The traveling exhibition Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today is on loan to UMMA from the Institute of Contemporary Art of Boston, curated by Eva Respini and Barbara Lee (chief curators) with Jeffrey De Blois (assistant curator). The exhibition premiered in Boston on February 7, 2018, and will next travel to New Orleans Museum of Art in mid-April 2019.

The significance of technology’s impact on lived experience is noted the exhibition announcement on UMMA’s website, stating: “The internet has changed every aspect of contemporary life -- from how we interact with each other to how we work and play. Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today examines the radical impact of internet culture on visual art since the invention of the web in 1989. This exhibition presents more than forty works across a variety of media -- painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and web-based projects.” 

Some of the influential artists featured in the gallery are Cory Arcangel, Judith Barry, Juliana Huxtable, Pierre Huyghe, Josh Kline, Laura Owens, Trevor Paglen, Seth Price, Cindy Sherman, Frances Stark, and Martine Syms. Many of the artists have worked with ever-changing technology for decades, but curators cite the year 1989 as a marker for the current global interconnectedness we experience as a result of new technologies. In addition, 1989 was the year of the first satellite that allows us to have the now-ubiquitous GPS, the year the World Wide Web was invented, the year the Berlin Wall came down, and protests in Tiananmen Square. Since social movements and identity politics have become more visible and accessible than ever before.

We live in a world of things. Each chair, cup, table, door, and car in our built environment is the product of human ingenuity, from concept to execution. Works in Progress, an exhibit on view now at the Ann Arbor Art Center, celebrates the creativity of 24 international and domestic designers, at varying stages in their careers, who bring functional works to life through fashion, graphic design, furniture, architecture, and industrial design.

Many of the products and designs on display feature high tech materials and methods not usually associated with what we normally think of as “craft.” The centerpiece for this non-analog approach is You Are the Ocean, a video installation by Ozge Smanci and Gabriel Caniglia, which takes up about a third of the entry room in Gallery 117. It’s not an object at all, but documentation of a computer-assisted visualization of how the mind can alter an image via computer, unmediated by the human hand or real-world material. Using the Unity Game Engine, the designers wrote code that creates a synthesized, uninhabited, and turbulent seascape. Clouds roll and waves crest in response to the subject’s brain waves in various states of concentration or relaxation. The resulting scene is both bleak and beautiful, exhilarating and disturbing. I can imagine that this is the kind of art our cyborg descendants will find beautiful, and it gave me a profound sense of my own obsolescence. 

Riverside Arts Center's YpsiNow: Intersections asks this question in its announcement: “What is Ypsi, right now? Its paths, connections, struggles, and joy all interweaving to create the tapestry of Ypsilanti.”

For this second annual iteration of the exhibit -- juried by RckBny, Gary Horton, and Rey Jeong -- the question is answered by Ypsilanti High School students and adult residents working in a variety of media.

The high school students’ photography, collage, paint, ink, and written-word works are clustered on one wall, illustrating the diversity of approach among the teenagers, which is reflective of the overall approach to the exhibition. The adult Ypsilanti artists fill the rest of the gallery with sculptures, installations, and 2D works. 

You may come to the Ann Arbor District Library to pick up a book or movie or sewing machine or electric guitar knowing well in advance that’s why you’ve entered one of AADL’s five locations.

But if you come to visit us and you can’t quite figure out what you want to check out, you might ask someone on staff for suggestions -- and we’re always happy to oblige.

In that way, our 2018 staff picks for books, film, music, TV, podcasts, and more is one massive suggestion list.

We don’t limit our picks to material that came out in 2018; we list things that made an impact on us during the year, no matter when the media was released. Plus, we’ve added a Pulp Life category -- both on the blog and in this year-end roundup -- to note life experiences that we loved in 2018, from parks to restaurants.

So, next time you visit AADL, call up this page on your phone. (Or our lists from 2016 and 2017.)

And if you need help finding the material, or you’re looking for even more suggestions, just ask. We've already started making our lists for 2019. 

Jessica Care Moore and Ursula Rucker are rockstars.

Google that shit. 

On December 11 at the University of Michigan’s Trotter Multicultural Center in conjunction with the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies hosted Jessica Care Moore and Ursula Rucker for an hour-long discussion titled "Herstory: Hip Hop and Poetry." 

Moore, a Detroit native, is most noted for her five straight victories at the "Showtime at the Apollo” competition as well as her publishing company Black Moore Press and her numerous books of poetry.

Rucker, who hails from Philadelphia, has released six albums of her poetry and has collaborated with many well-known hip-hop acts including fellow Philadelphians the Roots. 

On Tuesday the women were resplendent. Moore sported a high-crowned red fedora and a colorful denim jacket adorned with an image of the late Ntozake Shange (Google that shit). Rucker had her hair pulled back and her face framed with black cats-eye glasses. Both women were performance-ready and engaged the audience with their own poetry and, perhaps most importantly, historical perspective.

Proof: The Ryoichi Excavations presents artist Patrick Nagatani’s series of staged, minutely detailed photographs of fictional archeological excavations. The University of Michigan University of Art's exhibition announcement summarizes the content of the exhibit, in which Nagatani uses photographs to present “artifacts” from the life of Nagatani’s alter ego, an explorer named Ryoichi:

Nagatani presents a narrative of Ryoichi’s archeological work, supported by images of excavation sites, unearthed artifacts, and Ryoichi’s own journal pages. According to the photographs, Ryoichi discovered evidence of an automobile culture buried at sites across several continents: Stonehenge, the Grand Canyon, and a necropolis in China.

The photographs represent the various facets of the Ryoichi Excavations project, with photographs of journal pages in Japanese, video stills, photographic representations of the excavations, and curatorial wall text explaining the contents of the images. Some of these are displayed in standing glass cases in addition to the gallery walls. Nagatani’s dedication to creating a playful illusion of an archaeological project questions the assumption that photography is a means to convey unaltered, factual images. 

In June 1990, newly freed political prisoner Nelson Mandela made his way to the United States and eventually to Detroit. Mandela toured the Ford Rouge Plant and UAW President Owen Bieber made him an honorary lifetime member of the union -- experiences and honors that are uniquely Detroit. Mandela’s visit culminated in him addressing a standing room only crowd at Tiger Stadium. But before Mandela spoke, two local rappers, Kaos and Mystro, took the stage and performed in front of the 49,000 people in attendance.

For many in Detroit’s hip-hop community, including Khary Frazier, this was a seminal moment in the development of the D’s niche hip-hop scene.

It was stories like this that dotted the December 4 conversation between Khary Frazier, Jamall Bufford, and Sterling Toles on the U of M campus. The three gathered this past Tuesday in the Dana Building to discuss the "History and Future of Detroit Hip Hop" -- a scene that all the panel participants have had a hand in shaping.

In England, the panto (short for pantomime) is a Yuletide tradition. A familiar fairy tale is retold as an excuse for a light-hearted vaudeville of jokes, well-worn comic routines, and song and dance. 

Theatre Nova has adopted the idea as an annual holiday treat. This year a new take on The Elves and the Shoemaker gets reimagined into a Jewish-centered The Elves and the Schumachers, just in time for Hanukkah.

The plot of Carla Milarch and R. MacKenzie Lewis’ retelling keeps to the basics: elves help a desperate shopkeeper and save the day. But, oy vey, do they wander far and wide into the surreal and the totally silly. 

On November 28, veteran jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis brought the warm winter spirit to Ann Arbor's Hill Auditorium, courtesy of UMS. Marsalis came along with the delightful Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and they played tunes of the season. It was the opening night for their Big Band Holidays Tour and the house was full. 

The music at Hill took on several moods, from contemplative to stirring, with Marsalis introducing each song with commentary, then mostly guiding the band from the back row while also playing with them there. The opener, "Jingle Bells," set the tone for the night and Marsalis played a remarkable solo, his fingers moving quickly as he showcased the instrument's upper range. 

Aimee Bender holds a special place in my heart.

Several years ago, I found myself thinking about Bender's work, a story of hers that I remembered. I took to the internet, looking for the name of the story; instead, I found someone’s dating profile, someone who also adored Bender’s writing.

I was sucked in, reading every detail.

In a romantic comedy, this would be the moment I decided to find this girl and make her love me. But I don’t live in a romantic comedy, so I thought, “I should be dating where this girl is dating.”

I followed that girl.

With this in mind, when I learned Aimee Bender would be speaking at UMMA as a part of the Zell Visiting Writers Series alongside poet Philip Metres on November 15, I knew that I, again, would follow that girl.