Forcefield was an American noise band and art collective, founded in 1997 in Providence, Rhode Island, [1] closely associated with Fort Thunder. [2] [3]
Known for performing in colorful full-body knit-wear of their own design, [4] the band rarely played outside of Rhode Island but did two US tours with their Fort Thunder roommates Lightning Bolt. Members included Meerk Puffy (Matt Brinkman), Gorgon Radeo (Jim Drain), P Lobe (Ara Peterson), and Le Geef (Leif Goldberg). The group become more widely recognized after being included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, [3] [5] [6] but disbanded shortly afterwards. According to writer Rachel Kushner, the group's Whitney Biennial installation was "a pandemonium of ear-cracking sound, seizure-inducing films, and bewigged mannequins sheathed in the collective's trademark knit Afghans, which look like they were produced by a team of Taylorist acidheads with industrial looms." [7] Third Annual Roggabogga, the soundtrack accompanying their Biennial show, was released as a CD by Load Records in 2003. Later that year, Bulb Records put out the posthumous Lord of the Rings Modulator.
In addition to performing, the group produced a number of single channel video works to be projected behind them during performances. The videos are both serious and sublime, while simultaneously maintaining a sensibility of deadpan humor and menace. [8]
Fort Thunder (1995–2001) was a warehouse on the second floor of a pre-Civil War former textile factory in the Olneyville district of Providence, Rhode Island. From 1995 through 2001, the space was used as a venue for underground music and events, as well as a living and working space for the artists. Fort Thunder was started by Mat Brinkman and Brian Chippendale, who were the space's original residents along with Rob Coggeshal and Freddy Jones. Fort Thunder was known for its colorful posters promoting shows posted on walls around Providence. At various times they hosted costumed wrestling and Halloween mazes. The group of artists who lived and worked there is also sometimes referred to as "Fort Thunder."
The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was in 1973. It is considered the longest-running and most important survey of contemporary art in the United States. The Biennial helped bring artists like Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, and Jeff Koons, among others, to prominence.
Mat Brinkman is an American artist and electronic musician. Also known as Matt Brinkman, Meerk Puffy, Mystery Brinkman, Brinkman, Brinkmangler, and Mucid Cuspidor. He is based in Colorado.
Paper Rad was an art collective from approx. 2000 until 2008, based on the East Coast in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Providence, Rhode Island in the United States. Known for creating comics, zines, video art, net art, MIDI files, paintings, installations, and music with a distinct "lo-fi" aesthetic often associated with underground culture or 1990s "retro tech", juxtaposed images and featuring bright colors.
Rachel Harrison is an American visual artist known for her sculpture, photography, and drawing. Her work often combines handmade forms with found objects or photographs, bringing art history, politics, and pop culture into dialogue with one another. She has been included in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the US, including the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial and the Tate Triennial (2009). Her work is in the collections of major museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and Tate Modern, London; among others. She lives and works in New York.
Michael Smith is an American artist known for his performance, video and installation works. He emerged in the mid-1970s at a time when performance and narrative-based art was beginning to claim space in contemporary art. Included among the Pictures Generation artists, he also appropriated pop culture, using television conventions rather than tropes from static media. Since 1979, much of Smith's work has centered on an Everyman character, "Mike," that he has portrayed in various domestic, entrepreneurial and artistic endeavors. Writers have described his videos and immersive installations as "poker-faced parodies" that sit on the edge between art and entertainment, examining ideas, cultural shifts and absurdities involving the American dream, consumerism, the art world, and aging. Village Voice critic Jerry Saltz called Smith "a consummate explorer of the land of the loser … limning a fine line between reality and satire [in] a genre sometimes called installation verité."
Peggy Ahwesh is an American experimental filmmaker and video artist. She received her B.F.A. at Antioch College. A bricoleur who has created both narrative works and documentaries, some projects are scripted and others incorporate improvised performance. She makes use of sync sound, found footage, digital animation, and Pixelvision video. Her work is primarily an investigation of cultural identity and the role of the subject in various genres. Her interests include genre; women, sexuality and feminism; reenactment; and artists' books. Her works have been shown worldwide, including in San Francisco, New York, Barcelona, London, Toronto, Rotterdam, and Créteil, France. Starting in 1990, she has taught at Bard College as a Professor of Film and Electronic Arts. Her teaching interests include: experimental media, history of the non-fiction film, and women in film.
Peter Glantz is an American director of theater and film, notably the films Lightning Bolt - Power Of Salad and the music video DVD Pick A Winner, both released through the record label Load Records.
Internet art is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance of the physical gallery and museum system. In many cases, the viewer is drawn into some kind of interaction with the work of art. Artists working in this manner are sometimes referred to as net artists.
Stanya Kahn is an American artist. She graduated magna cum laude from San Francisco State University and received an MFA in 2003 from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. Kahn lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Jim Drain is an American mixed media artist. Drain often makes work collaboratively, first within the collective, Forcefield (1996–2002) and also with artists Elyse Allen, Ara Peterson, and Ben Russell, respectively.
Pippi Anne Zornoza is an American interdisciplinary artist working in visual art, performance art, and music, and co-founder of the Providence-based artist collective Dirt Palace and Hive Archive.
Leslie Thornton is an American avant-garde filmmaker and artist.
Phyllis Baldino is an American visual artist whose art engages in a conceptual practice that merges performance art, video art, sculpture, and installation in an exploration of human perception. Her single-channel videos are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix in New York, NY. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Julie Tolentino is a visual and performance artist, dancer, and choreographer. Her work is influenced from an array of visual, archival, and movement strategies.
Ara Peterson is an American visual artist. He is known for his music-based films as well as interlaced relief paintings and sculptures, which are rooted in wave patterns and a process-intensive work ethic. Peterson was a founding member of the art collective Forcefield and is based in Providence, Rhode Island.
Jessi Reaves is an American artist based in New York City who uses the relationship between art and design as a material in her practice, often making work that operates as both furniture and sculpture.
Maya Stovall Dumas is an American conceptual artist and anthropologist. Stovall Dumas is best known for her use of ballet and public space in her art practice. She is associate professor, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and lives and works in Los Angeles.
Robert Bittenbender is an American mixed media artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. In 2019, Bittenbender was selected to participate in the Whitney Biennial 2019.
Shalom Gorewitz is an American visual artist. Gorewitz was among the first generation of artists who used early video technology as an expressive medium. Since the late 1960s, he has created videos that "transform recorded reality through an expressionistic manipulation of images and sound". His artworks often "confront the political conflicts, personal losses, and spiritual rituals of contemporary life". Gorewitz has also made documentary and narrative films.