Mosherllanea: Artwork, Issues, etc.

1999:

In 1999 I will be giving presentations on my artworks in Spain and England. I will present on Friscawai'i at the WACRA conference at Universitad de Extremadura, Spain, and will present on PosadaSpace at IV'99, the Information Visualization conference at the University of London.

I have taught at the University of San Francisco Information Systems Management program, the San Francisco State University Art Department's Conceptual Information Arts Program, the SFSU Inter-Arts Center, the SFSU Multimedia Studies Program and Cañada College.

1997:

Film & Videos at A.T.A.

BIG PICTURES, SOME MOVING: Videos & Short Films by Mike Mosher
Curated by Molly Hankwitz

Friday, April 18 1997. 8 p.m. $5.
A.T.A. 992 Valencia, San Francisco CA 94110
(415) 824-3890 .

* * *

Multimedia Artist/Designer/Educator Mike Mosher has worked in film & video
since he was a teenager in the early 1970s. Whether documenting his
community murals (or their destruction) in the Mission, assembling collage
films and found footage or turning gradeschoolers loose with cameras, it's
sometimes hard to tell where the painting ends and the people begin.

Mike Mosher grew up in Ann Arbor MI, where the annual Film Festival, the
Super-8 Festival & numerous campus Film Societies inspired kids to make
movies. Mike used to argue politics with Greta Schiller ("Stonewall", "Paris
Was a Woman") in junior high, was in the same highschool Film Club as Ken
Burns ("Jefferson", "The Civil War"), & collaborated with friends in ambitious
Super-8 productions. In Dartmouth College Mike studied one summer term
with Hollywood-blacklisted Director Joseph Losey.

See also information about my Exhibitions, Fall 1996.

I am saddened by the deaths 1996 and 1997 of Bill Kennedy, Herb Caen (who liked my Mission Reds mural), San Francisco publican Pat Nolan, novelist José Donoso and Ann Arbor's rock n' roll queen Carolyn Moon Barber.

Political Content: (1981-99):

Bad Subjects:

Since 1994 I have contributed to, and helped produce, the Berkeley-based radical cultural studies journal Bad Subjects.

My essay "Towards Community Art Machines" appeared in the Bad Subjects anthology from NYU Press in 1997, and originally in #18 Cyberspace Issue. With Joe Lockard I also contributed to the Cultures of Cyberspace issue #24.

I have an essay on political graphics in #27 , on virtual missing children in #38, on the Elvis Conference in #39, on Johanna Poethig murals in #40, on cybersex in #41, on the White Panther economic program in #42, "Against Photography" in #43, and on writing hypertexts in #44.

I have also contributed to two BS radio shows.

Benjaminiana:

Many of the Bad Subjects editors cite Walter Benjamin as an inspiration. That thoughtful, melancholic and eclectic author sometimes finds his way into my paintings, drawings and digital artwork.

I currently have a video project in progress to dramatize his influential essay "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".

In late 1998 a telecommunication company's research lab asked for proposal for a project that would make use of VRML and MPEG-4 technology. I proposed a virtual realization of Benjamin's unfinished "Arcades" project, a grand reflection on aspects of the culture and politics of Paris in the nineteenth century.

Paintings:

In the early 1980s much of my work included political imagery, such as the Central American revolutionary spokesperson in the center of "Elegy Salvador" 1981, acrylic on paper 5 ' x 8 '.




I became disillusioned and burnt-out, especially by the Stalinists and Stalinoids (!) still prevalent in political art and murals circles, which I gave form to in "Leninsperm" (1983), acrylics/china marker/bronze leaf on paper, 5 ' x 12 '. Collection of David Lockard, Attorney, Philadelphia PA.

Writing a paper on what you see here? You might find the Immaculata College Course/SCAN '95 Study Questions on my work helpful.

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