crowd shot at opening
So the opening at the JACK HANLEY GALLERY was friday Feb. 6 2004, it was packed and kind of overwhelming, much thanx to Jack for giving me this show, which is a pretty hard thing to mount and make happen.
Jack by far is the best gallery in SF if not the states and is representing some of the best art in the world, no shit, he is the man and he has shown and supported my work since the mid-eighties.
And much thanx to Jonathan Foote for electrical engineering support right down to the wire.
PRESS:
SF WEEKLY Saturday, February 21, 2004 Ye Olde Castrator/ Jaws is a steel contraption inside a vintage suitcase, which, in the words of its creator, "has a movement sensor that is very moody and goes off when someone gets VERY CLOSE to its razor-sharp snappyjaws." So it won't come and get you, but people visiting Kal Spelletich's show "Machines, Robots, Video" should probably think hard about where their appendages are relative to the art. The drawing machines, the whiskey-pouring machine (voted best by journalists!), even the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard machine: All these are, physically speaking, harmless. Several other pieces are extremely dangerous, and some could kill you -- this is Spelletich's hallmark. It's all in the name of good art. Are you afraid of it? Do you respect it? Does your heart rate rise just to be near it? Well, good. You ought to be paying more attention to art anyway. The exhibition is up through Feb. 28 at the Jack Hanley Gallery, 395 Valencia (at 15th Street), S.F. Admission is free; call 522-1623 or visit www.jackhanley.com . http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2004-02-18/nightday2.html/1/index.html
Art for the Ashcroft era san francisco bay guardian sfbg.com Lately mad scientist-artist-inventor Kal Spelletich has been building a lot of mutant polygraph machines, fusing the electrical guts of lie-detector devices – heart-rate, perspiration, and voice-stress analyzers – with strange and ominous robotics. One machine blows spinning halos of fire. Another uses a pen-equipped mechanical arm to scribble away on sheets of paper. All are hooked up to humans. Talk shit and these machines know – and respond. "This is kind of my PATRIOT Act twist," laughs Spelletich, the driving force behind the Seemen, a critically lauded robot art troop. "I'm experimenting with the same medium our government is." Spelletich brings an assortment of his interactive nightmare machines to the close confines of Valencia Street's Jack Hanley Gallery for an intimate exhibition running through Feb. 28. Though he won't be showing any of his massive flame-spitting pyro-robots, visitors get to play with a bunch of smaller, slightly less menacing interactive machines, like the Portable Castrator (which features a pair of snapping steel jaws) and a clawed steel hand that drags itself across a blackboard. Tonight's opening features DJ Ragi Da Lawyer. Through Feb. 28. Opens tonight, 6-8 p.m. (gallery hours: Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.), Jack Hanley Gallery, 395 Valencia, S.F. Free. (415) 522-1623, www.jackhanley.com . (A.C. Thompson)
FROM BUZZ TOWN by Beth Lisick The rain didn't seem to keep anyone away from Kal " Seemen " Spelletich 's opening at the Jack Hanley Gallery Friday night.
Flocking to the first night of the machine-art show, moist robot lovers and free-beer seekers packed themselves inside the fogged-up gallery, steeped in that uncanny wool-sweater/shaggy-dog/hair-product fragrance of our own making.
Mostly composed of prototypes for 20- to 40-foot-tall public sculptures, the show is a continuation of Spelletich's life's work: to make humans and machines more cozy with one another, even if someone has to get hurt. As people squeezed between exhibits, buzzers buzzed, gears grinded and the jagged bear-trap jaws of the portable castrator freaked people whenever it snapped shut.
Go interact with Kal's creations through the end of the month, but remember that you're the only one responsible in case of loss, damage or injury. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/02/11/blisick.DTL
http://seemen.org/
Jack by far is the best gallery in SF if not the states and is representing some of the best art in the world, no shit, he is the man and he has shown and supported my work since the mid-eighties.
And much thanx to Jonathan Foote for electrical engineering support right down to the wire.
PRESS:
SF WEEKLY Saturday, February 21, 2004 Ye Olde Castrator/ Jaws is a steel contraption inside a vintage suitcase, which, in the words of its creator, "has a movement sensor that is very moody and goes off when someone gets VERY CLOSE to its razor-sharp snappyjaws." So it won't come and get you, but people visiting Kal Spelletich's show "Machines, Robots, Video" should probably think hard about where their appendages are relative to the art. The drawing machines, the whiskey-pouring machine (voted best by journalists!), even the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard machine: All these are, physically speaking, harmless. Several other pieces are extremely dangerous, and some could kill you -- this is Spelletich's hallmark. It's all in the name of good art. Are you afraid of it? Do you respect it? Does your heart rate rise just to be near it? Well, good. You ought to be paying more attention to art anyway. The exhibition is up through Feb. 28 at the Jack Hanley Gallery, 395 Valencia (at 15th Street), S.F. Admission is free; call 522-1623 or visit www.jackhanley.com . http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2004-02-18/nightday2.html/1/index.html
Art for the Ashcroft era san francisco bay guardian sfbg.com Lately mad scientist-artist-inventor Kal Spelletich has been building a lot of mutant polygraph machines, fusing the electrical guts of lie-detector devices – heart-rate, perspiration, and voice-stress analyzers – with strange and ominous robotics. One machine blows spinning halos of fire. Another uses a pen-equipped mechanical arm to scribble away on sheets of paper. All are hooked up to humans. Talk shit and these machines know – and respond. "This is kind of my PATRIOT Act twist," laughs Spelletich, the driving force behind the Seemen, a critically lauded robot art troop. "I'm experimenting with the same medium our government is." Spelletich brings an assortment of his interactive nightmare machines to the close confines of Valencia Street's Jack Hanley Gallery for an intimate exhibition running through Feb. 28. Though he won't be showing any of his massive flame-spitting pyro-robots, visitors get to play with a bunch of smaller, slightly less menacing interactive machines, like the Portable Castrator (which features a pair of snapping steel jaws) and a clawed steel hand that drags itself across a blackboard. Tonight's opening features DJ Ragi Da Lawyer. Through Feb. 28. Opens tonight, 6-8 p.m. (gallery hours: Tues.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m.), Jack Hanley Gallery, 395 Valencia, S.F. Free. (415) 522-1623, www.jackhanley.com . (A.C. Thompson)
FROM BUZZ TOWN by Beth Lisick The rain didn't seem to keep anyone away from Kal " Seemen " Spelletich 's opening at the Jack Hanley Gallery Friday night.
Flocking to the first night of the machine-art show, moist robot lovers and free-beer seekers packed themselves inside the fogged-up gallery, steeped in that uncanny wool-sweater/shaggy-dog/hair-product fragrance of our own making.
Mostly composed of prototypes for 20- to 40-foot-tall public sculptures, the show is a continuation of Spelletich's life's work: to make humans and machines more cozy with one another, even if someone has to get hurt. As people squeezed between exhibits, buzzers buzzed, gears grinded and the jagged bear-trap jaws of the portable castrator freaked people whenever it snapped shut.
Go interact with Kal's creations through the end of the month, but remember that you're the only one responsible in case of loss, damage or injury. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/02/11/blisick.DTL
http://seemen.org/