Harvestworks is excited to announce the 2026 Artist-in-Residence (AIR), Technology Immersion Program (TIP), and Special Project Awards recipients. These artists have been commissioned to develop innovative projects in the Harvestworks TEAM (Technology, Engineering, Art, and Music) Lab. The 2026 Artist-in-Residence (AIR) awardees are Victoria Shen, Justin Allen, SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY, Kabir Carter, and Nat Decker. The Special Project Award recipients are Ka Baird and Maya Man. The 2026 Technology Immersion Program (TIP) recipient is Eden Girma. Top row, left to right: Victoria Shen @evicshen , Kabir Carter @kabircarter , Nat Decker @nat_decker__ . Middle row, left to right: Eden Girma @adenniye , Justin Allen. Bottom row, left to right: Ka Baird @sapropelicpycnic , Maya Man @mayaontheinternet , SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY @cleogirl2525 .

Thank you Ajani, Chris, Corey, and Giles for your support of my performance at Human Resources. Images: @reallynathan

Kabir Carter Human Resources 410 Cottage Home Street Thursday, December 14 Doors at 8pm Performance at 9pm Free (pay what you want) Proceeds go to Venice Family Clinic Kabir Carter will explore the spatial acoustics and resonant behavior of a circuit that flows between a loudspeaker, an audio mixer, a microphone, a folding chair, and his body. Carter is a research-based artist who uses sound, light, image, architecture, dance, popular and experimental music, and histories of infrastructures to make work through writing, performance, installations, and related discursive projects and initiatives.

Apply to Bard MFA Music/Sound! Until January 10, 2024, Bard MFA is accepting applications for its intensive summer session focused program. Spanning three eight week on campus sessions and two independent work periods, the program brings together students and faculty in six disciplines through a wide range of activities: meetings, critiques, seminars, and more. Join us! Details: https://www.bard.edu/mfa/applying/

Thank you EHF Venezia for providing a residency experience worth remembering for its stability, simplicity, and autonomy. Grazie La Serenissima per avermi abbracciato.

How does one mourn and remember the estranged? This week, with the passing of my Great Aunt Jean Tillotson (née Sturgeon) in her 105th year, I find myself ruminating over this question. I am looking at a family photograph taken in the early 20th century that includes my maternal grandfather and his sister—my great aunt. As the youngest members of their family, they represent the third generation of Anglo settlers to live and work on farms, homesteads, and in early urban and rural infrastructures throughout California. I represent the fifth generation, and unlike my grandfather and great aunt, I am at once the same and diffferent; that is, I am both shaped by their innermost experiences and possibly represent the object of their generation's deepest ambivalences. Were I to have begun my life a few years earlier, my existence might have led to more explicit, outward, active forms of family violence. Instead, hesitation, doubt, denial, and dismissal were bound with filial affection, endearment, and love. I can only recall meeting my great aunt a few times: for my maternal grandmother forbade all of us to interact with her—even her husband, my great aunt's sibling. All social exchanges with my great aunt had to be conducted in secret because of strange, protracted grievances. While I never quite understood how this came to be (and likely never will), I now understand how some grievances and passions can appear, grow, crest, fall, crash, and recede. They are manifestations of something akin to subtler, difficult to measure energies. They can move between bodies, places, and timespans, through contact and conflict. And when one cannot speak the name of the other, what does this truly mean? What is gained, or lost through this attempt at unseating or dislodging that only seems to allow the despised and the feared to burrow deeper within? What can become of this experience other than a body filled with uncontainable, bad feelings?

Courtesy of Fondation Chantal Akerman A magnificent visual poet left us, the experimental American filmmaker and visual artist Robert Fenz. Terribly saddened by the passing of Robert Fenz. A committed filmmaker & artist whose voice will be missed. Inspired by greats Roy DeCarava, Chantal Akerman, Peter Hutton & Johan van der Keuken, Fenz was singularly talented. Robert Fenz (1969-2020) It breaks our heart to learn that American filmmaker and visual artist Robert Fenz has passed away at the age of 51. We will fondly remember him as a generous and warm hearted person and filmmaker, whose visual poetry continues to touch and inspire spectators worldwide. Rest in Peace, dear Robert. Robert Fenz was also a great cinematographer and producer for other artists. He worked as co-cinematographer on Peggy Ahwesh’s film Nocturn in 1997. In 2001 he worked as co-cinematographer, coproducer and as first assistant director on Chantal Akerman’s documentary De l’autre côté, shot on the USA-Mexican border. In 2002, he was the cinematographer for her installation for Documenta 11, in 2006, he was again Chantal Akerman’s cinematographer for Là-bas, shot in Israel. His own short film Crossing (2006) is a loving experimental answer to Chantal Akerman’s documentary.

As some of you might know, filmmaker and Bard College alumnus Robert Fenz unexpectedly passed away over the weekend. He was 51. Robert studied as an undergraduate at Bard in the nineteen-nineties. He worked with Peggy Ahwesh, Peter Hutton, and Wadada Leo Smith. His collaborations with Smith continued well beyond their shared time at Bard, and they remained creatively engaged until the end of Robert's life. Over a quarter century, while rarely straying outside the material constraints of motion picture film emulsion, Robert made a body of work that celebrated portraiture, cityscapes and landscapes, the Global South, and the versatile operability of the Bolex camera (and its more elaborate counterparts). He strove to use the camera as an instrument for showcasing personal, latent observation and instant composition. Robert possessed a Romantic sensibility. He somehow fused his mother’s professional expertise in interdependent care, and his father’s expansive overlapping interests in history and travel photography to amass a vast amount of footage. Shepherded through the hands and eyes of select film lab technicians (who became invaluable friends), much of this material found its way into cinematheques, museums, and more. Above all, Robert was deeply preoccupied with rhythm, movement, air, and light. As a graduate student at CalArts, Robert was introduced to Chantal Akerman, who he assisted on several endeavors. Beginning with a sprawling telematic project for Documenta 11, Robert and Chantal developed a complex, fruitful collaborative relationship. I believe that Robert's heart never fully mended in the wake of her passing. I know that he continued to carry her memory with him throughout his work and travels. Robert introduced me to Bard College. I introduced him to experimentality in the arts. We undertook many foolish, ill conceived adventures together. I will miss him terribly, as I believe some of you will, too. He is survived by his wife Virginia and her three children; his siblings Erik, Ingrid, John, and Heidi; his nieces and nephews; and his mother Karin.

Many thanks to Caroline Dionne, Rit Premnath, Brian Kase, Sylvan Simon, Joe, and Harry for their support of yesterday’s performance. A poster publication with texts and related information is available online; link in bio. If you would like a physical copy of it, please contact me.

Playing The Auditorium October 2, 2019, 5:00 PM to 6:15 PM The Auditorium (Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall) The New School, 66 West 12th Street, New York Register Here: https://sched.co/TsD1

Nutrients bite back.

As the pressures of kinship and memorial duty have weighed heavily upon me in recent months, I find it strange to observe a ritual flow of images capturing fatherhood coming from many of my contacts on social media platforms. What about those of us who cannot easily or readily furnish a symbolic tribute to the figure of the father (for whatever reason)? What about the mother, sister, grandparent, cousin, other relatives, mentor, teacher, or friend who steps in and assumes the position that is generically framed as that of the father? How do we celebrate those who are and aren't father figures in our lives? In my case, I've learned that yet another film that my biological father appeared in has been digitized and uploaded online. Titled "The Day That Everything Went Wrong," my father as Grover Watkins appears in one of three case study narratives illustrating various social tensions and mortal hazards that law enforcement officers might encounter in domestic disturbances. In the case of Mr. Watkins, the law attempts to intercede in a dispute between him and a group of musicians who have managed to damage a concrete wall on the edge of his property. I know all of this because my mother happened to shoot a series of images from the production that include a still of my father holding gardening shears below a slate—an image that does not appear in the film. Several years ago, I used the information on the slate to find out the name of the production (which is not included), and have made little effort to track down the actual film. Now, thanks to an unnamed source, I see that Grover Watkins’ story actually begins in Venice, where a trailer filled with musical instruments rounds a corner near Frederick Eversley's studio. Originally designed by Frank Gehry for John Altoon, Eversley has worked in this storefront for most if not all of my life. This year, after his landlord elected to not renew his lease, Eversley moved out, and I wonder if there are any artists aligned with Light and Space or Finish Fetish style work that remain in my old neighborhood.