Art Music Lit Space serves as a locus for artists, curators, writers, lookers, listeners, feelers and thinkers to show, share, and connect despite the nearly global closure of irl exhibition spaces such as studios, galleries, basements, museums, schools, art fairs, fields, etc.
AML Space seeks not simply to fill the chasm so suddenly imposed by social distancing measures, but to provide opportunity for a constellation community to probe the chasm together, apart.
Tavarus Blackmon, also known by the Anglo-Saxon, Blackmonster, lives with his partner and three children in the City of Trees, Sacramento, California. He earned his MFA as Provost Fellow at the University of California Davis. He has been under Fellowship at the Headlands Center for the Arts and is a current Parent-Artist Fellow at the Kala Art Institute, which recently shuttered its doors due to the "stay-at-home" order.
Derek Kwan is a electronic musician, percussionist, and digital artist exploring the expressive capabilities of computer technology through interactive media. His creative output includes live coding electronic music, interactive audiovisual installation art, physical computing, acoustic and electronic music composition, and percussion improvisation. As a performer, Derek has appeared with the Bang on a Can Marathon, Make Music New York, and soundSCAPE festival and has performed with Raphael Mostel's Tibetan Singing Bowl Ensemble and Iktus Percussion. He has had music compositions featured at the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the UC Davis Shinkoskey Noon Concert series, and Glasslands Gallery (Brooklyn, NY). Discussing his work as an open-source software developer and electronic musician, Derek has given presentations at the Fifth International Pure Data Convention held at New York University and the Bates Digital Music Symposium held at Bates College (Lewiston, ME). In July 2019, Derek curated a month-long exhibition at The Brickhouse Gallery (Sacramento, CA) featuring his audiovisual installation art alongside the artwork of artistic collaborators Tavarus Blackmon and Boris Allenou. In February and March 2020, Derek was in residence at the art and technology commune brahman.ai (Bombay Beach, CA) where he gave a workshop on the TidalCycles live coding environment, collaborated on the generative karaoke installation Karaoke of Dreams, and performed electronic music live coding with digital visual artist Cai Rhuturaje. Derek holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in percussion performance from Stony Brook University and has taught electronic music at University of California, Davis.
Joy Miller is an artist in Western Washington. She holds graduate degrees in Art Studio from UC Davis and in the Humanities from The University of Chicago. She is presently under quarantine with much of the world.
In our recent and current struggles, we have been catching glimpses of America’s power structures and what they value. We have been catching glimpses of power structures whose status quo does not value Black lives nor rights and will go to great lengths to maintain it. Although these mass protests live in our current collective consciousness, we must recognize that the recent murders they are in reaction to are only some of the symptoms of the systemic racism that has pervaded this country for centuries and we must not never forget our current zeal and passion for systemic change in the centuries to come.
Derek Kwan
No number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of Black people in America.
This moment now is yet another revelation of what has been going on for years.
Racism serves as a buttress, as a justification for super exploitation, for mass murder.
We all know what happened to Medgar.
Change cannot come under the present system.
Joy Miller
Don't kill me when I slowly turn the key into the door of the house I own. Don't kill me for tying my shoes on the wrong side of the side-walk. I am taking my time to watch the cars pass and the grass grow, feeding my children stories about the Bogey Man while they sing nursery rhymes and eat ice cream cones. Some people may think that since violence will not visit them in their private lives that the narrative of the victim is alien. These are people who do not know love or have the ability to care for others. They are without the capacity to feel as others feel, love how others love or die incrementally with the deaths of countless others. This is an alien affect, removed from the human concern that compassionate people express in their daily lives. We do not close ourselves into our own private worlds: Art Worlds, New Worlds, Privileged Worlds; we live in The World. Where you die face down begging for help and we are forced to watch you suffer. Let me stand so to look me in the eyes. So many "good men," have filled my back with bullets and choked me while I could not see their vapid, empty, hunger.
Tavarus Blackmon
As curators, one of our roles is to promote challenging art in good times, good art in challenging times and, to create a space for artists where the two are not divided. Artists, art students and those who value art may be wondering, "How do I exhibit in this current climate of physical distancing, social justice protests and, how can I connect with art, artists and people with whom my message matters?"
Art-Music-Lit Space provides a platform for free and public access to curated virtual exhibitions of art, music and writing. Send images of your original work, studio or, curated image searches. Send original sound files under 1 minute in length or links to audio and video. Send up to 5 original, previously unpublished, poems or 1 short story (fiction/non-fiction) under 1,500 words, hyperlink-lit or lists; lists of poignant, funny, thoughtful or arbitrary nouns, shopping lists, wish lists, to-do’s, etc.
In this time of doubt, questions and uncertainty, Art-Music-Lit Space connects artists and people. Proving that in times of change, struggle and difficulty that Art is vital, making is essential and that by communicating our cultural, creative and visual language our voices are indelible.
Images: up to 3 images of painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, photo-based work, curated Google or Bing photo searches [include search term(s)].
Music/Video: audio file (mp3) up to 1 minute in length, links to audio/video(s), cinematic poetry, recitations, recorded spoken word, sound art, music concrete.
Writing: up to 5 poems (doc/docx format), 1 short story (fiction/non-fiction) up to 1,500 words in length (doc/docx format), creative writing with hyperlinks, lists.
Include your 3rd Person Biography and full description of work: title, medium, dimensions, year created
This is not a fully inclusive list. Send your amazing, inspiring, cool, exciting, cross-genre/experimental work for inclusion.
Add a line to your CV during the gallery, museum, art space closures. Has your exhibition, performance, reading been cancelled? Share work with Art-Music-Lit Space, a virtual community connecting people through an intermedium presentation.
*All work must be made by the person submitting, unless you are submitting for someone else and have indicated so. All work must be previously unpublished unless you indicate where the work or documentation has appeared before and you retain right to re-publish.
*Art-Music-Lit Space is anti-hate/violence, unless you appropriately critique such gestures. We commit to presenting diverse voices including regional, national and international artists and seek work that comments on the current status of identity and compassion. Send us your protest, radical, activist and social practice work for consideration.
*Quarterly print and digital editions forthcoming, exhibitors receive one (1) free copy.
Email your submissions or inquiry to:
artmusiclitspace@gmail.com
Deadline: April 1, 2021