Good Life, Great Price

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Originally uploaded by Isotope of me.

Tonight at the tank, Immediate Medium, pictured to the left, performed/presented "Good Life, Great Price" a multimedia installation and performance featuring video, audio and photo performances by Maki, Liz, J.J. and Esteban of Immediate Medium as well as photography by Carlos P.

The installation is an exposition of family life as seen through the lense of the portrait studio camera. Video footage shows the group as 'family' in both solitary and public settings staged in the homes and clothes of complete strangers. The photographs are still accompaniments capturing moments of honesty and pretense that both complement and contradict the staged videos. Headphones play phone conversations between the artists and their family members to accompany the pre-recorded visual aspects of the installation, and aid in focusing the observer's attention on the roles that people play as a member of a family. As a final touch to the studio experience, the group have re-created a family-portrait photo studio into which they invite their guests as 'surrogate family members' to be photographed with them while being projected onto a screen in the main viewing room.

Overall, Immediate medium have created a very enjoyable even if sometimes forced experience that is at times both an insightfull and light hearted exploration of the images that family members portray to one another, and to themselves in thier public and most private moments.

Howard Finster Paradise Gardens

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Originally uploaded by Isotope of me.

This weekend on the way back from Mentone, Alabama to Atlanta Renee, Jen and I stopped by the Howard Fenster Paradise Gardens. If you're ever in Summerville Georgia you'll want to visit this absolutely incredible and absolutely falling down piece of folk art history built by the Rev. Howard Finster.