiration and additional context surrounding the artist/scholar/designer’s work and practice. This list is shared with RMCAD students and faculty and is archived on the website for academic integration and research opportunities. The physical materials are archived in the RMCAD campus library and the VASD Program archive.
Keetra’s List:
Draw It With Your Eyes Closed: The Art of the Art Assignment, by Paper Monument
Book
Do it: The Compendium, by Bruce Altshuler & Hans Ulrich Obrist
Book
The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, by Lewis Hyde
Book
The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp
Book
How It’s Made, Discovery Science Channel Series
TV
Adaptation, written by Charlie Kaufman directed by Spike Jonze, 2002
Movie
Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, written by Charlie Kaufman directed by Michel Gondry, 2004
Movie
Stranger Than Fiction, directed by Marc Forster, 2006
Movie
Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, 1982
Movie
The Five Obstructions, directed by Lars von Trier & Jørgen Leth, 2003
Movie
99% Invisible
podcast
99percentinvisible.org
Digital Human
podcast
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n7094
The Infinite Monkey Cage
podcast
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w/episodes/downloads
You’re not so smart
podcast
http://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/
Lined & Unlined
site
linedandunlined.com
JK’s List
The Discipline of DE, by Gus Van Sant based on William S. Burroughs’ short story
Film
Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
Book
I Seem To Be a Verb by R. Buckminster Fuller with Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore
Book
Best practices for conservation of media art from an artist’s perspective by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
Repository
https://github.com/antimodular/Best-practices-for-conservation-of-media-art
Digital Preservation in the Artist’s Studio by Ben Fino-Radin
Article
https://medium.com/@benfinoradin/digital-preservation-in-the-artist-s-studio-8951e564bb3e#.wd6nxwkcp
Heavenly Visions: Shaker Gift Drawings And Gift Songs, edited by France Morin
Book
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey
Book
10 Bullets by Tom Sachs
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49p1JVLHUos
The Ecstasy of Influence: A plagiarism, by Jonathan Lethem
Article
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence/?single=1
Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters performed by Jaap Blank
Audio (Sound Poem)
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte
Book
Sasquatch music festival 2009 – Guy starts dance party
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA8z7f7a2Pk
Mike Song + David Elsewhere – Kollaboration 2, 2001
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUz4OLQi_uw
In the infinitive, a typotranslation by Richard Hamilton and Ecke Bonk of Marcel Duchamps’s White Box
Book
The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, a typotranslation by Richard Hamilton of Marcel Duchamps’s Green Box
Book
Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini
Book
Ryan’s Web 1.0: A Lossless Fall by Ryan Trecartin
Article
http://linkeditions.tumblr.com/trecartin
Touch of Evil, directed by Orson Welles
Film
