Atomic Elroy

RIP Peter Bergman founding member of Firesign Theatre

atomic elroy — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:15:26 +0000

What can I say about Firesign Theatre… They are called the Beatles of comedy… but they left the Beatles in their tracks. They Were the Bach of comedy with exquisite 4 part contrapuntal lines of dialog that enveloped your mind in a mesmerizing macrocosm of mirth. I first heard Firesign in 1968 on the radio, side two of “How Can You Be In Two Places At Once, When You’re Not Anywhere at All” ( take that Fiona Apple). It was Love at first sound! I immediately went out and bought the album and wore it out. They were great, 2 Yale Drama grads ( Proctor and Bergman), a Radio DJ (Ossman), and a Rock Star ( Austin). They wrote the densest heavily referenced comedy ever. I had never heard of half the writers they referenced, and of course had to go out get educate myself as to who Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, etc. were. The material was complex, I remember friends who didn’t like “I Think Were All Bozos On This Bus” because it was too complicated. It was four things going on at once, but this was the age of head phones.
In a One Man show I did a few years back “I Was A Teenage Surrealist” I used the “Pep Rally” from ” Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Pass Me The Pliers” as an example if the surrealist humor prevalent when I was going to High School. They were so influential in my development. Firesign, Zappa, Beckett, Lennon were my big 4.

Bergman a Yale graduate was the founding member he had a radio show in LA called Radio Free OZ, which was the central point around which the Firesign formed. He also coined the phrase Love-In.
Rest In Peace, Duke of Madness.

Artvertising

atomic elroy — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:33:56 +0000

on the social disease networks… content=advertising… and the boys and girls can’t tell the difference…

RIP Ken Russell

atomic elroy — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:59:03 +0000

Bad Artist…

atomic elroy — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 03:46:55 +0000

The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man — that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense — has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading.” – H. L. Menckin

Why I am a Video Installation artist… I LOVE TV!

atomic elroy — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:27:46 +0000

It just dawned on me… I LOVE TV… Not what’s on it. but the medium itself. I’ve been fascinated since I was quite young with TV. I loved the way the device looked as much as I loved Capt. Kangaroo and Sheri Lewis. Yes I’m that old.
Part of the fascination is the fact that my family didn’t have a TV for long stretches of time, it would go haywire and my Mom didn’t have the money to fix it. So up until I was about 9 yrs. old TV was a treat. Since then it’s been a love hate relationship.
After my early teen years I lost interest in TV. There were only 4 or 5 channels, and most of it did not appeal to a Teenage Surrealist such as my self. Then when we moved to Colorado in the late 60′s the star was one of the early adopters of cable TV, which had it’s perks, they broadcast underground FM radio on cable so most everyone I knew had there stereo receivers hooked up to it. I also allowed 24 hr. viewing and it certainly helped on certain evening under the influence of psychedelics to have something other than “snow” to watch.
I took TV production in College and learned camera operations, switching, tape editing, etc. I investigated the physical internal science of TVs, but it quickly went right over my head, I understood RGB, and the tube technology conceptually and not scientifically. Yet This only made my LOVE grow.
The expense of video production at the time was prohibitive even for organizations, let alone individuals. VHS helped but it really was a shitty format and difficult to edit. That never stopped me, I still used TV and most importantly TV sets ( monitors) as an integral part of my theatre/art practice.
The advent of digital video and the miniDV format changed everything and caused the video revolution ( which is being televised sorry Gil) we live in now.
Truly I love the way TV monitors look, I love to see 5 of them in a row, I love to see them lying flat on the floor screen up. I also Love how faces look in close up on a monitor. It just excites me to see Video Installations in museums.
Now here comes the part people are bound to disagree with… TV is the modern canvas. The advent of photography made realistic rendering in painting and drawing useless and quaint. Don’t get me wrong I’m not one of those who every 5 years declares pinging dead, it’s not, and never will be, it’s just… well… antiquated, like wax cylinders or cassette tapes. Yes I a firm believer my AADD is not a malady but a blessing. Things never change fast enough for me.
I am biased my LOVE of TV monitors makes me want to see entire museums with nothing but TV monitors and projectors in them ( hint, hint on my next art venture in NoCal.) So there it is I am a Video Installation artist because I LOVE TVs, Some say I use them to a fault, but who cares when it’s LOVE baby go for it!

“The Grays”

atomic elroy — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:40:53 +0000

Here’s my next Project…
The Grays, A feature length video art installation featuring a collection of 18 male and female plastic figure models (dolls) used by art students for drawing studies. This “species”, The Grays, rebel against their art school overlords, and escape! Entering and wrecking havoc on the art world as we know it. They begin their own “art scene” that disregards all that art academia and the gallery system stands for. Eventually they compete with the academic/gallery system and so quickly begin to overtake, The Art Market rallies hellbent on destroying them and anyone else who won’t conform to the system. They send the dreaded German art critic Art Op to take down The Grays. But who wins this cultural death match? Tune in and find out….

Atomic Elroy Portfolio

atomic elroy — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 02:42:41 +0000

Click through twice on individual image to see it larger.

Avant List

atomic elroy — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:58:31 +0000

!. make absurd lists.

@. Is phoniness the new dominate philosophy? ( keepin’ it unreal ! )

#. I cant get half way through a serious art rant blog, with out giving up with a feeling of who really gives a shit.

$Art Academia has really ruined the art world by producing too many artists who want to make a living in art and cannot do so by taking place in the art market so they teach, which creates an art world with over reaching pseudo intellectual academic art philosophies and concepts which take art further away from it actual mission ( simple visual/conceptual communication), making it more and more irrelevant to anyone other than art academics, who want to make a living in art and cannot do so by taking place in the art market… A Mobius Strip of art irrelevance.

%. Ok there I did it, art rant over.

^. Modern economics is too skewered to the few rich.

&. In the 60′s we revered millionaire junkie rock stars, which was kinda cool cause it was such a contradiction, now it’s status quo.

*. Raise the minimum wage and that will stimulate the economy, Corporations will have to do with less profit, Boo Hoo, billionaire CEOs will have to become millionaire CEOs for the good of their country. How’s that for making a patriotic sacrifice make less money for the good of your country ( and fuck greedy Reaganomics maniacs, trickle down is just getting pissed on.)

(. Can’t do the liberal denial dance of “supporting the troops, while being against the war”. The troops carry out the war, they are not innocent, they are not victims, They choose to become professionally trained killers to do our politician’s bidding. They should be neither vilified nor glorified.

). Lists Suck.

Piss Christ meets Homer Simpson

atomic elroy — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:50:17 +0000

Interesting… look at the smashed Piss Christ, do you see a profile of Homer Simpson with mouth agape? I do… It’s like the Virgin Mary on the toast, maybe it’s their God telling Religious Nuts not to be such “Homers”.

Work of Art Parking Lot Crack

atomic elroy — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 22:04:56 +0000