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For Bookmark, ArtAsiaPacific invites an artist to spotlight some of their online sources of inspiration. This week we asked Jo-ey Tang.
Jo-ey Tang explicates and enacts the circulation of images and objects and the life cycle of ideas. He founded the curatorial project The Notary Public, and is picture editor of n+1. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the 2010 UCLA New Wight Biennial; The Suburban, Oak Park; and Soloway, Brooklyn. He is currently in a group exhibition at Derek Eller Gallery, New York. His first solo exhibition will be in September at Exile, Berlin. You can see his work at jo-eytang.com.
1. Orphan Cameras
Since 1997, Michael Butkus Jr. has amassed an amazing trove of more than 3500 manuals for still cameras, flashes, and light meters, all scanned for pdf viewing. Downloads are free, but donations are always welcome. The no-frills website is very early-web.
3. 1stdibs.com
Looking at images and provenance of furniture and lighting fixtures feels pornographic . . . table legs and close-ups of screws and all—especially when I have no intention to buy them. I cruised for pictures of Lucite furnitures, as impossible objects, refusing photographic recognition. My favorite category name has to be “Garniture” under “Serving/Ceramics/Silver/Glass.”
5. Fast Forward Reverse on East Village Radio
I have been listening to Fast Forward Reverse on East Village Radio since 2005. The tiny DJ booth of this internet radio station is visible from First Avenue in Manhattan. Timmy G sends me down to shoegazer heaven. Peter Murphy, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Lush . . . like the Benjaminian angel blasted towards the present. Fast Forward Reverse is on every Saturday from noon to 2pm and shows from the past two years are archived.
2. Artists’ tumblrs
Tumblr often serves as an auxiliary site to artists’ primary websites—like an open diary casually left open for all to see. I check these most frequently: Elaine Cameron-Weir, Sonja Engelhardt and Ben Schumacher.
4. Martin Kohout’s Website
Artist Martin Kohout’s website is “closed” for 8 hours every night. It stays open later on the weekend. Sometimes I go there anyway, knowing fully that there’s nothing I can click on. I still don’t know if the website is timed to wherever one is located, but I don’t want to ask him. I prefer not to know.
