The Studio

Sound artist Ben Houge transposes his ambient, algorithmic structures into the visual domain for the first time, inviting viewers to experience the link between the two media with a live performance

July 23-August 9, 2009
Opening party July 23, 6 pm, live performance at 8 pm
Subsequent viewings by appointment
[the studio], 796B Julu Rd. (near Fumin Rd.), Shanghai
Enter through lane 786, then take the first left until you see the big brown door.
Admission: free
Contact phone: +86 21 6247 2765
Contact websites: www.benhouge.com, www.thestudio.cn

Sound Currents and [the studio] are pleased to present 29 Giraffes, the first exhibition of visual art by composer and sound artist Ben Houge.  29 Giraffes is a selection of algorithmically generated digital prints, created using a custom computer program to reshuffle snippets of photographs into kaleidoscopic new constellations. Ben’s program, written in Max/MSP, functions as a kind of elaborate and very specialized paintbrush that he uses to paint his images on the screen, a process analogous to the granular synthesis techniques he’s been applying in his sound pieces for years. The photographs used as source material for these works were taken along East Nanjing Rd. at night, providing a bright, neon palette, ripe for digital manipulation; the intricate, pointillistic images that result range from sparse wisps to rich fields of subtly-shifting color.

The opening reception features a live performance by Ben Houge and doubles as a release party for his new CD Radiospace 040823.  Radiospace is an ambient, algorithmically-structured montage of Shanghai radio broadcasts, in which familiar snatches of music and speech disintegrate and re-emerge in surprising new juxtapositions, transforming melody into harmony and speech into soundscape. The work is a real-time computer program, designed to function as the basis of a sound installation, and this recording represents just one of an infinite number of possible renderings.  The 29 Giraffes opening party presents an ideal opportunity to experience the same idea manifested in two media at the same time.

Ben Houge is a 13-year veteran of the videogame industry, where issues of real-time, non-linear, algorithmic systems are a matter of day-to-day business.  He recently completed three and half years as audio director of Tom Clancy’s EndWar, a role-playing game for Xbox 360 and PS3, developed at Ubisoft Entertainment here in Shanghai.  Previously he worked for Sierra and Microsoft in Seattle, WA, USA, contributing to such games as Half-Life: Opposing Force, Leisure Suit Larry 7, King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity, and Arcanum.  Since arriving in Shanghai five years ago, he has been an active participant in the new music scene, performing at the 2Pi Festival in Hangzhou, the Shanghai eArts Festival, the Zendai Museum of Modern Art, RESO, and several NOIShanghai shows.  His sound installations have been exhibited at Beijing’s Today Art Museum and Shanghai International Creative Industry Week. Back in Seattle, he founded the Sound Currents concert series and was a member of the Seattle School composers’ collective from its inaugural performances.  Please visit www.benhouge.com for all your Ben Houge needs.

Photographs by Elke Martini and conceptual paintings by Pia Johanson will remain on display through the 8th of July.
Pleasse find directions to [the studio] by clicking on ‘contact us + map’ to the right.

Shanghaiist Journalist Kirsti Jonson covers the successful [the studio] exhibition ‘Mao for Sale’ displaying works by studio members Pia Johanson and Elke Martin.

 article here

‘Mao for Sale’
Friday, June 5th
4:00 to 8:00

Join Elke Martini and Pia Johanson in celebration of two unique observations of Mao in contemporary Shanghai.

Street photographer Elke Martini documents the rapidly disappearing Mao murals over several years as lane neighborhoods succumb to future development.

Conceptual artist Pia Johanson explores a market critique of Chinese contemporary art and appropriation, illustrating a globally blurred perception, in collaboration with local copy painters.

We sincerely look forward to this event Friday evening.

A description of the paintings exhibited this Friday:

My Work is Not My Own

I relocated to China to witness the accelerated transformation of a country hurdling itself through industrial, developmental and technological progress in a quasi-communist, quasi-open market economy creating a disparity between urban rich and rural poor on an unprecedented scale. I came as a witness: as an artist but primarily as a human.

Voraciously hunting any news and information on China’s growth, complexity, and conflicts, I simultaneously developed a fascination with the Chinese contemporary art market phenomena.

As a layman understandably misguided through press and market representation abroad, I came to understand Chinese contemporary art to be typified by Cynical Realism and Political Pop painting. An unedited tour of Chinese galleries further substantiates the generalization that large scale, propaganda-referencing paintings represent a current, pervasive movement.

Yue Minjun is an archetypal example of a profit driven replicated regurgitation of work whose challenge has expired. There are myriad vendors selling replicas of Yue Minjun’s obnoxiously smiling self-portraits. Directing a studio of assistants producing pieces for him; aside from his endorsement and conceptual process, there is little difference in a piece from his studio and a piece from an anonymous artisan. Obviously the selling price and determined value provides the exception. The copies become conceptually interesting because his signature motif, the iconic self-portrait, often displays scores of selves. When reproduced my many individuals, the painters become implicated into the smiling army of multiplying selves.

At what point in an artist’s career are they no longer expected to paint their own work? As an “emerging” artist, is it requisite to endure becoming “established” before delegating creation? What is Chinese contemporary art and as a “Western” art-maker residing in China am I allowed to participate?

I hired painters to reproduce a series of photographs. The photographs are of reproductions of Chinese propaganda posters. Though the photographs are digital, the abstraction through blurring and distortion is merely an affect of the angles in which they were taken. The photographs are borrowed from other images; these reproductions of images that are then reproduced. The distortion is illustrative of perceptions of Chinese contemporary painting from both Westerner and Chinese observers. I have created a commodity.

This series is an exploration and exercise into the excesses of appropriation art. My contribution to the image making was as a photographer of images that had previously been replicated several times: the original painting was replicated into widely, nationally dispersed posters and again reproduced for broader international distribution when printed in a book. I made a distorted photograph of the print, which was then painted, returning the image, now through several cycles, to its original medium and it’s country of origin.

The significance of the work for me is derived from the process. Dialogues with the painters, including students, were valuable in illuminating perceptive limitations. The cultural faux pas of my pirating images of Mao, exemplified the cult of Mao, a Westerner speculatively attempting to define a culture formerly “closed,” and multiple generations of Chinese addressing their own historical vacancies and the limitations of continued cultural appropriation.

[the studio], an artist community dedicated to creativity and growth through the making and understanding of the visual arts, is inviting artists to submit work for exhibition. We request works pertaining to the broad topic, “street” through any interpretation or relation for a group exhibition. The show opens Friday September 5th. An artist for a future solo showing will be chosen from the applicants. Enquiries and submissions (in jpeg form, please) to info@thestudio.cn. Submission deadline is August 13th. Happy creating!

UPCOMING EXHIBITION - 11th - 25th November
‘CATEGORIZING THE LOST PIECES’
Illustrations and Light boxes by Nicky Broekhuysen

‘Categorizing The Lost Pieces’ is an introspective collection of the artists’ memories, fears, thoughts and desires. An arrangement of the chaos that forms who we are yet usually remains hidden from those around us.

When: November 11th - 25th, 2007
Opening: Sunday 11th November 3pm-8pm
Where: [the studio]
796 Julu Rd (near Fumin Rd)
rear entrance with the red door via lane 786
Jing An District, Shanghai, China, 200040

The deadline for Spoon Full of Sugar has been moved back! Yay!
The new artwork deadline is 30th July. We will need you to email Sarah at: info@thestudio.cn with submission size/type by the 25th though so we can begin to curate before the opening on August 3rd.

Keep your eye our for promotions for the show!!!

Hey guys,
We are still after creatives for the Spoon Full of Sugar (Mary Poppins) show which opens on the 3rd August.
Download the brief here and drop us a line to let us know you’re contributing so we leave some space for you.

We have a exhibition coming up in July. It’s a collaborative show around the concept of Mary Poppins. Yeh… cool huh! So we are after anyone creative - fashion designers, urban artists, musicians, designers, poets… anyone to submit work - anything you like as long as it’s inspired by Mary Poppins. The show will be mid-July so submissions will be taken until early July. For more info and a proposal please email us at the studio:

info@thestudio.cn - if you have any questions please feel free to post a comment here!