~FAR OUT . . . JOSH HARRIS
‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ – WHERE ARE WE NOW: JOSH HARRIS
JOSH HARRIS – the HEAD HONCHO. JUPITER COMMUNICATIONS.COM, PSEUDO.COM, QUIET the MILLENNIUM PARTY TO END ALL PARTIES, and WE LIVE IN PUBLIC – the first 24/7 wired surveillance live streaming interactive web project that defined a new generation, not to forget . . the still unfolding WIRED CITY . . . ALL HIS BABIES !!
the film ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ – is his story. as director ONDI TIMONER put it: “this is the story of the greatest internet entrepreneur – you never heard of . . . ”
see: ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ – the film’s official website . . .
top floor, the old industrial building at the corner of N. 10th and Berry – in WiIliamsburg – was home to JOSH HARRIS for about a year. from pretty much about the time ALFREDO MARTINEZ was rescued from CHINA. by Josh . . . with some (diplomatic) help from writer BYRON HAWES.
see: ALFREDO/ LOST & FOUND
but the Brooklyn gig’s up – and Josh is on the move . . . whereabouts: unknown.
the day before he split, he just managed to intersect with JEFF GOMPERTZ – a close artist associate of his from the Pseudo glory days . . . Jeff had flown in from Bangkok to clear up some business, Josh has packed up and is taking off. . . these are Jeff’s shaped canvas ‘boards’ on the floor . . . m/m encaustic wax-coated – canvas paintings – stretched over sono tubes.
detail: JEFF GOMPERTZ ‘board’.
it was Josh who set up the photo shoot. as anybody who has spent any time hanging around with him, can tell you . . . if he hadn’t been a visionary internet entrepreneur – he would have made for a great magazine creative director . . .
the down side ? the legend goes that hanging out with artists – is what pulled him too far to the other side – he got so distracted . . . he didn’t keep his eye on the color of the ink in the ledger books – to make a long story, short. but the reality is: what Josh claimed all along, while he was being hailed as a web guru and new age tech geek in the mainstream media . . that he was really – an artist. and you know what, he was.
the last NYC sighting: JOSH HARRIS. . . AUGUST 12, 2011.
he said he was off to fish in Connecticut, and then on to URUGUAY, where there were developers who were gonna work on . . . THE WIRED CITY.
then came a cryptic sighting in upstate NY on AUGUST 20th – that placed him in LORDVILLE, a small rural town where Gavin, that’s Gavin Brown to you, has a cabin . . the message:
“gavin’s generator got soaked in the rain . . now all he has is solar power.”
and that was before Hurricane Irene hit !! where Josh is now – is anybody’s guess.
I guess we’re back to that to that old artlovers game – WANTED: $10 for the first new sighting of JOSH HARRIS. or:
WHERE IN THE WORLD – IS – JOSH ?
oh oh . . speak of the devil. lordy, lordy – artlovers on the screen.
RAY’S A LAUGH !!
JEFF was getting some work ready to hang in the KCDC skate shop/gallery around the corner . . .
nice. real nice.
the works had been in storage . . .
long time, no see . . and still had the original provenance tags from Jeff’s earliest forays into the New York City art world: ca. 1989 . . . ANNINA NOSEI GALLERY – 100 PRINCE ST. (!!)
since Annina was Basquiat’s first dealer – Josh seemed to get a big kick out of that.
to Jeff it was: been there done that. don’t remind me.
Jeff had pretty much soured on that scene and forgot about it by the 90’s – when he was swept up by Josh’s dot com $$ bubble – and ended up making that iconic pod hotel for QUIET . . . face it: he was just a little too smart for the art scene per se. alot of the ‘underground’ artists of the 80s and 90s found refuge, not to mention fast-paced thinking – with Josh. Alfredo and me, included.
and that’s why Josh has often been termed the web’s Andy Warhol . . . he had a real boiler room going, funded by his web ventures, big time. oh yeah. those were the dot.com days !!
Pseudo ruled. Josh aka LUVVY was the master of ceremonies. and it was a wild wild time. just flat out wild.
like I said, quelle funny how our hardcore mayhem – paved a trail – spun a web ? – to the ‘social networking’ . . of the very public interconnected dot world – we live in today.
connecting the dots. the digital dots. the very definition of art – in a nutshell.
the book cover says:
“What Chess Can Teach You About BUSINESS Even If You Never Played”.
PHOTOS: NANCY SMITH, all art work by JEFF GOMPERTZ
posted on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, NYC.