Howdy! 

We pull ourselves out of the sawdust, away from the paint buckets and a surprisingly stubborn and treacherous sewing machine to let you know what we’ve been up to—we’re making a Syncomasher! (Well actually, we’re making the table and stand that will eventually house and display the electronic components of the Syncomasher).  

Now, I realize some questions might have popped into your mind as you read the above and lucky for you I’m in an accommodating mood, so read on, oh curious one!

Q: What the F is a Syncomasher?

A:  Read the title of this post and get back to me. J

Q: What the F is an Octamasher?

A: Looks like someone didn’t do his previously assigned reading, hmm? Oh that’s right, I said I was in an accommodating mood. Well then: the Octamasher is an interactive, collaborative audio installation created by Matt Moldover that connects eight unique instruments to one computer brain. It’s incredibly fun and allows musicians and novices alike to create electronic music together in a kind of jam-session format. (Don’t believe me? Check it out.) The Octamasher has had great success at events like SXSW, Mile High Festival, Burning Man, Coachella and more! For us here at RR, it was love-at-first-mashup with the Octamasher, and Moldover has generously allowed us to bring it with us to events like Treasure Island Music Festival and our upcoming Earth Week event at the University of Wisconsin. The Syncomasher is basically the same concept, but uses 5 instruments instead of eight, and is in general lighter and more mobile.  

The Rest after the Jump

I’ve gotten a few sideways looks when using the word “artivism”...which is funny to me because it’s not really that strange of a word, is it? I mean words are thrown together to take on new meanings all the time—like, that’s so totally superawesome. Or, don’t be such a jerkface.  

And, artivism is an actual word, so much so that it has its own Wikipedia page. I must admit, though, that when I first uttered the word “artivism,” it was new to me—I thought I made it up, I was a genius! But I soon realized that many (far brighter) people had had the idea before me. Ah, cold, hard reality, you taunt me yet again! There are no original thoughts, right? The point is, the word artivism isn’t all that new, and the concept is even older. Call it creative activism or conscious art or whatever you want, but people have been making art and music in hopes of changing the world for a long time. The Beatles did it, and hey, cavemen probably drew on their walls with saber toothed tiger hide dipped in plant pigment to appease warring tribes or something, who knows.  

Case in point: I just stumbled upon a kickass (hey, there’s another one of those two-word words!) organization last night that uses the phrase “creative activism” when describing itself. I was at an art show in Santa Monica, looking at an amazingly heart wrenching and beautiful exhibit of Dan Eldon’s photojournalism and mixed media collage work. Dan was a young activist and artist who tragically died in 1993 during mob rioting in Mogadishu. He was only 23 years old. After his death, his mother and sister started the Creative Visions 
foundation to “support people, especially the young, who use media, technology and the arts to create awareness of social, environmental or humanitarian issues and effect positive change in local and global communities.” It was a wonderfully inspiring experience to hear Dan’s mother, Kathy Eldon speak about the organization with such passion and exuberance, and it was a good reminder that artivism (as I like to call it, but you can make up your own word if you want) is everywhere.

Art, in fact, at its very core IS activism, even at the most basic level. Let’s say you draw a silly picture. You show it to your mom, it makes her smile, makes her day better, makes her feel good. That’s activism, people! That’s changing the world for the better! Of course, we here at RuckusRoots are hoping to do this on a larger scale. We’re hoping to remind those who’ve forgotten (or perhaps never new) what a powerful tool art is, that the skills to use that tool live within each of us and that it’s our responsibility as conscious beings to put them to use.  

Check out RuckusRoots new video!

Hey you! Turn yer lights off!

Here's a small way we can all very easily help the planet:

Observe Earth Hour Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm and turn your lights off for one hour.

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney Australia, when 2.2 million people turned of their lights for one hour. The next year, 5 million people joined in. This year, the goal is 1 billion, so mark your calendars, turn off the lights, step away from your computers and TVs, and play cards by candlelight or something. :) There're lots of fun things to do in the dark.

Learn more here: www.earthhour.org/about/

Our resident NEA Fellow

John was selected from nearly 50 applicants from 19 states based on his "passion, conceptual depth, integrity and imagination – and, above all, an eagerness to learn and stretch your approach to arts journalism with brave and conscientious zeal."  He'll be headed out to LA in April for the intensive 11-day program.

Congratulations to John!  Thank you for all your hard work!  

Oh wow, that did NOT just happen. I wrote a whole blog and like the dunderhead that I am, didn't save it and it got deleted somehow. Anyway, let me try to recreate it for you in all it's glory, in 3 minutes or less.

Hmm...no time for formalities here, people, I'm on a tight schedule. We run a tight ship around here. That's right. Don't get any funny ideas. Ok. As I was saying:

First thing's first:

If you're alive and in Boulder tomorrow night, please deign to join me at the:

Electronic Curse: Friday the 13th Freakout!

Come exorcise those demons at the Fox Theater with some tasty electronic acts, including Leo123, GSP, Jantsen, Future:Simple:Project and The Freestyle Movement!

Getcher tickets here from the Fox Theater

RuckusRoots will be there, building our network and giving out free hugs. :)

In other news, we are madly preparing for our big April 20th debut of RuckusRoots Online. We've been invited to attend the University of Wisconsin's Earth Week Conference, where Moldover's Octamasher will delight the college kiddies with it's effervescent charisma and charm.

It is our goal to have RR Online up and running by that time, which will allow participants to record, download and share the songs they create on the Octamasher, and to use them to spread awareness about the environmetnal cause online.

It's a hefty and exciting goal, and so without further ado, I bid you all an affectionate goodnight!

Join the Ruckus !

Berndt Savig
A Forced Intimacy: Recent Painting and Sculpture

On display at Sliding Door Gallery beginning February 6, 2009 are recent paintings and sculpture by Berndt Savig. Returning to the female figure and visage as the primary focus in this body of work, the paintings are psychological studies of imagined individuals with introspective, pessimistic or emotionally withdrawn demeanors. The larger scale of the paintings creates a forced intimacy with the viewer.

Rachel Hawthorn
Memory Houses & Other Memory Works

Memory Houses is an in progress series of images that continues Rachel Hawthorn's exploration of the way our domestic environments shape our memories and perception. Each image features a model of a house that Rachel lived in, constructed of only the parts remembered. Anything that is forgotten has been left out. These models were placed in the landscape and photographed from different perspectives to enhance the experience of the distances between current perception and memory of the past. Two other related projects will also be on display: Rachel's newest piece, Bliss Cycle - a video trilogy on the tensions of domestic expectations of perfection, and Memory Houses: Drawings - additional memory work in which houses are drawn from memory onto photographic paper which is then allowed to continually expose and 'develop' in the light without the additional of chemical processing.

Ahh, it’s another 78-degree winter day in Southern California. Pardon my gloating, but it’s pretty spectacular here, especially since I just got back from a trip to San Francisco, where it was a frigid 50 degrees! It’s official, I’ve gone soft since moving to LA from Colorado. (Shhh…don’t tell my Boulder friends, who are probably chipping the ice from between their toes as we speak.) In 50 years you’ll probably find me golfing in Florida, complaining that the sun is too bright!

Which brings me to my point: in 50 years I’m not exactly sure what Florida will be like, or if it will even still be around. Not to go all doom-n-gloom on you, but according to an LA Times article out today , “Even if by some miracle the nations of the world could bring carbon dioxide levels back to those of the pre-industrial era, it would still take 1,000 years or longer for the climate changes already triggered to be reversed.” While it’s true that we have to account for the fact that certain changes in climate and biodiversity are a natural part of the Earth’s evolution, there is no denying that human activity has affected the health of the planet and that we have to take immediate action to ensure a healthy planet for future generations.

“We need to act sooner…because by the time the public and policymakers really realize the changes are here, if is far too late to do anything about it,” Kevin Trenberth, the head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO said.

So what we can do NOW is insist that policymakers enact clean-energy legislation immediately. Power Shift 09 is the prevailing organization working towards this goal. Register to join them as they march on Washington February 27—March 2 to demand climate justice and economic freedom from dirty energy sources.

Meanwhile, RuckusRoots is gearing up for another spring and summer of events. Our goal is to give young adults a creative voice in the eco-activism community. By engaging in interactive art and music at our installations, participants will create an emotional connection to these important issues and become vigilant “artivists” for the planet. While on the road, we’ll also promote relevant movements such as Power Shift 09. Contact us if you’d like to be included!

Our new promo video and website are almost complete and will be up soon.

Join the Ruckus!