Soap Cast, Pilot Episode: June 2007

Current Exhibitions: Plaster The Town 07, Faggot: The Movie, Broken Down, David King, Timothy Hutchings.

Soap Cast is a new podcast designed as a gallery tour of The Soap Factory art gallery in Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A. The principle is that you download this show to your mp3 player before you visit and then as you walk around the space you can have your own personal guided tour of the artworks on display hosted by Ben Heywood, the gallery's Executive Director. This show is in its infancy at the moment and any comment/suggestions will be much appreciated.

The Soap Factory is dedicated to the production, presentation and promotion of emerging contemporary practice across the visual arts. Committed to experimentation and risk-taking, The Soap Factory offers audiences a real and immediate experience of the arts, encouraging a wider understanding of and appreciation for artists and their work.

Better Late Than Never...or so they say.

On today's show:

Paul Walsh: Check out his Myspace page. We have some fantastic Klezma music from his former band, The Empty Hat Orchestra and a some excellent photos and commentary on the Motif Radio Supplemental Website.

The Dufflefolks: Check out their website and/or their Myspace page. We have a brand new track from them: I'll Be A Magician.

Motif: a musician from Indianapolis, Indiana. Check out his Myspace page (Perhaps we are his evil twin!)

The Two-Artists present an article on The Fear of Clowns and Thier Existence Within Contemporary Art

References for the article:

Punch Page

Punch Banned

Article in Daily Telegraph, U.K.

Marina Warner

Coulrophobia

I hate Clowns

Fears of a Clown

Cindy Sherman

House 1000 Corpses

Slipknot

Paul McCarthy

Art Now: pages 84-85, 106-107, 150-151

Shatner being Gay.

We also play party games because it is Motif Radio's 1st birthday!!!!!!!

Motif Radio Show 13: The Undiscovered Talk

Fiona's Guide to Podcasting and Motif Radio.

Click on this poster for the notes to go with the 'Undiscovered Talk'.

Hello everyone. Well I was trying to start the season by the end of February but I got de-railed by a few things. Not bad things though. First off, we moved house, to a marvellous Artists' Loft. Then we were dogged by a slow internet connection, which turned out to be someone stealing building-wide bandwidth. Then I got two new jobs at practically the same time; a waitressing job and my dream job at The Soap Factory as the Manager of the Volunteer Programs there. I've also been working with Tucker for the upcoming St. Paul Art Crawl in April (20th to 22nd). So life has been facinating, brilliant and chaotic, but we're currently working on an excellent 2nd season of Motif Radio. Show 14, which is the true start of the new season will be out in a couple of days, in the meantime we have Motif Radio Show 13: The Undiscovered Talk. In mid January I was due to give a talk with a presentation that was cancelled (I can't name names). So I figured, "use up the unlucky number fi", so Show 13 is an appeasement of the Karmic Gods, if you will. So please click here or on the poster above for the notes that accompany the lecture.

Cheers,

Fi

Now you can watch the performance filmed from two angles. Short excerpts of the Untitled 0.1 performance have also appeared on Soap Factory Gallery 4, on public access cable television.

To watch the film click on this link: http://www.two-artists.com/untitled01.html

Thanks for staying in the loop and Motif Radio wishes you all a very Happy New Year (in Fiona-speak Hogmanay).

Trailer for the Untitled 0.1 performance

Untitled 0.1, a Live Performance. 10/8/06 THIS SATURDAY at 7:30 pm.

A Fiona MacNeill and Two-Artists Presentation, at The Soap Factory in Minneapolis.

Part of 'The Earth From Above: The Soap Factory Volunteer Biennial 2006'. 6 pm to 10 pm.

Untitled 0.1 is a performance inadvertently rendered by an office girl. A role assumed by the artist Fiona MacNeill, and a capacity which she has recurrently fulfilled in reality.

Can a person be held accountable for simply doing their job, even if their job is quite despicable?

Perhaps the blame should be placed squarely upon the shoulders of those higher up in the chain of command. However, in this world of multi-conglomerations, corporations and globalization, couldn't we always shift the blame higher?

Shareholders, benefactors, leaders; those who have attained a kind of corporeal omnipotence, are they accountable? Or, are we all part of a vast mechanism, playing our individual roles and continuing to operate? At what point does the individual become a cog, and identity a distant memory?

Untitled 0.1 is the first live performance presented by the Two-Artists in the United States. Written & conceived by Fiona MacNeill with developmental and technical support from Tucker MacNeill. Please come along to our 'stateside' litmus test and let us know what you think.

For directions to The Soap Factory please click the following link:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?address=50+nd+Street+SE&city=Minneapolis&state=mn

The Soap Factory

520 2nd St SE

Minneapolis, MN 55414

Follow this link for an article about the show:

http://www.wakemag.org/content/2006/10/11/stories/1096

Hello Listeners,

so you may be wondering where Tucker and I have been. Well we've been thinking long and hard about Motif Radio and its direction for the future, sorry to desert you.

Together we have come up with a plan (listed below):

1. We need to get some funding. Which means that we need some time beyond making the show to apply for grants.

2. We need to get some advertising out there and get more artists involved in submitting work. Which we need some funding for. (-;

3. We need to change podcast server so that our web page consistently works and the design can be updated. Also a lot of our listeners use Firefox and for some reason the Motif Radio page looks a bit weird and doesn't come up properly in that browser (I strongly suspect that this is a libsyn quirk).

4. We need some new equipment so that we can make field recordings and hopefully in the future move into some video podcasting. Which again equals funding (-;

5. We need to make our own work (which we coincidentally need funding for too). I Have a show coming up in October and I'm going to try and video podcast my performance for you guys some time during that month.

6. An observation that I have made is that people don't tend to use their computers as much in the Summer thus it got increasingly difficult for me to contact people for submissions. So I have decided that Motif Radio needs to be a seasonal occurrence. Motif Radio will now run between February and July each year, with occasional specials at other times. This not only allows people to sit down and listen with their warm cocoa in the winter when it's too cold to go outside (this may only apply to Minnesota and Wisconsin) but it's also gives me time to confirm a line-up of artists in advance.

7. We may also have to, as we proposed before, become 'once-a-month'. I really don't want to do this and if I got a lot more submissions I wouldn't have to. 'Us' working artists have to prioritize though and I know what its like to work 25-30 hours and kill yourself to make art on top of that. We still haven't completely decided about whether we're going to do this yet.

Well I think that about wraps it up. Please don't desert us listeners, we haven't deserted you we're just taking some time for development.

At the moment Motif Radio is kind of an infant; a little moody and occasionally hard-to-handle. We need to move to the next level of our growth! We are aiming to start up again at the beginning of February and don't forget to join us for our first anniversary on February 22nd 2007 put it in your diary.

Thanks for listening,

Fiona

P.s. In the meantime please visit this site as we'll continue to have one-off things going on and check the Two-Artists web page for details of what we're both up to.

Part ONE

"Transient Artists" by Tucker MacNeill

Motif Radio would like to thank: Xavier Tavera and Reem Bader, for helping to make this show possible.

E-mail Alert!!! Due to a rather annoying "web server" our e-mail is DOWN!
For the time being, please direct all your mail to our "Gmail" mail accounts:
fiona.macneill[at]gmail.com or tuckerphoto[at]gmail.com Obviously, please substitute a '@' symbol at the '[at]' - We're trying to avoid MORE spam than we already have!

Running Order:

1. Fiona explains Motif Radio's Tardiness

2. The Trials and Tribulations of the Transient Artist Community - The "premise" of the show, by Fiona MacNeill

3. Interview with Xavier Tavera, Part one - Fiona MacNeill and Xavier Tavera, at the Soap Factory Gallery in Minneapolis

4. The Historical context of the Artist's transient nature - Written by: Fiona MacNeill and read by: Tucker MacNeill

5. "Email" Interview with Reem Bader - Questions by: Tucker MacNeill and email read by: Fiona MacNeill

Further Information:

Artsourcing: An international Consortium of Outsourcing Artists
Curated and created by: Grupo Soap del Corazon - Gabriela Bertiller, Luis Fitch, Alexa horochowski, Douglas Padilla, Xavier Tavera and Marcela Rodriguez

Exhibition Dates: July 1st through August 16 At The Soap Factory, Minneapolis MN

Work "talked about" during the Xavier Tavera interview:

1. 'La Casa', Mixed media - 2006.
Film Project: Xavier Tavera. Video Editing: Luis Eduardo Bernal. Construction: Oscar Dorantes
2. 'Se Renta', Colour Prints - 2006.
Photography: Xavier Tavera.
3. 'Posters', Printer's Ink on Paper - 2006.
Photography: Xavier Tavera. Printing and Design: Mario Diaz
4. 'Ameri-Art Industries', Mixed Media Installation - 2006.
Concept: Douglas Padilla. With "offices" in Minneapolis MN, San Diego CA and Tijuana, Mexico.
5. 'Richard B Cheney Minnesota Drivers License', Front and back digital printing, lamination and digital photography on Paper - 2006.
By: Luis Fitch

Universal Theme at: You Tube

Shatner Quote at: Drew and Mike's Fan Page

Part TWO

Motif Radio would like to thank: Xavier Tavera and Reem Bader, for helping to make this show possible.

E-mail Alert!!! Due to a rather annoying "web server" our e-mail is DOWN!
For the time being, please direct all your mail to our "Gmail" mail accounts:
fiona.macneill[at]gmail.com or tuckerphoto[at]gmail.com Obviously, please substitute a '@' symbol at the '[at]' - We're trying to avoid MORE spam than we already have!

Running Order:

6. Basic Modern Considerations - Written and read by: Fiona MacNeill

7. Interview with Xavier Tavera, Part two - Fiona MacNeill and Xavier Tavera, at the Soap Factory Gallery in Minneapolis

8. Political Considerations - Written by: Fiona MacNeill and read by: Tucker MacNeill

9. Shatner Screams - Mp3

10. The Elevator

Further Information:

Artsourcing: An international Consortium of Outsourcing Artists
Curated and created by: Grupo Soap del Corazon - Gabriela Bertiller, Luis Fitch, Alexa horochowski, Douglas Padilla, Xavier Tavera and Marcela Rodriguez

Exhibition Dates: July 1st through August 16 At The Soap Factory, Minneapolis MN

Work "talked about" during the Xavier Tavera interview:

1. 'La Casa', Mixed media - 2006.
Film Project: Xavier Tavera. Video Editing: Luis Eduardo Bernal. Construction: Oscar Dorantes
2. 'Se Renta', Colour Prints - 2006.
Photography: Xavier Tavera.
3. 'Posters', Printer's Ink on Paper - 2006.
Photography: Xavier Tavera. Printing and Design: Mario Diaz
4. 'Ameri-Art Industries', Mixed Media Installation - 2006.
Concept: Douglas Padilla. With "offices" in Minneapolis MN, San Diego CA and Tijuana, Mexico.
5. 'Richard B Cheney Minnesota Drivers License', Front and back digital printing, lamination and digital photography on Paper - 2006.
By: Luis Fitch

Universal Theme at: You Tube

Shatner Quote at: Drew and Mike's Fan Page

It really pains me to do this listeners, however I have been working myself silly for this next episode.

I am NOT being a lazy Fi!

Due to the nature of artists and their extreme avoidance of deadline-meeting I have been forced to postpone the show as I try to garner more of their reponses to the topic over this week.

Please accept my apologies and by chance if you are an international artist and would like help us with our investigation please email me fiona.macneill@gmail.com. Also if you are an international artist, who I have fowarded questions to and you have not answered me in some way, this is your last chance!

Gagh!

P.S. quick update: it's entirely possible that artists have been flooding me with emails today, but our server is down so I cannot retrieve any of them. This has only become an issue today and the 'Two-Artists' website is down too. If you need to contact me please use the Gmail address above. Double Gagh!

 

Motif Radio: Show 12, The trials and tribulations of the transient art community.

I am now a Green Card holder. This means that I am now a legal resident of the United States. Due to the vast amount of time and physical/emotional effort that went into obtaining my Green Card I am going to take a week off Motif Radio's scheduled show on the 26th of July and return in August (9th) with a very special show. The trials and tribulations of the transient art community will be a show that discusses the international nature of art and the centralised hubs of artistic creation; cities that artists gravitate towards and congregate within. The show will tackle the transient nature of artists as a sector of society and the obstacles that they have to contend with as they travel to pursue opportunities and to facilitate their work.

This show will require a lot of time, research and discussion with artists and in order to consider and cover the issue fully. I need a further two weeks to collate this information.

See you then and thank you for listening.

Fiona MacNeill