David Horvitz
Encyclopedia
David Horvitz is a Brooklyn
-based watercolor painter, photographer and performance artist, known for his often bizarre and absurdist
DIY instructional projects, including work on Wikipedia
. He was born in Los Angeles
, California in 1980, and educated at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
. He has published several book
s, and his exhibitions have been shown at major galleries and museums, including Art Metropole
, the Or Gallery
, and the New Museum. In 2011 he was nominated for the Discovery Award at the photography festival in Arles
, France. His works are always released directly into the Public Domain
with a Creative Commons
license. An example is his ongoing series of watercolors depicting objects he has shoplifted, in which Horvitz paints small objects he has stolen, and then publicly releases the images online.
, the Dutch conceptual artist who was lost at sea in 1975. The film was found at the University of California at Irvine, where Ader had taught before his disappearance. Before becoming a book, the video had circulated online on various sources, including Youtube. The video had been repeatedly removed, which Horvitz claimed was from the requests of the gallery who represents Ader's estate.
in a freezer on his Flickr
account. He said he got the idea after telling his friend Mylinh Nguyen to try sticking her head in a freezer to cure her sickness. He picked the number 241543903, which was the part number of his refrigerator.
He then posted the following instruction on Tumblr: "Take a photograph of your head inside a freezer. Upload this photo to the internet (like Flickr). Tag the file with 241543903. The idea is that if you search for this cryptic tag, all the photos of heads in freezers will appear. I just did one". By January 2010, there were hundreds of Flickr photographs filed under the tag "241543903" and the idea soon spread to other social media
sites like Facebook
, Twitter
and MySpace
.
In November 2010, the meme was mentioned in Horvitz' book of instructions titled Everything That Can Happen in a Day, published by Random House
.
s to conduct a Wikipedia search and then to continue onto other articles through linked words, "creating a string of ideas that could be printed and presented as a series of articles in a newspaper-like format. The resulting collection represents 23 of these mental maps, which chart the artists' short journeys through the wilds of the collectively edited online encyclopedia. The book was commissioned by the Art Libraries Society of New York.
on the Mexican Border, and ending at Pelican State Beach
on the Oregon
Border. At each of 50 chosen locations, Horvitz took pictures of the ocean view, standing with the frame of the shot. "All of these images were then placed onto the Wikipedia articles about the different locations".
This provoked opposition in the Wikipedia community, as its members tried to work out the identity of the uploader (who was contributing from different IP address
es and account names), and his or her purpose. Some of the photos were cropped, and most of them were deleted from Wikimedia Commons
, the hosting site which had been facilitating their use on Wikipedia.
A text about the event by Steck, and the photos taken for Public Access are now on view at "As Yet Untitled: Artists and Writers in Collaboration" at SF Camerawork in San Francisco. Included in the exhibition are also poems written by Zach Houston
, a poet and friend who accompanied Horvitz on half of the road-trip.
Polaroid Projects while working as tour-manager on tours with the indie rock band Xiu Xiu. On the band's web-site, Horvitz asked attendees of the concerts to bring in unused packs of polaroid film. While on the tour, he shot all the photographs, and then mailed the pictures back to the people who gave him the film. This was all done for free. It is estimated that roughly 10,000 polaroids exist in these projects. This would be considered one of Horvitz's early distribution projects. Horvitz has written inside the introduction to the book about the project:
, that was currently on display in the museum. It is not known if any legal actions were brought against Horvitz and his friend. On a website, the two stated:
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
-based watercolor painter, photographer and performance artist, known for his often bizarre and absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
DIY instructional projects, including work on Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
. He was born in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, California in 1980, and educated at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts
Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts is a graduate program associated with Bard College that grants Master of Fine Arts degrees.Founded in 1981, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts is a nontraditional school for interdisciplinary study in the visual and creative arts...
. He has published several book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s, and his exhibitions have been shown at major galleries and museums, including Art Metropole
Art Metropole
Art Metropole was founded in 1974 by the Canadian artists' group General Idea as a not-for-profit corporation incorporated under the laws of the province of Ontario. It is located in Toronto, Canada....
, the Or Gallery
Or Gallery
The Or Gallery is a non-profit artist run centre based in Vancouver, Canada. The gallery is run by a paid Director/Curator and a voluntary Board of Directors. The Director/Curator of the Or is an appointed working artist who is hired for a limited time...
, and the New Museum. In 2011 he was nominated for the Discovery Award at the photography festival in Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
, France. His works are always released directly into the Public Domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
with a Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
license. An example is his ongoing series of watercolors depicting objects he has shoplifted, in which Horvitz paints small objects he has stolen, and then publicly releases the images online.
Discovered lost Bas Jan Ader film
In 2009 Horvitz released the artist-book Rarely Seen Bas Jan Ader Film, with Los Angeles based publisher 2nd Cannons Publications. A few years prior Horvitz discovered a lost film by Bas Jan AderBas Jan Ader
Bas Jan Ader was a Dutch conceptual artist, performance artist, photographer and filmmaker. He lived in Los Angeles for the last 10 years of his life. Ader's work was in many instances presented as photographs and film of his performances...
, the Dutch conceptual artist who was lost at sea in 1975. The film was found at the University of California at Irvine, where Ader had taught before his disappearance. Before becoming a book, the video had circulated online on various sources, including Youtube. The video had been repeatedly removed, which Horvitz claimed was from the requests of the gallery who represents Ader's estate.
241543903 project
On April 6, 2009, Horvitz posted a picture with his headHuman head
In human anatomy, the head is the upper portion of the human body. It supports the face and is maintained by the skull, which itself encloses the brain.-Cultural importance:...
in a freezer on his Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
account. He said he got the idea after telling his friend Mylinh Nguyen to try sticking her head in a freezer to cure her sickness. He picked the number 241543903, which was the part number of his refrigerator.
He then posted the following instruction on Tumblr: "Take a photograph of your head inside a freezer. Upload this photo to the internet (like Flickr). Tag the file with 241543903. The idea is that if you search for this cryptic tag, all the photos of heads in freezers will appear. I just did one". By January 2010, there were hundreds of Flickr photographs filed under the tag "241543903" and the idea soon spread to other social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
sites like Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
.
In November 2010, the meme was mentioned in Horvitz' book of instructions titled Everything That Can Happen in a Day, published by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
.
Wikipedia Reader
In A Wikipedia Reader (2009) Horvitz asked a group of artistArtist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
s to conduct a Wikipedia search and then to continue onto other articles through linked words, "creating a string of ideas that could be printed and presented as a series of articles in a newspaper-like format. The resulting collection represents 23 of these mental maps, which chart the artists' short journeys through the wilds of the collectively edited online encyclopedia. The book was commissioned by the Art Libraries Society of New York.
Public Access
In December 2010 and January 2011, Horvitz and Ed Steck drove the whole California coast up the Pacific Coast Highway, starting at Border Field State ParkBorder Field State Park
Border Field State Park is a state park of California, USA, containing beach and coastal habitat on the Mexico – United States border. The park is located within the city limits of Imperial Beach in San Diego County, adjacent to the suburb of Playas de Tijuana in Mexico...
on the Mexican Border, and ending at Pelican State Beach
Pelican State Beach
Pelican State Beach is a beach located in Del Norte County, California. Located north of Crescent City on US Route 101 near the town of Smith River, this undeveloped site is immediately south of the Oregon state line, making this site the northernmost California state beach. This beach is great...
on the Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
Border. At each of 50 chosen locations, Horvitz took pictures of the ocean view, standing with the frame of the shot. "All of these images were then placed onto the Wikipedia articles about the different locations".
The intent was that these images would begin to circulate in this public place as visual information surrounding the geographic location, as a kind of metadata for the locations. Another thought that emerged from this project was a play between the ideas of omnipresenceOmnipresenceOmnipresence or ubiquity is the property of being present everywhere. According to eastern theism, God is present everywhere. Divine omnipresence is thus one of the divine attributes, although in western theism it has attracted less philosophical attention than such attributes as omnipotence,...
and remotenessRemotenessRemoteness in English law is a set of rules in both tort and contract, which limits the amount of compensatory damages for a wrong.In negligence, the test of causation not only requires that the defendant was the cause in fact, but also requires that the loss or damage sustained by the claimant was...
. There is an omnipresence to the internet. It is a site of the instantaneous flowing of information between different locations. Some of the locations I ventured to were remote. They were out of cell-phone signal, away from cities, and sometimes even miles from highways. They were accessible, but took effort to get there.
This provoked opposition in the Wikipedia community, as its members tried to work out the identity of the uploader (who was contributing from different IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
es and account names), and his or her purpose. Some of the photos were cropped, and most of them were deleted from Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation....
, the hosting site which had been facilitating their use on Wikipedia.
A text about the event by Steck, and the photos taken for Public Access are now on view at "As Yet Untitled: Artists and Writers in Collaboration" at SF Camerawork in San Francisco. Included in the exhibition are also poems written by Zach Houston
Zach Houston
Zach Houston is an Oakland based visual artist and poet. He is best known for his "poemstore", an ongoing business/literature performance, which has been widely emulated. The "poemstore" has received coverage from Charles Osgood, CBS News, Katie Couric, The NY Times, The LA Times, reviewed by...
, a poet and friend who accompanied Horvitz on half of the road-trip.
The Xiu Xiu Polaroid Projects
From 2005 to 2007 Horvitz made the Xiu XiuXiu Xiu
Xiu Xiu is an American avant-garde group originally from San Jose, California. The band is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart, who has been its only constant member since its inception in 2002. His current bandmate is Angela Seo...
Polaroid Projects while working as tour-manager on tours with the indie rock band Xiu Xiu. On the band's web-site, Horvitz asked attendees of the concerts to bring in unused packs of polaroid film. While on the tour, he shot all the photographs, and then mailed the pictures back to the people who gave him the film. This was all done for free. It is estimated that roughly 10,000 polaroids exist in these projects. This would be considered one of Horvitz's early distribution projects. Horvitz has written inside the introduction to the book about the project:
The polaroid projects with Xiu Xiu were about distribution. I made the photographs on the tour, while traveling, with film brought to each concert by people I didn't know, who read about the project online. The images weren't just of the band, there were photographs of roads, trees, food, the sky, motel beds, parking lots, billboards, my bleeding nose. They were from those moments, mostly thought of as dull, while traveling from show to show. I used this time and space to make these images. It is a time of waiting, of an extreme sense of the quotidian. In the end a solid body of photographs were made. But after they were all sent back to the people who had brought the film, this solidity existed only in a scattered state, as distributed content. In a sense, the same places where the photographs were made - throughout North America - is the same place where the photographs ended up. It was as if they were depicting their destiny. I own none of these images, and may never see the originals again.
Pinocchio Taken Down by Security Action and Video
In July of 2008 a video was posted to Youtube showing two people dressed in Pinocchio costumes running out of the Hessel Museum on the Bard College campus. A security guard chases after them, and tackles one of the Pinocchio's to the ground. The action was later identified as done by Horvitz and a friend, who apparently ran out of the museum wearing part of an art-work by artist, Paul McCarthyPaul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy , is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California.-Life:McCarthy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and studied art at the University of Utah in 1969. He went on to study at the San Francisco Art Institute receiving a BFA in painting...
, that was currently on display in the museum. It is not known if any legal actions were brought against Horvitz and his friend. On a website, the two stated:
On July 19, 2008 we extended Paul McCarthy's video/ costume piece, Pinocchio Pipenose Household Dilemma (Party Pack), which was being exhibited at the Hessell Museum on Bard College's campus, to the outside world.
Exhibitions
- 2011: Exhibition at Rencontres d'Arles Festival, France for the Discovery Award (laureate)