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Bluemilk’s Paradigm Shift goes online

Bluemilk frontman and literary muse Chris Hansen introduces the night. Peering just over the edge of his tinted blue specs and speaking closely into a microphone, he welcomes unseen cyber-guests to the event Atlanta has come to know as the Paradigm Shift, a multi-media celebration of the arts that encompasses visual arts, music, film, spoken word and theater. There is no dogma, platform or model; instead, bluemilk’s mantra is creativity, which has no boundaries or definition. Paradigm Artspace has never looked quite like this — prepared to broadcast live over the Internet. Four different cameras sprint from one room to another in search of the next item on the master script, attempting like mad to make the actual audio and visual coincide with the virtual ones.

Finally centralizing the technical elements, along with the attention of a live audience comprised of about 70 people and a virtual response of more than 200 hits, Hansen introduces Stacey Cohen, the gallery’s featured artist.

Her music-inspired sketches of colorful, rhythmic scenes are held in custom-restored and gilded frames throughout the main gallery space. From Nina Simone to Chris Kowalski on guitar, Cohen’s subjects outline dance and harmony upon a wood base.

Intercepting the potential formality of Cohen’s interview, a white, polyester-suited homo prudens enters the scene. For the uninitiated, “homo prudens” refers to an evolved human being imbued with complete knowing — an awareness of the interconnectedness of all humans through creativity. The goal and inevitable outcome of Paradigm Shifts, therefore, is a global creative enlightenment. And what better venue to achieve this objective than through the Internet?

The white-garbed host is Andy Blanchard, a Pointillist artist who embodies the character of Dot Matrix. Dot Matrix is a tangible and imaginable character created specifically for this broadcast, and as a creative complement to Blanchard’s true identity. “We are broadcasting back to Prudenia through the Internet, so everyone can see,” he declares. What bluemilk fuses here is our need to connect to the world and our desire to be more than we are. Artspace offers a physical space where anyone can act out in character and be broadcast to other craving creatives around the world.

Bluemilk didn’t warn the audience, however, that there would be competition for the spotlight. Developed over time, the cyber characters begin to take on a life of their own. Tonight, Blanchard will become the foil to another prospective host: Pope Dude (i.e. a dude that makes miniature pope busts). The final mysterious apparition of the night, Pope Dude struts into the Artspace just in time to topple our friendly Blanchard’s paradigm.

Throughout the late evening, the Internet viewer witnesses a drastically different scene from the actual visitor. Shifting between the virtual to the real site, I cannot decide whether it’s more exciting to watch a taped segment of the Center for Puppetry Arts’ Wrestling Macbeth” rehearsed by puerile puppets, or a live version of technicians strangling cords and juggling cameras. Oddly and luckily, virtual and actual realities sometimes coincide. The puppet gives her cue — a blatant milking of her breasts — and all attention is shifted to the Red Room, where an eclectic group lounges on beanbags and over-stuffed couches. As soon as the right cable finds the right port, we are introduced to a local, independent short video titled “In, Out, Thru” by burgeoning Colombian filmmaker Ari Kirschner.

Suddenly, a regular bluemilk participant known as Johnny D’Farmer (though disguised as his real-life character, John R. Naugle — aka Randy the Clown), invites me into the production room, the actual heart of this complex event. David, the technical director, is confounded and images are awry. Dot Matrix has ventured into the Pope Dude’s room of pope bust-covered shelves before introducing the prescribed segment of his own colorful painting-filled Dot House. This reversal to the master script causes the nimble-handed David to scream to his young assistant techies: “When in doubt, cut to the band!” thus leading our virtual vision into the courtyard where Justin Hale, one of five local bands to play, sounds funky enough to distract me from the technical difficulties. David quickly reaches for the newly arrived plastic cup of blueberry-hinted Sweetwater.

If gallery goers initially are unnerved by the cameras, lights and costumed hosts, bluemilk homo prudens hope that most will take the opportunity to cross the line between artists and admirers. Cyber Paradigm Shifts encourage attendees to become participants and observers to become performers. Every space is created to be permeated and every character is conjured to be exaggerated. “Prudenians and Internet visitors,” proclaims Blanchard, “our broadcast is not the most refined.” But it is unquestionably the most ingenious and clairvoyant effort made by a professed multi-media venue, and one that should have all eyes pasted onto blue.

‘’The bluemilk Show welcomes actual and virtual guests to new Paradigm Shifts Aug. 5, Sept. 16 and Oct. 21 at Paradigm Artspace, 1123 Spring St. 404-815-8911. Extras are also invited to participate in recorded broadcasts every Saturday from 9 p.m.-midnight. The bluemilk Show is broadcast each Saturday from 10-11:30 p.m. at www.bluemilk.net.


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