MFA Conversations II – Art Talk Sat, July 25th, 2-4pm

Come and join me for a conversation! I’m showing Becoming Dragon in this show and I’d love to discuss how it intersects with the other amazing pieces in the show!
MFA CONVERSATIONS PART II
ARTIST TALK at I-5 Gallery
Saturday, July 25, 2009
2PM to 4PM

Conversation: (NOUN) 1. An informal spoken exchange of thoughts and feelings; a familiar talk.
2. Social intercourse; close association. 3. Rare. Close acquaintance, as with an object of study.

I-5 Gallery is pleased to announce the first of two scheduled art talks in conjunction with MFA Conversations Part II on Saturday, July 25, 2009 from 2PM to 4PM. Participating artists are from Art Center College of Design, UC Los Angeles, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, UC Riverside,
Otis and Calarts. Please join several of the artists to discuss their work, each otherʼs work and to share those conversations with you, the public.

Calico Brown
Micha Cardenas
Alison J. Carr
Alejandro Casazi
Kristen Foster
Monica Elayne Hicks
Glenna Jennings
Erica Love
Greg MacLaughlin
Brian J. Marrier
Carrie Maseredjian
Lisa Miller
Clare Parry
Brianna Sendziak
April Totten
Alison Walker
Michiko Yao

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday, July 25th from 2PM to 4PM.

II-5 Gallery
2100 North Main Street, Suite A-9
Los Angeles, CA 90031
323-342-0717
Press Information
For Immediate Release
Contact: Nancy Ramirez, Gallery Director
Curator: Marla Koosed
breweryartwalk@yahoo.com

Becoming Dragon in MFA Conversations II at I-5 in LA

MFA Conversations Part II

i-5 GALLERY at THE BREWERY ART COLONY
2100 N. Main St., #A-9 (in the Atrium at The Brewery), Los Angeles, CA 90031
Director: Nancy Ramirez. Curator: Marla Koosed
Directions: http://www.breweryartwalk.com/?page_id=13
323.342.0717
E-mail: breweryartwalk@yahoo.com
Web site: http://www.breweryartwalk.com
Gallery hours: Fri.-Sat., 12-4pm; & by appointment

Conversation: (NOUN) 1. An informal spoken exchange of thoughts and feelings; a familiar talk. 2. Social intercourse; close association. 3.Rare. Close acquaintance, as with an object of study.

I-5 is pleased to announce the first in a series of shows being offered this summer through the fall of 2009. MFA Conversations Part I (May/June) and Part II (July/August) explore the abundance of MFA and MA programs in the Southern California area from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Despite their shared geography, these programs represent a range of diverse offerings, foci, students, and work. While such diversity yields richness, it can also have an isolating effect on students from these institutions, who do not have many opportunities to interact in the greater southern California arts community.

Upgrade! Tijuana rescheduled for Wednesday, May 13th!

Come out and join us at Lui Velazquez in Tijuana on Wednesday. I’ll be talking about Becoming Dragon and performing some new poetry.

RESCHEDULED

Upgrade! Tijuana
Fifth session / Quita Sesion
Wednesday, May 13th, 7-9pm

charlas sobre/de… // talks by/about…

Transborder Immigrant Tool – Ricardo Dominguez and Brett Stalbaum
Becoming Dragon – Micha Cárdenas
Thighmaster – Annina Rust
Kixly – Moisés Horta

mas informacion sigue y en // more info below and at
http://upgrade.dreamaddictive.com

at Lui Velazquez

Lui Velazquez
Calle José Maria Larroque #273.
1ro Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal.
Tijuana, Baja California.
Mexico, C.P. 22 300**

directions and map at http://luivelazquez.com

Open Studios this weekend!

Come see an installation of documentation from Becoming Dragon this Saturday, April 4th, from 2-8pm at UCSD! It will include video documentation, digital prints and a 3d fabrication of my dragon avatar.

Upgrade! Tijuana, April 29th, 2009

Come see a discussion of Becoming Dragon and the Transborder Immigrant Tool, along with a few other amazing new media projects on April 29th at Lui Velazquez!

Becoming Dragon on cover of the San Diego Reader and at Open Studios

Guess who’s on the cover of the San Diego Reader this week? ME! So pick up a copy and check it out, or read it online here and leave the author a comment!

I’m very happy, and very annoyed with this article on the cover of this week’s issue of the major San Diego weekly publication. I’m happy that the project is getting so much exposure. I’m very unhappy that the author chose to ignore my choice of pronouns, present the whole project as some mad scientist project “at tax payer’s expense” and put a ridiculous picture on the cover instead of one of the many photos and second life screenshots from the performance. At least the author had the courage to admit at the end of the article that I told him what pronouns to use and that he chose not to. Overall, I think that he quoted me at length, and accurately, on the core issues on the performance, which I really appreciate.

Also, if you’d like to see documentation of Becoming Dragon, life size, up close and personal, come to Open Studios at UCSD next Saturday, April 4th!

Short Video Documentation

I made this very short 2 minute video about Becoming Dragon. I’m working on a much longer version, but this was for a show submission so it had to be short and to the point. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Becoming Dragon, 2 minute video documentation from azdel slade on Vimeo.
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Come see Becoming Dragon in Alexandria, Egypt

Gender and Performativity — A Curated Film Program by Lasse Lau

January 3, 2009; 7:00 – 10:00 pm
Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (ACAF), 10 Hussein Hassab Street, Flat 6, Azarita, Egypt.

Gender in this film series curated by Lasse Lau is about the notion of the stylized and performed. What Jacques Lacan described as the mirror stage (le stade du miroir), the place where we are informed by the norm of the mirror, which becomes the core identification of the subject ontology. A body constantly changes character by moving between private and public, physical and virtual, performed and real. The subject relates to this fragmentation and disharmony through the reflection of the mirror, relating to what we are wearing; how we act and what we desire. The essential question then becomes – who am I in this world?

This Show is my Business by Mahmoud Khaled (EG): A film based on a meeting with Ozgen, a London based Turkish performer who has performed, taught, choreographed and directed for the last 14 years. His reputation as a male belly dancer and teacher has taken him across Europe. / English, Duration 16 min, 2008 /
…

Becoming Dragon by Micha Cardenas (US): Becoming Dragon questions the one-year requirement of ‘Real Life Experience’ that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive Gender Confirmation Surgery, and asks if this could be replaced by a one year period in the virtual environment of ‘Second Life’. For the performance, Micha Cardenas lived for 365 hours immersed in Second Life with a head mounted display, so that all she saw was Second Life and with a motion capture system to map her movements into Second Life. / English, Duration 5.5 minutes, 2009 /
…

Becoming Dragon in LA and San Jose

Whew! I have a super busy week with two events where I’m presenting Becoming Dragon. If you’re in LA or San Jose or the bay area, come see me! Today I’m finishing installing a large installation with prints and video at Supersonic 2009, the show of southern california graduating MFA’s from a number of different schools. That show is at the LA convention center and is open to the public on Thursday the 22nd and stays up until Sunday the 25th.There are so many amazing artists in this show, you have to come see it!

Also, I’m giving a talk about my experience of Becoming Dragon in San Jose, on Thursday the 22nd at 11:30am at the Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality conference put on by the Society of Photonic Imaging Engineers. It’s at the San Jose convention center.

More RL photos of Becoming Dragon

Here are some more real life photos of Becoming Dragon, including the last few days, the closing party and the very last moments of the performance.