The work of multimedia artist and all-around digital maverick Travess Smalley really fucks with my sense of scale. Mountains nest within mountains, Magic Eye patterns might be topographic maps of lava planets, and neon galaxies of abstract forms easily meld into the molecular substructure of THC. There’s no solid distinction between part and whole. A weird alchemy is at play here: everything in Smalley’s world seems perpetually caught in the process of becoming another aspect of itself.

His vibrantly visceral objects of inscrutable origin are fundamentally maximalist and endlessly nostalgic for an era that never happened but, with luck, still might. They appear equally at home wherever you encounter them: in the nowhere-place of the internet, the walls of a gallery at CTRL+W33D’s rad recent “Troll” exhibition, or the centerfold of a fancy magazine. Intrigued by the output of this cryptic chameleon, I sought answers from Mr. Smalley himself. He was kind enough to illuminate a few of the many mysteries surrounding his craft, and share some new pieces:

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The number of Mommy Bloggers in the world is fully breathtaking. For each 20-something hipster with an artsy minimalist Tumblr, there are a dozen Midwestern housewives boasting visually baroque blogs, brimming with snapshots of their children at the beach and essay-length anecdotes about grocery shopping and lactation. Kids say the darndest things, parenthood is like riding a bicycle with no handlebars, and here are the consumer goods I use.

Many successful Mommies are straight-up hustlers, their sites weaving in sponsored product reviews of the Dove’s new body wash and banner ads for Kitchenaid appliances between intimate missives on the tribulations of home-schooling and up-to-the-minute news on their bathroom remodels. These micro-micro-ad buys from multi-national conglomerates blend in with personal ephemera in a way that feels both unsettling and oddly natural, like of course this is where the Internet is taking us, of course.

In an era where the American Dream means living your life in public (and getting paid to do it), housewives are more than just the target demographic for consumer goods, they’ve also become active participants in their marketing. As this power dynamic shifts, products take on a new relationship with the physical space of our everyday lives, and suburban homes become Hollywood soundstages ripe for the hawking of everything from Jif to Snuggles.

That’s kind of what the fabulous art project Tanner America is about. It’s a satirical blog comprised of Photoshopped approximations of normal American life, seen through the eyes of the eerily gung-ho Tanner family of Colorado Springs. Through bizarrely mundane yet obviously simulated snapshots and hilarious matter-of-fact captions, Tanner America produces an uncanny sense of unease towards the everyday, like a Web 2.0 Twin Peaks. Incidentally, the Tanners nonchalantly report the overtly Lynchian discovery of a dismembered ear in the nearby woods. Go lose yourself down the rabbit hole, and don’t miss Jacob Gaboury of Rhizome’s insightful commentary on Tanner America.

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Brian Khek is a young digital artist from Chicago, who, if his website’s links are any indication, seems to run in the same circles as some of my favorite denizens of that windy, windy city—Brad Troemel, Micah Schippah, and Carson Fisk-Vittori. They’re all graduates of SAIC—the new RISD? Discuss. What kind of crazy cyber-drugs are they putting in the water up there? Khek’s pieces rise to the surface from deep chambers of the virtual world’s collective unconscious, blithely challenging the ancient eminence of all things organic. Primo.

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I like to imagine that Fritz Lang, with his penchant for blown-up science textbook illustrations, and Leonardo da Vinci, with his designs for contraptions both whimsical and practical, would be totally stoked on the work of multimedia collagist Jacob Whibley. A quick survey of his artistic output reveals microscopic vistas of the still-beating hearts of impossible automata and altars for the worship of logic and ideas… or at least that’s what I see. Whibley’s work is like a blueprint for imagination, equal parts Rorschach test and mechanized mandala whose contemplation allows you access to hidden inner truths. Of course, this only raises more questions about the man behind the mysticism. He took the time to address a few of my queries about process, precision, and future projects.

From diagrammatic collages to surreal sculptural pseudo-playscapes, your work, while fantastical, seems to encourage the perception that it is meant to be used for a specific function: creation, recreation, meditation. What kind of purpose does art serve for you? What effect do you want it to have on your audience?

Art has always been about exploration and inspiration for me. I get excited working with new materials and looking for new bits of ephemera. Each piece is both an exercise in solving spatial/compositional problems and the examination of a variety of themes: interstitial spaces, unfulfilled histories, new combinations of forms, and unfulfilled potentials. For the viewer, I want to instill that same sense of confusion, curiosity, and contemplation.

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He’s an 83-year-old queer experimental filmmaker, they’re the sprawling Italian family responsible for making the world’s greatest knitwear. This is the fantastic video that brings them together. Kenneth Anger shot the Missoni family frolicking in a series of Italian courtyards in this ad for their Fall/Winter 2010 collection, and it’s kind of beautiful. I’m amazed how similar in its aesthetics and visual conventions this is to Anger’s work from the late 1940s and 50s, and yet how effectively mesmerizing the magic of Kenneth Anger remains. Once you find that sweet spot in your work, sometimes it’s a good idea to just linger there forever.

When Wu Tsang and Ashland Mines started Wildness— surely the most glorious of all L.A. club nights in recent memory— at The Silver Platter, they placed a huge spotlight on that small and obscure gay bar tucked away in MacArthur Park. The Silver Platter has for decades catered to a split clientele of discretely dressed macho Latino men and fabulous transgendered women, two factions once at odds that have slowly coalesced into an organic community. Wildness, through its unique mixture of contemporary art, drag, performance and hip DJs, attracted a brand new audience of artsy young queers spanning class and race boundaries to The Silver Platter.

Damelo Todo (Give Me Everything) is Wu’s bracingly intelligent and beautifully shot film that delves deep into the world of The Silver Platter, the hard social realities of transgender life, and the politics of partying. This innovative documentary/narrative hybrid has been in production for nearly two years, fueled by hard-won grants, small donations, and the tireless efforts of a devoted crew. Now Wu needs your help to finish the film. The Kickstarter finish line is less than $500 away, so every dollar invested in these final 4 days will make an enormous difference! Does the world need Damelo Todo in it? Yes, it does. And it’s up to you to make it happen.

+ Don’t miss Wu’s blog, Class.

Stop by our opening at Mastodon Mesa tonight and say hello! Then check out our performance art bonanza The Human Groom-In at Show Cave, later in the evening. It’s going to be insane. Social grooming interactions will be rewarded by tasty treats.

Also: I’m headed down to San Diego for Comic Con late tonight. You’ll be able to find me working at the Giant Robot booth Friday-Sunday— so don’t be a stranger, fellow nerds and geeks!

I know you don’t need any more incentive to leave the house tonight than the mere mention of an amazing screening of video art— but would it be the cherry on the cake to know there’s going to be a pygmy goat present? Because there will be. And his name is Oreo.

The brilliant Ben Bigelow curated Goat Helper with Michael Mallis, and they’ve built an entire goat-themed happening based around a series of thrilling videos from some of my favorite people. To name a few: Jacob Ciocci & Shana Moulton (two of the geniuses from Deterioration, They Said), Party Food, Jon Clark, Mike Jitlov (The Wizard of Speed and Time), and the creator of Gumby, Art Clokey. Swing by Show Cave in Eagle Rock to check it out tonight! The screening starts at 9:00 PM sharp— goats can’t stand it when you’re late.

This LIVE screening of experimental video art and animation is framed within a performance including: light installation, live video, goat themed food art, costumed “Helpers”, and of course Oreo the beloved pygmy goat.

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Have you ever been touched in a way that confused you? Thrilled you? Helped you understand someone better? Have you ever longed for human contact? At Mastodon Mesa, we know how you feel. We’re putting together a group exhibition for July called “The Touching Show.” Focusing on touch as a social phenomenon, rather than a tactile one, we’d like to examine the ways in which humans have abandoned touch in favor of language as a primary form of communication.

We’re encouraging a broad, multi-disciplinary interpretation of this theme, and planning two consecutive events: the art opening at our new space in the Pacific Design Center, followed by a series of interactive performance pieces at awesome Eagle Rock art space Show Cave later in the evening.

This is an open invitation to join in the fun. Send me an e-mail and let’s talk about it!

Christopher Schulz created one of the greatest magazines about naked dudes on the planet: Pinups. Since I first interviewed Christopher about the photo-based graphic design experiment back in 2008, he’s been a busy bee. Now in its 12th issue, the latest Pinup is cult favorite actor Guillermo Diaz, sexy-dancing to records in nothing but a pair of leather cuffs. In his spare time, Christopher has been appropriating vintage and contemporary porn for beautiful, amusing—and sometimes unnerving—digital collages in his Tumblr-based design project, Mopping Is Stealing. He’s also begun a series of illustrations devoted to his long-time muse: lovably corn-fed thespian Seth Rogen.

Catch up with Christopher after the jump! And if you happen to be in New York, don’t miss the latest Pinups release party on Saturday, June 19th at Blackout. (NSFW butts and penises below).

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One book, six of my favorite artists: digital mastermind Cory Arcangel, brother-sister duo Jessica Ciocci & Jacob Ciocci (two-thirds of Paper Rad), new age philosopher Shana Moulton, and virtuoso of video art Ryan Trecartin along with his close collaborator, sculptor Lizzie Fitch. Deterioration They Said is the gorgeous exhibition catalogue for the show that united all these amazing people at Zurich’s Migros Museum for Contemporary Art last year.

I stumbled across it while perusing the books at Family last week, and nearly busted a nut. Not only is it brimming with lavish full-bleed images from that aren’t available online, but it also provides 92 pages worth of thought-provoking contextual analysis, alphabetized in short segments, like “G is for Garfield and Gumby,” and “S is for Spectacular, Spectacular Excess.” Peek inside Deterioration, They Said after the jump.

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Dude, you guys made it incredibly tough to decide who won the Albert Reyes giveaway contest. There were too many great comments! Too many rad ways to spend a summer! You’re all winners in my mind, but in the end, we had to choose one person to take home a free print. That person is Gabriel, whose plan for a perfect summer felt completely philosophically aligned with Albert’s entire ethos:

To make things and sell them and have them sold in gallery/performance space with a fantastic opening with futuristic cumbia jamz being played from the speakers with a dj set curated by Mas Excitos and 22 oz cans of tecates given out by girls in the posters with all of my friends from all over in the same place. To dance, sing, and howl at the moon all the same time until it screams back in a thick Spanish accent “the future has yet to be written”.

Choosing a runner-up to get a full set of prints at a discounted price was equally difficult, but we fell in love with Zena’s utopian, all-encompassing interstellar vision:

I’d travel through space and time in a giant steam-powered dirigible fully-equipped with live music, friends, weed, alcohol, catering, pool and hot tub. We’d travel the universe, exploring any planet of our choosing and befriend the myriad alien life forms we encounter. Upon becoming slightly homesick, we’d bring our new-found alien friends back to planet Earth wherein we would all put our technologically and spiritually advanced minds together to repair the BP Oil Spill, create a new, worldwide ecological energy solution to put all oil companies out of business forever, end all wars and suffering, and repopulate all endangered lifeforms. Finally – ’round early August – we would dock in Tokyo, living out the rest of the summer in neon, jubilant, funtimes.

I would also have sex with Daniel Day Lewis.

Good luck with that Zena— and as for the rest of you, thanks so much for playing along! It was awesome hearing from the people who read Future Shipwreck, and I know you can all have the summers of your dreams if you want them!

If you still want a free print, good news! The other blog I write for, We Love You So, has just launched a final giveaway of their own, as we prepare to go into hiatus. Spike is giving away a priceless adult sized wolf suit from the production of Where the Wild Things Are, and the rest of us who work on the site are throwing prizes of our own into the pot. I’m including another print from Albert’s Elegant, Classic Shit series, so go drop a line over there to qualify for that contest. A winner will be chosen at random on Tuesday.

And please, if you love Albert’s work as much as I do, help support him and our gallery by heading over to Mastodon Mesa’s site and picking up a set of prints!

After a veritable minefield of obstacles threatening to shut down the show at every turn, the title of Albert Reyes’ solo show at Mastodon Mesa has proven prescient: NEVER DIES THE DREAM. Come down to the gallery to see it tonight between 5-8pm, for one night only. We are being evicted tomorrow, so this is your one chance to check it out Albert’s amazing maze before it all comes crashing down!

I love the totally epic animated music video for Denki Groove’s “Hikenai Guitar wo Hikundaze.” It was directed by the band’s frontman, Pierre Taki, and manga artist Masakazu Amahisa— a duo that collaborated on several other trippendicular videos for Denki Groove. Below you’ll find a video including the collaborators’ “Mr. Empty,” along with another song I don’t know the name of, featuring a Sailor Moon-esque salaryman magically transforming loafers into sushi and chihuahuas into microscopes:

I’m beaming right now! Music Go Music’s video for their exuberant, blissful track “Light of Love” has radically changed my day for the better. It’s simply a superb song matched by superb storytelling and magnified by dazzling visuals. And what a brilliant look of terror that is on that face of the lovely, talon-fingered Lana Kim! I feel like I just fell into the fluffiest of clouds.