Quivering Plant wins 2014 ISC Award!

My piece Quivering Plant was chosen to receive the International Sculpture Center's "Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award" for 2014.

It is currently on view at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey until April 5, 2015. For more information, visit their WEBSITE.

"You are (on) an island" in neon show at Ball State University

You are (on) an island is in a neon exhibition called "Negotiating Distance" at the Atrium Gallery in Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. It features more of Alicia's neon work, as well as the work of Sarah Blood, Hiromi Takizawa, and Fred Tschida. It's an amazing show!

Here is an installation shot of our piece with the kinetic work of legendary neon artist Fred Tschida, and a shot of us transporting the work:

Hair Flip at Vox Populi in Philadelphia

Hair Flip (The End of Authentic Gestures) is featured in Vox X: Present Tense, Vox Populi's 10th annual exhibition of emerging artists. They also chose my image for the postcard!

See Vox's website for more info.

MFA Thesis Show

See photos from the opening of my MFA thesis show "Wavering Certainty" here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeflem/sets/72157644496610922/

Photos from DUMBO Arts Festival

For more photos, click HERE

Quote

"While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph."
-Lewis Hine

New Work

A new experiment- a three bladed fan with highly reflective red, green, and blue gels on each blade. Based on the additive color principal, these three colors are the primary color elements that make up white light. They are also the same colors that computer screens and print media such as newspaper and magazines use to create realistic color images.


A ring of white-ish light


A very fast shutter speed captures the rainbow of colors produced from just red, green, and blue


At rest

Published on Berlin-based Blog

Berlin-based blog I-REF, the "Magazine for Contemporary Culture" has featured some works by myself and Alicia. Check it out HERE

Upcoming Exhibition at DUMBO Arts Festival 2013

"You are (on) an island" will be exhibited in the DUMBO Arts Festival from September 27-29. Visit www.dumboartsfestival.com for more information.

Pictures from Malta Arts Festival 2013

See more photos from the Malta Arts Festival HERE

Seeing the Nothing

"Seeing the nothing, seeing what is not in the landscape, empowers the explorer, because discerning what is not in the picture enables the explorer to make connections. The explorer who slows down or stops for a few moments to look around, to catalog what appears to be absent, becomes the connoisseur of noticing. Most people look around and see thing. The explorer looks around and sees the patterns and revelations disclosed by things absent."

"Outdoors, away from things experts have already explained, the slightly thoughtful person willing to look around carefully for a few minutes, to scrutinize things about which he or she knows nothing in particular, begins to be aware, to notice, to explore. And almost always, that person starts to understand, to see great cultural and social and economic and political patterns unnoticed by journalists and other experts. In that understanding may come a desire to cry out, to tell friends or family or total strangers about discoveries great and small, but the understanding may just as well produce secrecy, a quiet smile, a satisfied nod. Whatever else that understanding of exploration, of discovery, brings, it brings a specialness, a near magic to the explorer that attracts other people who want to know what is so worth looking at."

from "Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places" by John R. Stilgoe

Designboom

Alicia Eggert and I's "You are (on) an island" tour was recently featured on Designboom.

An exhibition and two artists talks this week!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

You are (on) an island by Alicia Eggert and Mike Fleming
Limited edition publication and exhibition at Neon Workshops

Wakefield, West Yorkshire - March 15, 2013 - In 2012, Neon Workshops invited American artists Alicia Eggert and Mike Fleming to bring their collaborative project, You are (on) an island, to the UK, and present it as a mobile venture to an unsuspecting audience around Yorkshire. In January of this year, the artists arrived in Wakefield, installed the neon sign on the back of a hire van, sparked up the delicate gas-filled glass with a small generator, and took to the road.

The sign, along with photo and video documentation of their guerrilla sculpture tour, will be featured in an exhibition at Neon Workshops March 15 - May 11, 2013. The opening reception on March 15 from 5-9 PM will also include the launch of a limited-edition publication.

A digital version of the book can be viewed here:
http://issuu.com/mikeflem/docs/youareonanisland/1

The artists will be giving two lectures about the project:
- Queen Mary, University of London on Thursday, March 14 at 2:00pm
- The Hepworth Wakefield on Friday, March 15 at 3:30pm

Alicia Eggert and Mike Fleming are American interdisciplinary artists working primarily in sculpture, installation and time-based media. They have been working collaboratively since 2009, and have shown their work at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan; CAFA Art Museum in Beijing; ISEA2012 at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History in New Mexico; Cyberfest in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Art Moves Festival in Torun, Poland; the Artefact Festival in Leuven, Belgium; the Vimeo Festival + Awards in New York; and at institutions in Philadelphia, Maine, and Ontario, Canada. Alicia currently lives in Portland, Maine, and is an Assistant Professor of Art at Bowdoin College. Mike is currently pursuing his MFA in Sculpture/Dimensional Studies at Alfred University in New York.

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Back from Belgium!

I had a very quick trip to Belgium to install "Eternity" at STUK, the main venue for the Artefact Festival 2013. I can't say enough good things about STUK and the people there- it's an incredible, incredible place with wonderful, wonderful people! I was unable to stay for the opening and the 12 days of the festival, but I heard it was a great success. Here are a few photos:


lots of bikes


STUK


installation in progress


lots of banners!


great signage


lunch


exhibition space

New Work

Spread Out Balloons



Cash 4 Gold
An arrow sign used in human advertisement is disembodied from its human owner and hovers in the air, spinning pathetically



Liminal Zone
A floating glass plane reveals a hidden light box text on the ceiling, converging two planes of space into one

The Point

"You are born into a society and you are shaped by it, whether you know it or not, or whether you like it or not. Each of us is born into a prison of received opinion, superstitions, and of prejudices. Now one of the functions of art is to try and define the prison. A) The artist must know they are in it, and many of them don’t know they are in it and those are the bad artists; they don’t see past those bars. The prison is going to break you eventually but you can at least get a look out, and it is the look out that is art. Try to see the thing whole is what we all want and why we write. There is no purpose to life or point to life other than what you invest by in yourself by your own actions. The making of a book or music or your own creation is to try to hold the moment and give it a certain order and bring order out of chaos and say 'here it is, seen whole, even though of course it really isn’t.'”
-Gore Vidal

Truth

"It is imperative that we give up the idea of ultimate sources of knowledge, and admit that all knowledge is human; that it is mixed up with our errors, our prejudices, our dreams, our hopes; that all we can do is to grope for the truth even though it is beyond our reach."
- Karl Popper

Cyberfest in St. Petersburg, Russia

The 6th International Festival for Cybernetic Art ( aka CYBERFEST) was held in St. Petersburg, 23-28 November 2012. Alicia and I were invited to install "Eternity" and we had an amazing experience. Here are a few photos. Learn more about Cyberfest on their website.

New Work

Two more works made during my first semester at Alfred.

Mylar Balloon in Rain
2012
installation dimensions variable
silver mylar balloon, water, pond pump, vinyl tubing, steel, wood, aircraft cable






Bubble Wands
2012
7" x .125" x 1"
7" x .125" 1.5"
acrylic, bubble solution

Mark Dion @ Alfred