Errant Bodies

Site of Sound #2

2011-06-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

Since the publication of the first volume of Site of Sound in 1999 the issues and activities pertaining to sound and architecture have expanded to circulate more dynamically within the fields of sound art, sound design, and spatial practices. From acoustical technologies and urban planning to public art, concerns for auditory structures and the experiences of listening are finding deeper footing within both artistic and environmental contexts. Recent noise mappings across Europe, along with new possibilities for acoustical implementation, as well as the ongoing emergence of sound art and design educational programs, point toward sound as a crucial subject for thinking through contemporary culture and politics.

Site of Sound Vol. 2 aims to address contemporary work being done in the cross-over between sound and architecture. The anthology brings together new research and writing that charts out the theoretical implications and consequences for artistic and spatial discourses, while documenting contemporary projects that come to occupy and define a sonic-spatial territory.

With contributions by Justin Bennett, Usman Haque, David Schafer, James Webb, Edwin van der Heide, Raviv Ganchrow, Jodi Rose, Nigel Helyer, Michael Gendreau, Jean-Paul Thibaud, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec, Oliver Laric, David Stalling & Anthony Kelly, Romano, Natasha Barrett & Birger Sevaldson, Scott Arford & Randy Yau, Riccardo Benassi, Carrie Bodle, Jenny Picket & Julien Ottavi, Joaquín Gutiérrez Hadid, Pascal Broccolichi, Jacob Kreutzfeldt, & Björn Quiring

For an art against the cartography of everyday life by Ryan Griffis

2011-06-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

The title of this essay is a remix of the title of an essay by artist Martha Rosler originally published in 1979, “For an Art Against the Mythology of Everyday Life”. Rosler’s text is an engagement with what was then the emerging context now often referred to as “post-industrial globalization.” More specifically, it is an engagement from the perspective of someone attempting to make things – art works – that can “address these banally profound issues of everyday life, thereby revealing the public and political in the personal”. She was particularly interested in both the oppressive and potentially liberating aspects of “mass media.” Here, I want to take up where Rosler left off, discussing the potential of art, and technology, to “step toward reasonably and humanely changing the world” using the example of what is commonly referred to as “locative media.”

For the full essay, follow the link.

Designing Geo-politics conference to stream live

2011-06-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

This weekend the Designing Geo-politics conference at UCSD will be available as an HD stream. Also, this weekend is the Art and Politics conference at The Hammer Museum.

Digital Rubbish - new book, Jennifer Gabrys

2011-03-27T02:46:00.000-07:00

This is a study of the material life of information and its devices; of electronic waste in its physical and electronic incarnations; a cultural and material mapping of the spaces where electronics in the form of both hardware and information accumulate, break down, or are stowed away. Electronic waste occurs not just in the form of discarded computers but also as a scatter of information devices, software, and systems that are rendered obsolete and fail. Where other studies have addressed "digital" technology through a focus on its immateriality or virtual qualities, Gabrys traces the material, spatial, cultural, and political infrastructures that enable the emergence and dissolution of these technologies. In the course of her book, she explores five interrelated "spaces" where electronics fall apart: from Silicon Valley to Nasdaq, from containers bound for China to museums and archives that preserve obsolete electronics as cultural artifacts, to the landfill as material repository. All together, these sites stack up into a sedimentary record that forms the "natural history" of this study.

Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics describes the materiality of electronics from a unique perspective, examining the multiple forms of waste that electronics create as evidence of the resources, labor, and imaginaries that are bundled into these machines. By drawing on the material analysis developed by Walter Benjamin, this natural history method allows for an inquiry into electronics that focuses neither on technological progression nor on great inventors but rather considers the ways in which electronic technologies fail and decay. Ranging across studies of media and technology, as well as environments, geography, and design, Jennifer Gabrys pulls together the far-reaching material and cultural processes that enable the making and breaking of these technologies.

Jennifer Gabrys is Senior Lecturer in Design and Convener of the Masters in Design and Environment in the Department of Design, Goldsmiths, University of London.

e+l at the office

2010-09-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Perpetual Present

2010-08-04T14:27:00.001-07:00

A series of new photographs related to the question of "habitation" is featured at the L.A. Forum website.

DRUGSTORE BEETLE (Sitodrepa Paniceum) at RAID projects

2010-04-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

DRUGSTORE KIOSK
Organized by David Horvitz
April 3-8, 2010

Opening Reception April 3, 7-10 pm

DRUGSTORE BEETLE (Sitodrepa Paniceum) aims to infiltrate into a closed circulatory system: the library. Using the process of the library donation, 30 exhibitions-in-a-box were donated by artist David Horvitz to various art libraries around the world. From Los Angeles to New York to Tehran to Shanghai to Denver. Before these exhibitions were gifted, Horvitz purchased an ISBN and coordinated the meta-data for the exhibition to be uploaded into Worldcat, the database librarians use to input and receive a publication’s information. Since the information will exist in two digital databases, the hope is that this exhibition can slip with ease, like a sly fox, into collections around the world (the title refers to the most notorious of book-worms, burrowing into books and shelves).

RAID Projects
602 Moulton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90031
raidprojects@yahoo.com

Academic freedom in question at UCSD

2010-04-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

In the past few weeks, a number of developments have occurred in relation to the art/research practices of b.a.n.g. lab at UCSD and Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT). Follow the link to learn more about the harassment of Ricardo Dominguez and the troubling situation that artists and researchers are facing in the UC system.

Strings in Tokyo

2010-03-24T16:24:00.000-07:00

Each participant chooses a length of string.
Holding one end, the participant gives the other end to another participant next to them.
The participants form a chain, a circle, a collective.
Walking through the streets of the city, they stay attached, negotiating the built environment, strangers, trying to work together.
To be a social sculpture.

Working with students at the Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo.

Textiles in Newcastle

2010-03-13T12:57:00.000-08:00

Walking through Newcastle, on a sunny spring day, my attention was grabbed by this textile addition: a hand-sewn cloth sleeve slipped over a signpost. The knitted intervention softly interrupted the hard-edged geometry of the urban, inviting my touch onto the surrounding surfaces: I couldn't help but fondle the cloth, following its weave and wondering as to its origin, its catalyst, its design. Such sensual tactilities bring to the fore a consideration of all the surfaces and materials lining the streets, the buildings, the steps and benches through which we come to know the city. A moment of domestic softness seemed to fall from the sky and wrap itself around the signpost, to texture my own meandering thoughts with warmth.

Resonator, AV Festival, Newcastle

2010-03-03T02:08:00.001-08:00

Resonator is a procedural performance-workshop and idea exchange which investigates diverse artistic, materialist and spiritualist practices that converge around the importance of vibration as a means of making sense of the universe. Vibration is a phenomenon that affects all matter yet is also understood as passing beyond matter, affecting the soul. Resonator aims to investigate the points of contact, convergence and dissonance surrounding the scope of vibrations in different thought and belief structures through working with sound and related practices.
Participants:

Nurit Bar-Shai
James D'Angelo
Yolande Harris
Martin Howse
Brandon LaBelle
Kanta Horio
John Stuart Reid
Ann Rosén
Ryu Hankil
Will Schrimshaw
Jamie Allen

http://largervibrationalcontinuum.org/

Continental Drift comes to L.A.

2010-02-21T21:25:00.000-08:00

Control Society/Metamorphosis with Brian Holmes
at the Public School in Los Angeles February 27 and 28th
http://occupyeverything.com/events/continental-drift/
Come down and participate in a two-day theory convergence, a “Continental Drift” seminar with the Paris and Chicago based theorist, Brian Holmes.
Though this Drift is situated on the West Coast in a time of University of California occupations and walkouts, it is connected to the budget cuts and "crisis" brought on by changing economies around the world and the emergence of a neoliberal control society over the past few decades. This drift aims to trace these situation and find ways for liberatory culture to supercede the moment.
++++
1. The Continental Drift; Control Society/Metamorphosis
2. On Brian Holmes and the Drift
3. UC Strikes and Beyond
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1. The Continental Drift; Control Society/Metamorphosis
Saturday, February 27 –Sunday, Feb. 28
@The Public School 951 Chung King Rd., Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Join us for a mostly horizontal seminar conversation with Brian Holmes, UC strike Organizers and Academics and independent intellectuals.
day 1. 2/27- control society
12 pm: disassociation (psychological effects/desire)
facilitators: Liz Glynn and Marc Herbst
2 pm: financialization & the UC crisis
facilitators: Aaron Benanav and Zen Dochterman
4 pm occupation/ collective speech
facilitators: Cara Baldwin, Nathan Brown, Maya Gonzalez, Evan Calder Williams
7 pm: discussion day one
facilitators: Brian Holmes, Solomon Bothwell
day 2. 2/28- metamorphosis
12pm: Autonomous Space
facilitators: Hector Gallegos, Robby Herbst
2 pm:. Precarity
facilitators: Christina Ulke, Sean Dockray
4 pm: Brian Holmes Lecture
7pm: Sharable Territories/ Bifurcation
facilitators: Jason Smith, Ava Bromberg
occupyeverything.com/events/continental-drift
Note: This is a collaboratively organized event. Organizers include Zen Doctherman, Cara Baldwin, Jason Smith, Sean Dockray, Liz Glynn, Solomon Bothwell, Christina Ulke, Marc Herbst, Robby Herbst.
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2. On Brian Holmes and the Drift
Brian Holmes is an art critic, cultural theorist and activist, particularly involved with the mapping of contemporary capitalism.
An article Brian wrote that he asked to read in preparation for the drift:
http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/guattaris-schizoanalytic-cartographies/#sdfootnote10sym
Holmes on the UC Strikes:
http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/the-u-c-strike/
Journal interview we did with him from issue 4:
http://www.journalofaestheticsandprotest.org/4/holmes.html
Some publications by or with Brian Holmes:
http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?S=R&wauth=Brian+Holmes&siteID=1JSk6CbYEf0-bBxS9UMaaFGtIjUV42joJA
The Drift has taken a variety of forms in its manifestations at 16 Beaver (2004-2006) in New York, through the Midwest’s Radical Culture Corridor (2008) and in Zagreb Croatia (2008)
Here is An interview with Brian Holmes from the first continental drift in NYC in 2004.
http://www.16beavergroup.org/journalisms/archives/001168.php
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3. UC Strikes and Beyond
The Drift was independently organized though occurs in coordination with the
Beyond the UC Strikes working group.
The working group occured when folks who were participating in the strikes and talking about them
decided to meet up the the Los Angeles Public School to see what could be done.
We are promoting these linked events.
http://joaap.org/other/drift/BeyondtheUCStrikes.html
http://occupyeverything.com/
These are not specifically Journal events. The working group includes Organizers include Cara Baldwin, Solomon Bothwell, Micha Cardenas/Adzel Slade, Zen Dochterman, Sean Dockray, Ben Ehrenreich, Ken Ehrlich, Liz Glynn, Marc Herbst, Robby Herbst, Elle Mehrmand, Marko Peljhan, Kenneth Rogers, Jason Smith, Cybelle Tondu, Christina Ulke, Caleb Waldorf, Michael Wilson and Kim Yasuda.

What remains of a building... ST_LA

2010-02-14T08:37:00.001-08:00

What Remains of a Building...
Surface Tension_Los Angeles

Carmen Argote
Cindy Santos Bravo
Ken Ehrlich
Brandon LaBelle

Exhibition Duration: February 12 – March 28, 2009

Opening Reception: Friday, February 12th, 6:00 – 9:00 pm

g727 is pleased to announce What Remains of a Building... an exhibition organized by Ken Ehrlich and Brandon LaBelle. The exhibition is an extension of the Surface Tension series which generates collaborative projects and publications addressing site-based art practices and questions around the built environment. This exhibition will be the third in the Surface Tension series following previous installments in Curitiba, Brazil (2006) and Copenhagen, Denmark (2007).

For the exhibition, each artist focuses on a specific built space, including the recent new headquarters of the LAPD, a domestic space in downtown, Hollywood motels, and the legendary jazz club, the Cadillac Café. Each site provides a generative platform for examining particular histories, cultures, and politics intertwined within the city of LA. Spatial interventions and inquiry, memory tracing and re-enactments, performative gestures and stagings feature as strategies to query what a building is and what it may become.

Public Culture in the Visual Sphere

2010-01-25T00:21:00.000-08:00

The UC San Diego Visual Arts Department is hosting a series of lectures and panels investigating contemporary theories, practices and debates in the making and reception of public culture as they move through the visual sphere.

http://visarts.ucsd.edu/html/splash.html

Curated by John C. Welchman
In collaboration with the Visiting Artist Lecture Series committee 2009-10 (Anya Gallaccio, Teddy Cruz, Kyong Park, Suzanne Wright); the Public Culture graduate committee (Edward Sterrett, Orianna Cacchione, Cara Baldwin, Katrin Pesch, Sara Mameni, Tara Zepel), and Jordan Crandall.

Supported by the Visual Arts Department, UCSD; Dean of Arts and Humanities, UCSD; SoCCAS [Southern California Consortium of Art Schools]

Collaborations with the Master of Public Art Studies Program, USC Roski School of Fine Arts; English and Comparative Literature, UCLA; the graduate MFA program at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena; Calit2 [California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology]; and the Athenaeum, La Jolla.

Schedule of Events: All events take place at the UC San Diego Visual Arts Facility, Performance Space Thursdays @ 6:30 pm unless otherwise noted

Jan. 7 Take off: What is Public Culture? [panel]

Anya Gallaccio "What is Public Culture?"

Kyong Park "Anyang Public Art Project 2010: constructing a research-based, multi-disciplinary, community participation and process-oriented urban project in Korea"

Cauleen Smith "When Documentary Seems Like a Lie"

Teddy Cruz "Practices of Encroachment"

Jordan Crandall "New Media and Public Culture"

Moderated by John C. Welchman

Jan 14 Pros and Cons: Graduate Research in Public Culture [panel]
pros* Issue Zero Launch

Nicole Holland "Private as Public in the USSR"

David Mather "Mass Forms, Mass Agency in the Early 20th Century"

Sheryl Oring "I Wish to Say: Free Speech and Democracy"

David White "'Network' as a Tool for Neighborhood Engagement"

Rayanne Tabet "After the Flood: Reversing the Trans-Arabian Pipeline"

Cara Baldwin "We are the ones we've been waiting for"

Moderated by Edward Sterrett

Jan. 21 Public Culture and Democracy [panel]

Cynthia Truant [UCSD, History]
"Citizenship: constructions and contestation in France, 1700-1900"

Grant Kester [UCSD, Visual Arts]
"Democracy, Virtuality and Public Culture"

Marcel Henaff [UCSD, Literature and Political Science]
"Grace, the work of art, and public space"

Jan. 28 Claire Bishop [City University, New York]
"How do you bring a work of art to life?: Contemporary Art and/as Pedagogy"

Feb. 4 Steven Graham [University of Durham, UK; co-sponsored with Art Center, Pasadena]
"Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism"

Feb. 18 Boris Groys [New York University; co-sponsored with USC]
"Visiting Time: Contemporary Time-based Art"

WEDS Feb. 24 Vito Acconci
"From Words to Actions to Architecture"

Feb. 25 Brian Holmes
"Intellectuals and Social Movements: Doctrine - Debate - Defense - Invention"

March 4 Where is the Public Option? [panel]
[co-sponsored with and hosted by the Athenaeum, 1008 Wall Street La Jolla, CA 92037]

Rebecca Solnit
[writer and essayist, San Francisco]

Rick Lowe
[Project Row House, Houston]

Matt Coolidge
[Founder and Director, Center for Land Use Interpretation]

Suzanne Lacy
[Otis College of Art, Los Angeles]

Moderated by Teddy Cruz

March 11 Town Hall/Manifestos/Open Mic.
Moderated by Kyong Park and John C. Welchman

Modifying LA

2010-01-05T08:51:00.000-08:00

Staying in Echo Park in Los Angeles recently, each day passing by this church fitted with some surprising elements, the forms start to supplement the conditions of the building. Nestled into the existing form and shape of the building, the elements function as additional seating, table structures, planting pots, and potential stairs, modifying the existing arrangement.

The insertion of these additional elements unfold a poignant suggestion for acts of modification that append additional forms, stage new configurations, and allow other movements into and around buildings. Urban furniture then may function as means for such elaborations, figuring possible itineraries for what it means to take a seat.

o corpo na cidade, Brasil

2009-11-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

Exhibition on the theme of urban interventionist practices, taking place in multiple venues around the city of Curitiba, and curated by Paulo Reis.
http://www.ocorponacidade.com.br/

Urban Landscapes, Lisbon

2009-10-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

Walking through Lisbon, I came upon these temporary bench-plant structures strewn along the waterfront. Their colorful and modular appearance stood out as a rather dynamic solution to urban furniture. Allowing flexibility, the structures give way to possibilities for immediate transformation, reconfiguration, and interaction - one might imagine these blobs being moved around now and again, creating a sort of mobile urban landscape (if only they were on wheels...).

7th Bienal do Mercosul, Brasil

2009-10-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.bienalmercosul.art.br/
Public Text:

The exhibition has gathered together artists that require an active dialogue with the city, reconfigured in a manner of a public text:
The curating approach here is a plan.
A plan of occupation and of forces and pulses existing in the urban space.
In this curating approach, the artists work the symbolic and material elements of the public space.
We are interested in artists working the city as material for their projects.
We are interested in artists producing poetic forms out of urban phenomena.
We are interested in visible and invisible works, which can occupy subtle physical ties like the air and the sound space, urban space and the media.
We are interested in giving back to the city, its spaces as they were, without adding materials, so that the waste will consist of memories and meanings.
The exhibition will mainly take place in the public spaces of Porto Alegre, basing itself on several lines of investigation:
i. Illumination: Works that render visible strategic points of the city.
ii. Wavelengths: Open radio transmissions to all the artists that are taking part in the Biennial (see below).
iii. Transitory and Ambulant: Works about the flux and dynamic of the time and of the urban space.
iv. Points on the Map: A net of projects at the Biennial and at the city, have together given expression to a new and amplified text. In addition, the exhibition will be held in one of the warehouses of the Quayside. Here, the Biennial looks at the creation of a radio installation - Radiovisual - the radio commissioned especially for the Biennial.

2009-10-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

I participated in A Day in LA: Washington Boulevard Art Concert on Sunday, October 11. This was a project organized by Stephen Van Dyck that involved 60 artists reinterpreting public unused outdoor space along all 27 miles of Wash Blvd.
The installation I constructed is titled Referential system designed to mimic the structures of symbolic capital and was located Northwest corner of Perrino Place and Washington Blvd.
More information about the project can be found here.

The Space Hijackers prosecuted

2009-10-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

The decision has been made to prosecute peaceful activist artists the Space Hijackers for impersonating police on 1st April 2009 at the G20 Summit demonstrations.

It is alleged that the group entered the City of London wearing police uniforms in an armoured personnel carrier with the intent to deceive the public into believing that they were members of the Police force. The Space Hijackers vehemently deny any intent to deceive or that they had any sinister motives.

The Space Hijackers describe themselves as ‘Anarchitects’ and that their aim is to challenge and provoke discussion through peaceful public performance. A spokesperson for Space Hijackers, said "We are shocked and appalled by the behaviour of the Police on the day both towards us and others. We don’t feel that we were arrested because the officers honestly believed that we were impersonating the Police but because we were becoming a thorn in their side.”

Raj Chada of Hodge Jones Allen said "The Space Hijackers were protesting entirely peacefully. In light of the numerous allegations of violence and misconduct against the police that have marred the event, perhaps the biggest joke is the decision to prosecute those peaceful protestors playing loud music and wearing fancy dress."

The Space Hijackers have every confidence in their case and welcome the opportunity to encourage further scrutiny of the policing of the event itself. The Space Hijackers will vigourously contest the charges laid against them and their legal team invites all assistance from any witnesses who saw the defendants on 1 April 2009.
For more information, please visit their website.

Manual, Oslo

2009-09-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

Manual for the construction of a sound as a device to elaborate social connection

September 14 – 20, 2009
process, project, interaction
held at
Deichman library, Grunerløkka, Oslo
&
The Storefront, Thorvald Meyersgt 61, Oslo

with
å+k (Åsa Ståhl & Kristina Lindström) (Sweden)
Siri Austeen (Norway)
Brandon LaBelle (USA)
Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec (Slovenia/Holland)
Jana Winderen (Norway)

The Manual project explores sound and auditory experience as platforms for social cooperation and environmental investigation. Bringing together a working group of artists, the project uses sound as a tool for considering public space, and functions as a site-specific field study of Oslo, involving locational research, artistic presentation, performative actions and public discussion.

The Manual project highlights sound and listening as important locational and social material, to question how sounds of everyday life generate forms of commonality and how the dynamics of listening inform unique types of artistic intervention. Exploring such themes, the Manual project is based on process-oriented actions and events using specific locations in Oslo. During the course of one-week the artists will bring forward amplifications of city life, giving expression to sound and listening as social energy.

Including the Swedish collaborative duo Kristina Lindström and Åsa Ståhl (aka å+k), whose projects are based on forms of story-telling and sharing, the American artist Brandon LaBelle, working with urban networks and distributed sonic narratives, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec from Holland/Slovenia, investigating questions of architectural space and forms of transmission, and Norwegian artists Jana Winderen, uncovering hidden sources of sound through blind field recording, and Siri Austeen, exploring concrete sounds and the act of listening.

Organized by Brandon LaBelle and Jana Winderen
Producer: Hjørdis Kurås, Norway

Manual for the construction of a sound as a device to elaborate social connection
is a cooperation with Ultima 09, Oslo Contemporary Music Festival (www.ultima.no),
Atelier Nord and Deichman libary, Grünerlølkka

The project is supported by Norsk Kulturråd
www.kulturrad.no

Book Launch at Machine Project

2009-07-29T01:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 30 at Machine Project – What remains of a building divided into equal parts and distributed for reconfiguration is the second volume in the Surface Tension Supplement series dedicated to publishing documentation and critical writing on site-based practices in art, architecture and performance. This volume investigates the social and political dimensions of buildings and urban spaces, including critical reflections on recent urban planning policies in China, histories of participatory architecture, and proposals for urban farming. What remains of a building divided into equal parts and distributed for reconfiguration offers multiple perspectives on the limits and creative possibilities of the built environment.
With contributions by Rachel Allen, Ava Bromberg, Ken Ehrlich, Jesko Fezer and Mathias Heyden, Nis Rømer, Carl Michael von Hausswolff and The Land Foundation.

Lowrider as cultural machine

2009-07-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Attending the 17th Annual Pharaoh's Car Show in Wilmington yesterday, Ken and I marveled at the aesthetics and community of car customization. From Classic Chevrolet to stripped down Ford to souped-up trucks, the car functions as a dynamic space for cultural expression and agitation carrying across the LA streets the legacy of lowrider history, Chicano identity, and the politics of having wheels. The car literally becomes a signifying machine for the production of various meaningful codes, which galvanize specific communities around the pin-stripe, the hydraulic lift, the car stereo, each a syntax within an expansive language seeking to take it low (to duck the law). Heading back to our own car, a rather dull Ford, and turning the ignition I couldn't help but feel the textured mythology running through the car, as a site for the making of particular freedoms (imagined, fantastical, real). The car already promises the open road - modifying its body, customizing its shape, appropriating the built-in class politics running from the Chevy to the Lincoln, seems to supplement through a magnifying zeal all the potentiality found in being behind the wheel, as well as taking to the road.

Austrian Pavilion

2009-07-18T16:39:00.000-07:00

Dorit Margreiter's contribution to the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was a poetic exploration of the pavilion itself in the form of a 35mm film. Lasting only eight minutes, the black and white film consists mostly of slow panning shots, exploring the architecture of the (mostly) empty building. Occasionally, the viewer glimpses a fleeting moment of what looks like women rehearsing for a mannered performance. It's a quiet piece with a forceful presence. Follow the link for more information.

Krakersmonument by Jeremiah Day

2009-07-06T05:20:00.000-07:00

A subtle monument to the squatter movement in Holland, this "talk box" in the harbor outside of Amsterdam narrates the story of a local politician who resigns over tensions regarding his past involvement with the squatter movement.

The project is on view through September 6. For more info, click here.

HALFWAY TOWARDS A BEGINNING / HALFWAY TOWARDS AN END

2009-06-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

Imagined Spaces / Imagined Lives

Imagined Spaces/ Imagined Lives is a series of collaborations between architects and puppet theater artists. Ephemeral citizens inhabit impossible and impractical inventions. Building codes and zoning laws are dispensed with. Spacial hallucinations are investigated and architectural archeology is unearthed. These collaborations take the form of topographical maps, walking tours, puppet shows, installations and animated architectural models.

June 5-7 at 8pm

EXHIBIT A by Tom Pejic, Monica Oller, Katie Shook and Susan Simpson
NAME/HERE: a guided walking tour by DanRae Wilson and Julia Hiser
AN EXCITED PLASMA EVENT, ONE DAY ON TALAPIA ISLAND; THE END by Yelena Zhelezov, Oliver Hess

___________________

June 26-28 at 8pm

GRIFFITH PARK INFERNO by Barbara Bestor and Janie Geiser
THE BRIDGE THAT DENIED ITS BOTTOM by Ana Henton and Caitlin Lainoff
HALFWAY TOWARDS A BEGINNING / HALFWAY TOWARDS AN END by Ken Ehrlich and Darius Manino
*All three performances will be presented each evening. All shows at The Manual Archives*

More information

INTERSECTION 2009

2009-06-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

In collaboration with Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, Outpost for Contemporary Art is excited to present Intersection 2009; a multi-sited public installation project that brings artistic interventions into the heart of Eagle Rock's business community at the intersection of Eagle Rock and Colorado Boulevard in Northeast Los Angeles.

Participating artists include: Edith Abeyta, Carolyn Castaño, Terry Chatkupt, Ken Ehrlich, Christopher Genik & Christopher Michlig, Taft Green, Michael Gullberg & Jennifer Rowland, David Jones & Kelly Marie Martin, Jared Nielsen, and Edward Pine Stevens.

INTERSECTION 2009

OPENING RECEPTION: June 6, 2009, 1-5 pm at Colorado Wine Company, 2114 Colorado Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90041.

SELF-GUIDED WALKING TOUR: June 6, 2009, 1-5 pm. Project maps will be available on the corners of the intersection.

For more information, please contact Julie Deamer, Director, Outpost for Contemporary Art, at julie@outpost-art.org

Outpost for Contemporary Art
www.outpost-art.org
6375 North Figueroa Street Get map.
Los Angeles, CA 90042
Office: 323 982 9461 Cellular: 323 899 3533

Sharks in NYC

2009-05-27T10:04:00.000-07:00

2009-04-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

The chair waits for me.
A block of stone that calls forward a memory: summer afternoons at my grandmother's, eating hot dogs and playing frisbee.
Humdrum, softness.
Days of long happiness, flowers and swing sets.
My uncle comes over. He brings soft drinks, penny candies. A comic book for my brother.
There are fireworks in the evening.
Summer pools, and sunshine every day.
And evenings, inside, with my grandparents, and my great-grandmother.
She is slow, quiet, mysterious. Italian.
With long white hair pulled in a bun, she sits a lot.
She sits in her favorite armchair, in the evenings, when we gather around the television.
Watching Lawrence Welk.
She sits, that chair.
And one evening, I realize, she is sitting on a toy car I left there from the afternoon.
It is my favorite car, a red one.
She doesn't move. I wait.
The TV, the snoring of my grandmother, happiness.
I wait, and then, later, she gets up, for a moment, and I sneak over, to find my car on the chair, pushed into the cushion, a little crushed, a little out of shape.
I think of this, in this afternoon in Bergen, with the spring sun, the long walk, and the happiness of a new summer, coming.
Coming upon this chair, a block of stone resembling my great-grandmother's chair, in Pittsburgh, way back when.
A chair by the artist Magnhild Øen Nordahl placed in a park in Bergen, to collect the sun, the shadows, the seasons and the occasional glance from a passer-by, who might come to discover a memory not recalled for so long, and which gathers now in the corner of the city, in my wandering thoughts.

O Corpo da Voz / The Body of the Voice

2009-04-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the new publication, The Body of the Voice, an event was held at the Livraria Odeon in Rio de Janeiro, including performances by Alex Hamburger, Rubens Pileggi and Brandon LaBelle, along with a presentation by Annette Stahmer, the editor of the publication, along with Octavio Camargo. The publication brings together essays, documents, and artist projects investigating the materiality of language, histories of voice media, and the ways in which voice comes to circulate in and between bodies. With Alex Hamburger playing back his answering machine messages while making spoken poetical voice-overs related to the subject of sound art, and Rubens Pileggi presenting a discourse on the history of Brazil's military dictatorship while holding his head underwater, and LaBelle circulating through the crowd silently passing questions to visitors (what do you fear most?) and asking them to write their responses directly onto his shirt, the event came to make a series of manifestations of the body of the voice.

Postopolis

2009-03-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

I'm participating in a five day long series this week:

On the occasion of Los Angeles Art Weekend, Storefront for Art and Architecture and ForYourArt are pleased to announce Postopolis! LA, a live five-day event of near-continuous conversation about architecture, art, urbanism, landscape, and design to be held in Los Angeles from 31 March to 4 April 2009. Six bloggers, from five different cities around the world, will host a series of discussions, interviews, slideshows, panels, talks, and presentations, fusing the informal energy and interdisciplinary approach of the architectural blogosphere with the immediacy of face-to-face interaction.

Over the course of five days, the six host bloggers will invite 40+ participants from a multitude of fields including architecture, urban planning, geology, defense, publishing, game design, artistic practice, oceanography, music, politics and many others to give brief presentations, each followed by a public discussion.

For more information, follow this link.

Publication announcement

2009-03-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

We're pleased to announce the third volume in our Surface Tension Supplement series, documenting projects originally based on the Surface Tension exhibition from 2006 held in Curitiba, Brazil. The exhibition led to a further series of urban activities and research, resulting in a number of collaborations and investigations taking place in Brazil and documented in the publication.
A book launch will be held in Curitiba on April 16th at the Ybakatu Gallery.

"Manual for the construction of a cart as a device to elaborate social connection"
Edited by Octávio Camargo and Brandon LaBelle
Errant Bodies Press: Surface Tension Supplement No. 3
ISBN: 978-0-9772594-7-2
19, euro (72 page, color & b/w; English/Portuguese)

Extending artistic research and work taking place since 2006 in Curitiba, Brazil, the publication brings together documentation and related texts that aim to elaborate on the question of finding common space. At its core is an engagement with communities from the local favelas that subsist by traversing the city in search of recyclable materials. Occupying this economic margin, a number of informal expressions arise, from the making of hand-built carts to the circulation of urban myths. Originally as an exhibition developed between international and local artists held at Ybakatu Gallery in Curitiba, the publication raises pertinent questions, such as, what are the consequences of an artistic practice aimed at developing commonality, and how might difference and disparity find productive manifestation in built form?
With contributions by Ricardo Basbaum, Alex Cabral, Octávio Camargo, Ken Ehrlich, Jennifer Gabrys, Brandon LaBelle, Margit Leisner, Josina Melo, Rubens Pileggi, and Ines Schaber.

Charlemagne Palestine in Los Angeles

2009-03-17T17:13:00.000-07:00

Performing Schlingen-Blängen on what was described as the world's largest church organ. March 16, 2009.

Jeff Perkins slide performance

2009-03-05T12:16:00.001-08:00

On Sunday night a small L.A. audience encountered a performance of light by pioneering artist Jeff Perkins. Associated loosely with Fluxus and known for producing hallucinatory light shows for rock concerts since the 1960's, New York based Perkins was in town screening his documentary film about the painter Sam Francis in conjunction with the CAA conference. Artist Jon Pestoni organized a low key event at the studio of Evan Holloway where Perkins performed a two hour improvised collaboration with musicians Greg Lenczycki and Ted Byrnes. Beginning with a minimal black and white grid like pattern, Perkins produced a mesmerizing, flickering light show with the relatively simple use of four slide projectors and two spinning disks. The musicians performed relatively well but at times it felt like they were attempting to compete with the masterful hand of someone who's been playing with shadows to astonishing effect for all these years.

2009-03-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

Bruce Sterling, novelist and tech writer, has an interesting take on what referred to web 2.0 over at wired. Beware of the techno-philia but there are certainly some interesting ideas in the piece.

2009-02-24T23:33:00.001-08:00

Gallery 727 announces Soundscapes

2009-02-23T12:21:00.000-08:00

Soundscapes
curated by Tiffany Barber
March 7 – April 25, 2009

Soundscapes is the first in g727’s efforts to support the incubation and development of site-specific projects through its pilot community resource initiative called the Map and Model Shop located in the upstairs loft of g727. Soundscapes features new and existing work by Camilo Ontiveros, Felipe Zuñiga, Giacomo Castagnola, and Nina Waisman as CUBO; Ari Kletzky with Sarah Roberts and Gerhard Schultz; Elana Mann; Carla Herrera-Prats; and Christina Ulke with Sara Harris.

Soundscapes invites eleven Los Angeles and Tijuana-based artists to demonstrate the various ways of listening to place and the overlaps of history and personal memory. If sight is our primary sense, then through what other registers do we come to know things? The artists in Soundscapes respond to this question by investigating how information about our surroundings is received and understood. Through field recordings, experimental music, archived oral histories and site-generated public projects, the work featured in Soundscapes considers how urban situations are experienced and remembered through sound.

Camilo Ontiveros, Felipe Zuñiga, Giacomo Castagñola, and Nina Waisman (CUBO) present an interactive architectural and sound installation that responds to the rise in violence in Tijuana and the sensational media representation around it. Ari Kletzky extends his Islands of LA National Park project and collaborates with artist Sarah Roberts and composer Gerhard Schultz to produce a series of sound-based public projects. Carla Herrera-Prats presents Como Un Cerillo, a mural and sound installation that juxtaposes a text written by historian Alfonso Hernández with four songs that refer to the life of Tepito, a neighborhood in Mexico City that has served as a site of contention. Elana Mann’s Shifting highlights the shifting spaces between and across places, temporalities, and cultures with testimonies from twelve commuters living in both Los Angeles and Iraq. Christina Ulke with Sara Harris presents a multi-layered sonic cartography of the effects of displacement and eviction.

Soundscapes is a place-specific project centered on urban issues, and includes a series of sonorous interventions that serve as a sonic mapping of urban nodes. Conceptually, the nodes and interventions represented in Soundscapes link to regional and global concerns and mirror the overall phenomenon of urbanization. Soundscapes examines sound work as an aesthetic response to urbanization and its potential as a transgressive medium within place and geography.

About the Curator
Tiffany Barber is a Los Angeles-based curator, critic and consultant. Most recently, she has worked as a project consultant for Outpost for Contemporary Art, Santa Monica Museum of Art, and the Watts House Project. Tiffany received her Master’s degree in Public Art Studies from USC in 2008. She has been published in Beautiful/Decay, THE Magazine Los Angeles, Public Art Review and has contributed to online publications for ForYourArt and Evil Monito Magazine.

g727
727 South Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90014
213 627 9563

UCIRA/UCR Palm Desert Luminous Green Open Space retreat

2009-02-20T21:40:00.000-08:00

I recently participated in a joint residency between The University of California Institute for Research in the Arts and the U.C. Riverside Palm Desert Graduate Center at the The Philip L. Boyd Deep Canyon Research Center. This reserve is one of 36 within the U.C. system mostly used for science research. The retreat brought faculty and graduate students from various campuses within the U.C. system to consider future desert ecologies, native desert knowledge systems, sustainable design strategies for a world without water, desert soundscapes, desert navigation, the new desert social order, desert food and waste cycles and all that connects them, including building and operating strategies for extreme and non-infrastructural environments.
Following from past Luminous Green events, the weekend was structured around Open Space principles which essentially rely on a self organizing model. It was a weekend full of productive conversations and I was especially grateful to learn more about the work of regional office, Marko Peljhan, Tapio Makela, Larry Bogad and Matt Biederman.
The end of the retreat was marked by a dash to the Salton Sea where Sierra Brown performed rather extremely!

this is the future before it happened

2009-02-13T03:33:00.000-08:00

silent disco radio action

2009-01-20T05:20:00.000-08:00

from headphones to room speakers to radio transmissions - silent disco as generative spatiality for the production of ethereal bodies

(ralph)
this gets plugged in here,
turn up the volume,
hit the switch,
we're going live,
you place your foot here,
pull the cable,
place the speaker there,
and another there,
then move over there, into the center,
throw your sound into the air,
hit the floor,
it goes up,
to a satellite 50,000 kilometers in the sky,
to come back down again,
hitting the earth,
everyone's listening,
to your skin

(victoria)
where is my foot?
who is that body?
how does this work?
the leg is connected to a microphone connected to a network of electronics
and connected to the broadcasting system,
the grid of national security,
the fluids of national listening,
this foot is in the nation's ear,
your body is on-air
your body is only air
sweat on-air
you are sweaty radio

(cellos)
take your hand and search for the wall,
find the wall,
there is no exit,
only rooms within a room,
a building within the city,
a city under the sky,
all this blackness and stars,
going up and going down,
spinning,
making circles in the room,
making circles in the sky,
dancing as a transmission,
dancing in your neighbor's living room,
dancing in the mayor's office,

(vicki)
give me your leg,
give me your thigh,
give me your hip,
give me your shoulder,
give me your lips,
give me your hand,
your finger,
your knee,
your foot,
throw it around and around,
throw it across the city
it rises up as a sonic action
a dream dance

the warmth inside
the coldness outside
the wetness
down the back
sweat sweat sweat
body heat filling the room
filling the broadcast
filling the listener's bedroom
filling the national grid
back up now, don't look
just back up and bump into someone
bump into the broadcast
bump into the room

(bells)
the walls disappear
the ground rises up
the roof blows away
there's a storm outside, coming in
it blows you around
the room is a pressure zone
of electricity
of body-energy
of radio control
of no control

the room is turned inside out
the body is turned inside out
sound on the skin
sound in the hair
transmissions going in
transmissions going out
the skin is a radio

New publication by experimental media group from Nantes - Poétique(s) du numérique

2008-11-22T01:40:00.000-08:00

Poétique(s) du numérique
Ouvrage collectif dirigé par Sophie Gosselin et Franck Cormerais

Quelles pratiques et formes d’expression s’inventent à travers l’appropriation des technologies numériques ? En quoi le développement de ces technologies bouleverse les découpages entre champs disciplinaires, générant des pratiques transversales liant création artistique, recherche scientifique, développement technologique, pratiques médiatiques ?
Inversement, comment ces réagencements et recompositions dans les relations entre champs disciplinaires et usages des technologies nous conduisent-ils à réviser et à repenser le statut, la place et la fonction de la technique dans nos pratiques sociales et créatrices ? À travers la mise en jeu d’expériences et d’expérimentations poïétiques (arts de faire et faire de l’art) se dégagent des dynamiques et mutations générées par les développements technologiques actuels dans les pratiques d’invention et de création collective.
Cet ouvrage prolonge la réflexion amorcée lors du colloque intitulé Poétique(s) du numérique, organisé par APO33 (collectif artistique) et le CERCI (centre de recherche universitaire), qui s’est tenu à Nantes en 2006 dans le cadre du festival Scopitone (Olympic, Nantes). Il réunit des acteurs, créateurs et chercheurs issus d’horizons disciplinaires multiples, autour d’une réflexion sur les nouvelles formes de création liées aux développements et à la diffusion des outils numériques (internet, systèmes interactifs, technologies télématiques, dispositifs évolutifs et/ou distribués, pratiques en réseau ou collaboratives…). C’est en tant que partenaire de la collection « l’électron musagète » qu’Alphabetville (dont la fondatrice, Colette Tron, est intervenue dans le colloque) participe à cet ouvrage.
En marge des approches traditionnelles du champ de la création numérique, cet ouvrage propose tout autant une approche critique des mutations engendrées par les technologies numériques qu’une mise en perspective des ouvertures qu’elles rendent possibles. À travers la poétique du numérique s’esquissent les prémisses d’une reconfiguration de l’espace social et politique : une po(é)litique à venir.

ISBN : 978-2-912877-98-7 / Collection L’électron musagète
Domaine : Multimédia - Sciences humaines / Genre : Essai
Format : 15 x 21 cm, 192 pages
Prix : 19 euros
Parution : Octobre 2008

LES AUTEURS :
David gé Bartoli, Philosophe-artiste développant des dispositifs expérimentaux dans la production philosophique, artistique et littéraire. Il est chargé de cours.
Franck Cormerais, docteur en philosophie et en sciences de l’information et de la communication, est maître de conférences.
Philippe Coutant, militant politique en recherche.
Jacques A. Gilbert est Maître de conférences en langues étrangères appliquées et Chercheur au CERCI.
Sophie Gosselin, artiste-philosophe. Chargée de cours, membre d’Apo33 (laboratoire artistique, technologique et théorique).
Alex Haché est Chercheuse activiste.
Antoine Moreau, Artiste. Chargé de cours.
Brandon LaBelle, artiste et écrivain travaillant le son, les espaces, les corps et les récits culturels.
Julien Ottavi, médiactiviste, artiste-chercheur, musicien et performeur, membre fondateur d’APO33.
Esther Salmona est diplômée de l’École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de Versailles. Elle explore les relations entre la musique, le son et l’espace.
Jean-Paul Trichet, Ingénieur de recherche et conservateur du Centre de documentation et de recherche de l’UFR Lettres et de Langues.
Colette Tron est auteure, critique.

Machine Project at LACMA

2008-11-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

A Machine Project Field Guide to the LA County Museum of Art:

November 15, 2008
Noon til 10pm

Ten hours of performances, workshops, and events which experiment with LACMA’s encyclopedic collections and expansive grounds. Featuring over 60 projects dispersed across the seven-building, twenty-acre campus, visitors are encouraged to explore the museum in new and unexpected ways.

El Cliente Siempre Tiene la Razón

2008-11-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

Seis conferencias en el marco del V Foro de Arte Público, acerca de la relación entre el arte, las instituciones, y la economía, con expertos nacionales e internacionales:
SI TODOS SOMOS ARTISTAS, ¿QUIÉN ES EL PÚBLICO?
(Jueves 13 de noviembre, 19:00 hrs)
Bernardo González-Aréchiga (Economista, Director de de la Escuela de Graduados en Administración Pública y Política Pública (EGAP) del ITESM, Monterrey)
Anselm Jappe (Filosofo, especialista en Guy Debord y profesor en la Escuela de Bellas Artes de Frosinone, Italia, vive en Tours, Francia).
EL MUSEO DE LO CONTEMPORÁNEO Y EL TIEMPO DE LA OBRA DE ARTE
(Viernes 14 de noviembre, 19:00 hrs)
José Luis Barrios (Filósofo, Director de CURARE y docente en la UIA y la UNAM , Ciudad de México)
Peter Osborne (Filósofo, Director de Centro de Investigación de Filosofía Europea Moderna de la Universidad de Middlesex, Londres)
¿QUÉ NOS UNE? EL MUSEO: MEMORIA COLECTIVA O EL MERCADO COMO FORMA DE COLECTIVIDAD
(Sábado 15 de noviembre, 12:00 hrs)
Luis Galindo (Antropólogo, Director del Museo de la Diversidad , Caracas, Venezuela)
Ernesto Piedras (Economista, Director de The Competitive Intelligence Unit, Ciudad de México)

A BRIEF TIME ONLY

2008-11-05T22:40:00.001-08:00

If you'd like more info about how to participate in this exhibition, you can click here.

Going Pink

2008-11-04T09:06:00.000-08:00

Walking through Paris one morning, and coming upon this pink street, I was wonderfully impressed and jarred by the intervention, somehow an act of graffiti occupying an unusual space, that of the street, a horizontal plane, with no direct message, but a block of color as its only signifying image, no scrawl or tag but a pure sign (I only notice the few letters to the side afterwards, upon looking at the photo... but at the time, my eyes delighted in the color alone, like a swath of cotton candy gone missing...), which made me linger along the street, to trace the pink, as an action-painting without masculine angst, but a light agency (pink rights, gay pride, or just some candy-coated excess initiated by late night guerillas) turning the street into a space of laughter or at least smiles.

Buren meets Picasso

2008-11-02T07:51:00.000-08:00

Daniel Buren's current intervention at the Picasso Museum in Paris inspires a second glance, causing a stir in the perspectival understanding of the building. Cutting through the entire building, a one-sided mirrored structure moves from the front courtyard through the interior's three floors, to arrive out the back, as a further extension into the garden. The cut is literally a perfect mirror image - located directly in the center of the building the work is an unavoidable invisible gesture, disturbing while also seemingly leaving intact the architectural image. A form of spatial magic, a supplementary object, a fold or a house of mirrors, Buren's reworking of the Picasso Museum might be said to celebrate an extravagant form of minimalism, recalling previous works, such as Robert Smithson's mirrored displacements or even Dan Graham's reflective pavilions, where mirroring seems to function as a material insertion that offers means for extended reflection on the question of perception and place.

more Bucky reflections

2008-11-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

After seeing the impressive show at the Whitney this year on Buckminister Fuller, I've been noticing a resurgence of Bucky discussion. I recently bought a used copy of his astonishing book Critical Path which 'summarizes' (in 409 densely written pages!) his ideas and design principles. Also, just out are some reflections on his legacy in this month's Artforum.

Erik Gongrich lecture Sunday November 2

2008-10-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

If you happen to be in Berlin this weekend, starting at noon on Sunday there will be a 25min. lecture every hour until 11:00p.m. as part of the exhibition Megastructure Reloaded
Molkenmarkt 2 / Berlin - Mitte
Sunday the 2.nov. is also the last day of the exhibition Megastructure Reloaded.

12 hours "megaminis" are lectures about...
...found architecture and monuments
...sculptures that are transformed into living houses
...the beginning of the misunderstanding
...billboard-house-clusters with private messages
...close encounters and the real
...mobile monuments and fountains
...influencing reality by using the image of Brasilia
...placing an island in the middle of São Paulo
...duty free shops displays and public space in exhibitions
...interventions in public space
...projections offering escape
...searching the mega in big houses and the Tirana-Durres-strip

New Orleans Report

2008-10-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

Sent from CalArts Alum Sean Boyle:

I've been working as an assistant on this project of Mark Bradford's for about 18 months. The ark sits in the Lower Ninth Ward at Caffin Ave and N. Miro on what used to be the Chalumette Funeral Home.
The project title, Mithra, is a mythical allusion to a bull that was sacrificed and from the blood of its loins sprang the flora and fauna of the earth.
I think that it's fitting that the community has embraced it as a symbol of hope while the media, art world, and 'up-towners' are keenly aware of its criticism of the failed power systems that New Orleans represents, particularly at this juncture in American history.

Breton at In & Out

2008-10-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

Walking out of an In & Out burger restaurant in Los Angeles recently, we happened upon this scene: a guy in a truck placing his order. The total ridiculousness of the scene prompted us to pause, take the photo, and relish the juxtaposition of the elements. It was a kind of inspirational moment, a Surrealist intersection of forces relocated from the Parisian streets of Breton to the sunny drive-thru culture of contemporary Los Angeles. This combination of ingredients might come to express something deeply idiosyncratic to the LA environment, that of bringing together what usually does not meet, and in doing so allowing certain fantasies to surface - LA might be a site for the potential exaggeration of form, nurturing fantasy and granting space for their manifestation (Hollywood becomes the quintessential example: it is the very sign for such potential and promise). Here at In & Out it might be read in the very site itself, tucked alongside the LA airport with its own park across the street used for viewing incoming aircraft, and further, to the truck itself, as the expression of certain vehicular imagination, and to the final meeting, of the In & Out attendant dressed in a costume that aims to recall some notion of early fast food culture, where burgers and fries meets rock n roll and fast cars of the 1950s. With the sun covering the scene in its glow, we might begin to appreciate LA as a landscape of disproportionate scale, which in itself inaugurates a formal realignment of the senses.

Stars in New Plymouth

2008-10-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

Coming to New Plymouth in New Zealand one rainy and grey day, for an event at the Govett-Brewster gallery, I was pleased to come upon this public sculpture nestled amongst the coastline. By the New Zealand artist Len Lye, the sculpture, known as Wind Wand, perches on the coast and bends inland, oscillating and riding the winds as they blow in from the ocean. Measuring 45 meters high the sculpture uses related ship-mast engineering technology to express its arc, and its flexibility, to allow the sculpture a soft form of kinetic actions. It was not until later in the evening, after the event and hanging outside the gallery waiting to venture forward into the night, that I further appreciated the work - as its transparent bulb at the top glowed a brilliant red, adding a crimson star to the darkness.

Brisbane TSBs

2008-09-27T04:33:00.000-07:00

Walking around Brisbane I couldn't help but notice the painted traffic signal boxes that dot the urban landscape. Located throughout the city, the decorated boxes sprinkle the streets with fantastic landscapes, waterfront views, and imaginary birds, all with the aim of modifying the dull grey generally coating urban infrastructural devices. Coordinated by Nicole Gaunt, as part of the Queensland Urban Ecology organization, the project aims to give more color to the urban landscape, supporting creative expression and local artists to give alternative visions of what urban experience can be like. Struck by such a plethora of paintings and their personal expressiveness I was led to discuss this with local artist Lawrence English, who also offered up the other perspective on the situation whereby the paintings come to deter illegal postering. A long-time posterer himself, English pointed out that one is more reluctant to poster over an existing painting than the usual dull anonymous grey that cover the signal boxes. While the city may support the creative flair of local artists, the general innocuous and rather trite content of such works seem to support English's observations, underscoring the signal boxes as sites for the meeting of an undercover confrontation.

Questions about the privatization of infrastructure...

2008-08-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting article in today's NYTimes about the future of financing infrastructure. I guess the real question is how to strike a balance between governments with no budget and investors hoping to cash in... Naomi Klein's recent book touches on this very question.

Freedom Square

2008-08-27T01:36:00.000-07:00

During a recent visit to Bratislava, I came upon this square, known as Freedom Square, which boasts a beautiful central fountain, known as Družba Fountain (built in 1980). The square itself has a long history, as a location in the city, from housing Archbishops during summer months throughout the 18th century to the Slovak inventor Ján Bahýľ and his curious ride in the first ever helicopter in 1897 to its restructuring as a communist headquarters after the revolution and its current standing as governmental and university quarters. The square reverberates with the architectural traces of its recent Socialist past, with the highly functionalist buildings off-set by the blooming fountain, in the shape of the linden flower, the symbol of Slovak people.

Yet, the removal after 1989 from the square of the enormous statue of Klement Gottwald (pictured here with Stalin), the first president of Czechoslovakia (1948), finds curious echo in Gottwald's own dedication to the Stalinist purges following the war. Dedicating himself not only to collective farming and nationalized industry, Gottwald forcibly removed non-communists and communists alike who opposed his government, jailing many while also erasing them from official photographs, records and archives. Such erasures seem to find a form of poetic justice in Gottwald's own removal from Freedom Square, itself now renamed from its former Gottwaldovo. Yet such legacies of erasures and counter-erasures make me wish for a more accepting form of modifying public space - rather than discovering the missing statue through other forms of abstracted research, my walk through Freedom Square could have been more directly effected and rewarding by encountering the history of the square through its own assembly and maintenance of historical parts, from the Archbishops to the helicopter ride to Gottwald himself. Following the ideas of Richard Sennett, city space might better serve the public by creating opportunities for confronting difference, diversity, and the tensions at the heart of political life. Freedom Square could truly earn its name by allowing Gottwald his space, even while, and especially, reminding someone like myself of the embedded and stratified anguishes and delights which come to define history and our place in it.

Transreport

2008-07-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

Fünf in Rumänien geborene und jetzt in München lebende junge Künstlerinnen und Künstler am Anfang der Professionalität schlagen mit in Rumänien lebenden fünf jungen Künstlerinnen und Künstler, einer Choreografin/Performerin und einem Kunsttheoretiker mit dieser ersten Präsentation von Installationen, Malereien und Videoarbeiten eine Brücke zwischen München und der Heimat ihrer Kindheit. Die Projektvorbereitung fand während eines mehrmonatigen Stipendienaufenthaltes der Rumänen in der Villa Waldberta, dem internationalen Stipendiatenhaus der Stadt München in Feldafing, statt. Im Gegenzug wird im Oktober 2008 der zweite Teil der Projekts in Rumänien stattfinden.

Die Ausstellung “transreport” trägt den Untertitel: Fortschreitende Fassaden - und ihre Unverzichtbarkeit "Warum fortschreitende Fassaden? Allein schon deshalb, weil jeder weiß und impliziert, was eine Fassade ist - weil viele sich welche bauen oder aufsetzen und weil man sich an manchen (vielen) Orten über ihr Fehlen wundert. Oder über ihre Vernachlässigung, die orts- und kulturbedingt von Fall zu Fall unerwünscht zu sein scheint. Und weshalb sprechen wir hier von ihrer Unverzichtbarkeit? Weil irgendwo, irgendwann ganz bestimmt eine Fassade gebaut oder zumindest herbeigesehnt werden wird, entweder eine alte, baufällige, unauffällige, hinter der man sich verstecken und in Ruhe seinen Geschäften nachgehen kann, oder eine neue, strahlende, saubere, gesunde Fassade, mit der man protzen oder hinter der man sich seiner Sache und seiner Haut sicher ist. Um über einige der Künstlerinnen und Künstler und die Sicherheit der eigenen Haut zu sprechen, Florin Bobu, beispielsweise, spielt in einer seiner Installationen mit den Assoziationen, die ein jeder mit einem Heizkörper verbindet. Wärme, Geborgenheit, Sicherheit, Zuhause, das ist die eine Seite, die der warmen Heizung, auf der anderen steht die Kälte, Unsicherheit, Bedrohung der Gesundheit, und vielleicht sogar die Mittellosigkeit, wenn man sich die Wärme nicht leisten kann. Jeder kennt das Gefühl, wenn die Heizung nicht läuft, ihre kalte Erscheinung, ihre Lächerlichkeit. Die Installation besteht aus mehreren Heizkörpern und einer Videospur, in der man ihn selbst ausgezogen hinter der Heizung sieht, als würde er Schutz suchen, und natürlich denkt man auch an Zeiten und Orte in der Geschichte, in und an denen Kälte sowohl körperlich als auch geistig herrschte. Durch sehr einfache Mittel entsteht hier ein Bild, dessen Aussage sich sowohl auf menschliche Mikro- als auch Makrostrukturen bezieht.

Wie Florin Bobu, wirft auch Johanna Zey einen Blick hinter die Fassaden. Auch sie arbeitet mit unterschiedlichen Medien. Im harten, jedoch noch ungeschliffenen Blick der jungen Künstlerin, widerspiegelt sich der hohe Grad an Subjektivität, den sie in sich und den anderen zur Geltung bringt. Ihre bisherigen kinetischen Arbeiten, herumkriechende Müllhaufen, ein sich selbsttätig als „Qualle“ bewegendes Regenschirm-Skelett, die zu einem Stilleben aufgebauten, Küchengeschichten erzählenden Gegenstände, bauen eine Brücke zwischen der Notwendigkeit des Alltäglichen und dem Fortlauf der Zeit." (Auszug aus dem Konzept, 2007)

Florin Bobu / Iasi
Eduard Constantin / Bukarest
Cristina David / Bukarest, Isaac Cima / Schweden, Arne Vinnem / Norwegen
Andrea Faciu / München
Ioan Grosu / München
Nita Mocanu / Arad
Ciprian Muresan / Cluj
Frank Stürmer / München
Tim Wolff / München
Johanna Zey / München &
Ioana Mona Popovici, Choreografie & Performance / Prag
Vlad Morariu, Kunsttheorie / Iasi

Eröffnung von transreport
25. Juli 2008, 19:00 Uhr Es feiern mit:
Tovarasu Tim, Toma Trei &
special guests

the painful design of the Bench (or how I dislocated my hip)

2008-07-23T07:45:00.000-07:00

During various investigations into the current developments spanning the far east side of the Spree on the outskirts of Berlin, I marveled for a number of moments at this recently planted garden site. As part of the Berlin Campus residential complex - a set of apartments incorporating the left-over structures of a prison - the garden boasts a set of concrete pathways, which presumably aim to create a sense of public space in the center of the apartment complex, and a series of concrete blocks, which I sense are intended to offer local residents a place to sit. Though, I can't help but question the entire scene, and how this curious space might actually function, and in particular, how this concrete block may in turn offer the local grandmother, or father and toddler, a cosy place to rest and enjoy the local surrounding.
The history of the public bench then might be read as part of the ongoing relation of designer and user, where innovation may run counter to the slow durational procession of the relaxing body in space, which over the span of the ages has no doubt found its optimum articulation in the simple L-shaped structure we all have come to appreciate, especially during those moments of reverie or down-right exhaustion only cities can produce.

fascist clothing in Mitte?

2008-07-20T00:41:00.000-07:00

Biking through the fashionable neighborhood of Mitte in Berlin yesterday I found a number of sites loudly proclaiming anti-fascist and anti-racist sentiments. As it turns out, there has been a surge of protest against a clothing store that is accused of catering to the far right, neo-nazi shopper. The store carries a brand of clothes by Thor Steinar, whose clothes are preferred by the extreme right. The label has been involved in past legal battles with the German government about the representation of Nazi symbols in their clothing.
Activists have pushed for the landlord of the building to evict the shop and have successfully publicized the issue. The shop window was smashed and the facade was littered with paint bombs.
The site of the store is apparently significant. The street number of the address on Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse is said to refer to Hitler's initials: 1=A, 8=H.

Billy Carts, Soapbox Cars, and a general theory of vehicular imagination

2008-07-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Stumbling upon this street party in Berlin the other day, a cart competition was just underway. With kids jumping around, wheeling out there carts, a legacy of modified vehicles, custom-built cars, home-made cart constructions, and other appropriated wheeled objects seem to follow behind... While this particular competition was fused with children fantasies, other carts came to mind, such as Gordon Matta-Clark's Fresh Air project, where the artist wheeled around a set of oxygen tanks and offered fresh air to passers-by.

Gordon's cart circulates as a social vehicle, gaining attention through humor and performativity as to how oxygen is put on wheels, while the Berlin carts charm viewers with their imaginative flair. The cart as an object then seems to harness a general impulse toward mobility, fused with the power and poetics of appropriation and self-made platforms that promise movement. Other carts in turn carry the problematics of an uneven social reality, such as those wielded about by the homeless, or those built by favela communities in Brazil, that use the cart as means toward collecting and recycling.

The cart then pinpoints the specifics of certain situations, while sliding across others by granting the imagination a literal vehicle for pursuing fantasies of transport.

Bucky Media

2008-07-09T00:48:00.000-07:00

Attending the Tuned City festival in Berlin recently, one of the highlights was the work by Farmer's Manual. Located at the Alexanderplatz during a hot afternoon, the work Bucky Media consists of a 5-meter geodesic metallic ball fitted with live wireless microphones. Inviting interaction, the work created a playful and performative instance, with live processing of audio signal amplified through a sound system generated by the thudding and rolling of the ball as it bounced around the square, making people laugh, run for their lives, and join others in the unspoken game of exploring this uncertain object. Sitting on a nearby bench, I took delight in watching people walk by, become curious, and slowly approach the ball, touching it at first, wondering how to proceed, what kind of possibilities exist for interaction... It was an immediate process, resulting within a few moments in confident actions: it did not take long before people understood how to engage, what was called for, when to interact... The ball was there, as an out-of-place object that quickly found its place within a public situation. I felt Bucky would be satisfied to know his dymaxion engineering principles would find such an expression, as an object of playful interaction that may, in the end, create a sudden space for performative and shared investigations.

Oscar & Carmen in Rio

2008-06-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

Visiting the Carmen Miranda Museum in Rio de Janeiro, the meeting of two different versions of Brazilian modernism seem to come together - the organic brutality of Oscar Niemeyer's architecture and the voluptuous kitsch of Carmen Miranda, the "Brazilian Bombshell". Both versions find expression in the Niemeyer-designed Museum. The concrete circular form located in an out-of-the-way park in the Flamengo neighborhood was designed in the 1960s and houses various displays of Carmen's own dresses, notorious platform-shoes (from the 1930s & 40s), and related ephemera - photographs lodged into every possible corner like a frieze made up of Carmen's smile and banana head dresses, with Latin-flavored pin-ups of the star. The outlandishness of Carmen's wardrobe, her excessive lifestyle - Hollywood nights, Copacabana nightclubs, movie-sets, radio spots, fashion modeling, and general jet-setting all came to symbolize a notion of Brazilian modernism imported onto the international stage. In parallel, Niemeyer's languid and poetical architecture typified such modernism by infusing European rationalism with a distinct Brazilian biomorphism - the swooping curve of Niemeyer's architecture supplements the European grid of steel and glass, finding form in concrete circles and ramps poised against the new urbanism rising up in Brazilian cities at the same time Carmen was singing "Bananas Is My Business." While Niemeyer's Museum is often seen as an absolute contrast to Carmen Miranda's work, I see them as forming a poignant and insightful coupling onto Brazilian culture of the 20th century. The Museum allows a glimpse onto both versions of a single story, marking the space as a radical expression of museological work.

duty free

2008-06-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

DUTY FREE is a twenty-one day long sculpture in the Leipzig/Halle airport by Erik Göngrich and Stefan Shankland taking place from the 18.6 to the 6.7.2008. They have taken over the airport’s duty free shop and transformed it into their studio. It has become a place of production, experimentation and exchange about the form and function of sculpture in a context of globalisation. During the three weeks of the international festival Theater der Welt the space will be open for public interaction from 4pm to 8pm Tuesday to Saturday and from 2pm to 6pm on Sundays (closed on Monday).

border strategies

2008-06-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

I recently stumbled across this alternative border strategy. I especially like the yoga class pictured here...

Marco Kusumawijaya and the Mak Urban Future Initiative

2008-06-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a dinner organized by Linda Pollack for artists working with urban spaces to meet the first fellow of the Mak center's new Urban Future Initiative at the Fitzpatrick-Leland House. The house was recently donated to the Mak center and the house will be home to the visiting international fellows for stays of around two months. Tonight Marco - who is the first fellow and an architect and environmentalist from Indonesia - presented his research at the Schindler house in West Hollywood. It was a stimulating conversation in terms of thinking about imagining forms of sustainable urbanism. Marco highlighted the Grand Avenue development as a potential opportunity to experiment with sustainable development and admitted his skepticism about the current state of the project proposal. He also spoke a lot about transportation in L.A.

The Fitzpatrick-Leland House as photographed by Julius Shulman in 1936

And by Tom Queally in 2006

Bending Theory

2008-05-22T22:33:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Newcastle I was ecstatic to discover the Millennium Bridge. Designed by the architecture firm WilkinsonEyre the Bridge rises up into an elongated and elegant bend before descending down onto the opposite bank, counter balanced by a swooping arch that rises into the air to support the base. Walking across the pedestrian bridge, I was full of glee marveling at the simple but profound idea of the bridge producing an indirect path - rather than cut firmly and strictly across the Tyne river the Bridge offers a soft journey, as if proposing that one consider the view, or daydream a bit along the way... It made me appreciate the simple fact that embodied within the Bridge is a form of theoretical perspective that one might begin to apply to the built environment in general. Situationist dérive or fanciful form? Whichever way the Bridge takes the idea of being a pedestrian as an opportunity to explore the surrounding environment, and how radical that such an urban project (costing no doubt millions of pounds) would put forth such a theory of the bend.

Dominion

2008-05-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

Fellow U.C.Riverside Lecturer Michael Wilson screened his film Silhouette City tonite and it presents a fascinating portrait of Christian extremist's transformation from a radical fringe movement in the 1970's and 80's to the mainstream political force that it is today. It's compelling on many levels... one of which is the way evangelical Christians have framed America as holy place with a god given right to rule the world. Through the course of the film, we watch various sites – a small compound in Arkansas, a place of worship or the entire geography of the U.S. – perform rhetorically as the location where god's will might be enacted. The film is a nuanced and telling examination of religious fundamentalism in America.

Experimental Group

2008-05-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

an application for utopian building consent has been made
a proposition has been put forward for Vertical Common in Smithfield Market, Central London
notices were posted at the site on 5th May 2008
to view the proposition and have your say go to http://www.experimentalgroup.org/blog

Berlin - city in the throes of its own détournement

2008-05-04T14:08:00.000-07:00

Critical Art Ensemble artist Steve Kurtz finally cleared

2008-05-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

Nice to read today that Steve Kurtz' case was dismissed by a judge when, after four years of legal wrangling, it was finally brought to trial.
Read more on the story here.

Storefront in L.A.

2008-04-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

POP-UP STOREFRONT FOR ART AND ARCHITECTURE
comes to Los Angeles with the exhibition

CCCP: COSMIC COMMUNIST CONSTRUCTIONS PHOTOGRAPHED:
Architecture of the last two decades of the Soviet Union photographed by Frédéric Chaubin

Opening Reception - Friday, April 11, 7pm

Pop-Up Storefront @ Paper Chase Printing
7176 Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90049
(2 blocks west of La Brea @ Formosa)

April 11 - May 17, 2008

Gallery hours:
Wednesday - Friday, 3pm - 8pm
Saturday - Sunday, 1pm - 8pm

About the Pop-Up Storefront project...
Since 1982, Storefront for Art and Architecture has gained a reputation for bringing innovative, groundbreaking and controversial exhibitions on architecture, art, and design to New York City from its gallery space in SoHo. This year, the gallery will begin a new chapter in its history which will carry the gallery beyond the confines of New York. A series of new Storefronts will pop up in cities around the world to host events and exhibitions in partnership with local cultural institutions, and then will disappear. The very first ever Pop-Up Storefront will debut on April 11, on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood.

Pop-Up Storefront LA is sponsored by American Apparel
Local Partners: ForYourArt and Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design

About CCCP: COSMIC COMMUNIST CONSTRUCTIONS PHOTOGRAPHED
Architecture of the last two decades of the Soviet Union photographed by Frédéric Chaubin

Over the past five years, during the course of his travels in the former Soviet Union, French photographer Frédéric Chaubin has documented an extensive collection of startling architectural artifacts born during the last two decades of the Cold War. Architects in the peripheral regions of the Eastern Bloc countries, working on governmental commissions during the 1970s and 1980s, enjoyed a surprising degree of creative freedom. Operating in a cultural context hermetically sealed from the influence of their Western counterparts, they drew inspiration from sources ranging from expressionism, science fiction, early European modernism and the Russian Suprematist legacy
to produce an idiosyncratic, flamboyant and often imaginative architectural ménage. Unexpected in their contexts, these monumental buildings stand in stark contrast to the stereotypical understanding of late Soviet architecture in which monotonously repetitive urban landscapes were punctuated by vapid exercises in architectural propaganda.

The subjects of Chaubin's photographs, scattered throughout Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, were all constructed during the last two decades of the Soviet era. Very few of their designers achieved anything more than local recognition, and until now these buildings have never been collectively documented or exhibited. The authors of many works remain unknown, and some have been destroyed since Chaubin's photographs were taken. Conceived and executed during a moment of historical transition, they constitute one of the most surprising and least known legacies of the former USSR.

letters from Cape Town

2008-04-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

Echoes from the homeland or lost objects... Stumbling upon English-style pillar post boxes in Cape Town brought forward in a material form the movements of colonial occupation: this curious object reflects a strange act of missionary work performed as a duplication of homeland design.

Jean Nouvel wins the Pritzker Prize

2008-03-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

Curious that in explaining their choice, as the NYTimes reports, the Pritzker committee explained that in a recent project Nouvel manages to work both with and against a site. Here are photographs I took at two of his most famous projects in Paris in 2006. The first is a detail of the light responsive system of apertures on the facade at the Arab World Institute and the the other is a partial view of the Quai Branly Museum.
My most vital memory concerning Nouvel was a lecture at USC I attended in 1998 during which I witnessed Jalal Toufic (who was teaching at CalArts at the time) subject Nouvel to a scathing, awkward and ultimately productive critique.

slightly site-related

2008-03-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

Though I confess that Janet Sarbanes new short story collection entitled Army of One (Otis Books/Seismicity Editions) has a somewhat tangential relationship to the usual content for this blog... given my enthusiasm for this book, I thought you should know about it.
This is fiction that matters! Here is an upcoming reading schedule in Southern California:
April 15 - Redcat
April 16 - Otis College of Art and Design
May 16 - Hammer Museum
You can order a copy here.

Experimental Geography

2008-03-03T23:36:00.000-08:00

Nato Thompson has curated what looks like an excellent new show....

AnyTime, AnyPlace

2008-03-03T13:45:00.000-08:00

A 2 Day Symposium on Art Collectives in the 21st Century

Thursday March 13 — Friday March 14, 2008

The artist groups participating in Anytime, Anyplace are some of the finest examples of 21st century creative collaborative efforts. A network of collaborative groups exists around the globe, exchanging knowledge, entering into conversations, and expanding the range of communication associated with art production. They work not only to challenge the systems of power and accepted strategies adopted by young artists, but also to serve as cultural agents who aggressively push the boundaries of art—what it does, what form it takes, and how it ultimately interfaces with our contemporary world.

DAY 1: Thursday, March 13th @ the PCC FORUM

7:00 - 7:45 pm Keynote Speaker: Grant Kester (critic and art historian)

7:45 - 8:15 pm Dessert and Coffee Bar

8:15 - 9:00 pm Guest Speakers: Brett Bloom and Salem Collo-Julin, Temporary Services

DAY 2: Friday, March 14th in R122

9:00-10:00am Registration

10:00-10:50am Session One: Futurefarmers

11:00-11:50am Session Two: Temporary Services

12:00-1:00pm Lunch in PCC Art Gallery Courtyard

1:00-1:50pm Session Three: Temporary Travel Office

2:30-6:00pm Tour with Temporary Travel Office to former 1984 Los Angeles Olympic sites

For more information, see the event page.

Women in the City

2008-02-24T21:48:00.000-08:00

Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler and Cindy Sherman are part of this public exhibition throughout the streets of L.A. Maps and more about the project can be found here.

The Lament Project

2008-02-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

I recently participated in The Lament Project.

From the project description:
The Viralnet.net curators invited a variety of performance, electronic, acoustic, noise, spoken word and visual artists to contemplate the meaning of the lament and to submit a personal interpretation, one minute in length.
Even though there are many traditional laments to draw from, Viralnet.net encouraged the artists to invent new and personal interpretations of the form and to explore the full range of possibilities, spanning the humorous to the serious. Except for the one-minute length requirement, there were no preconditions or rules that the artists needed to follow in creating their laments.

A Wikipedia Reader

2008-02-19T15:06:00.000-08:00

Mylinh Trieu Nguyen and David Horvitz organized a project based on artists looking into the linking of wikipedia pages. You can download a copy or order a book version here.

Talking trash?

2008-02-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

I recent took a class of CalArts students to the Chiquita Canyon Landfill. It was quite an experience... Some of the more interesting facts: The landfill receives between 5000 and 6000 tons of trash per day. Yes, that's per day! The nearly 600-acre site is outfitted with a complex network of piping that allows the methane gas released from the garbage to be burned by an enormous furnace, which reduces the pollutants released into the air. The landfill is currently in the process of building an facility that will use the burning of methane gas to produce electricity. I was struck in particular by the construction of landscape by the refuse. You could see that the process of "disposing" of the waste was essentially about digging giant pits lined with black plastic and creating layers of waste which eventually morph into a hill-like landscape. My students were disappointed that the falconer had gone home for the day... apparently many landfills use birds to deter gulls from congregating.

There is lots of interesting thinking about trash available... A couple of examples are Heather Rogers work from a few years ago The Hidden Life of Garbage. The film and the book are both excellent. Here is an interview from alternet. Also, Errant Bodies contributor Jennifer Gabrys has written some excellent articles on electronic waste. Check out her website for details.

Michael Asher at SMMOA

2008-01-27T22:25:00.000-08:00

It was a big weekend in L.A. for Michael Asher. His new show opened at the Santa Monica Museum of Art on Friday night and Saturday afternoon Benjamin Buchloh spoke to a packed auditorium about Asher's work. In the current show, Asher rebuilds all of the temporary walls built in the museum from 1998 through the end of 2007. Mimicking exactly "the materials, size and position of the stud walls used to support drywall" from previous shows, this work shifts the terms of Asher's critical position. As Buchloh pointed out in his lecture, in the Santa Monica Museum show, Asher seems less intent on exclusively critiquing the institution as he does in analysing the exhibition and display strategies at work in the museum over time. This temporal dimension to the work was stressed as critical to Asher's investigation. Buchloh spoke for about an hour and then answered a few questions from the likes of Mary Kelly, Andrea Fraser, Simon Leung, Sally Stein and others. Miwon Kwon, who wrote about the exhibition for the museum, also contributed to the conversation. In general, Buchloh seemed interested in drawing out the themes of withdrawl, removal and voiding in the work of Michael Asher and highlighting repetition as a key strategy for understanding his work.

The exhibition itself is a strange experience... somewhat like a very clean and maze-like construction site. A small room near the entrance contains images of all of the floor plans of the previous exhibitions and as you enter the main space, you're required to sign a waiver that limits the liability of the museum... in case of an accident, I presume? For those of us familiar with Asher's work through photographs and text, this installation is especially curious in part because the physical experience of the exhibition is so visually charged. The rows of mostly metal studs in the gallery distort spatial perception so extremely that I overheard many visitors describe the exhibition as a hall of mirrors. The sounds of people moving through the narrow spaces between studs, zippers and buttons clinking and scraping against metal, creates an ambiance oddly unlike the dry, analytic tone usually associated with institutional critique. The phenomenologically charged atmosphere of the installation was described as Mannerist by Buchloh and as stifling and suffocating by others. I found it curiously delightful.

Buchloh began by raising a question about the 'conventionalization of radicality.' He also linked Asher's work to that of the poet Mallarme... presumably because of Mallarme's interest in the 'space' of the page. (Buchloh mentioned that Asher and the artist Marcel Broodthaers were his primary cornerstones in terms of influences for his writing. Broodhaers in particular is noted for his conceptual debt to Mallarme.) As in the work of Robert Ryman, Robert Morris and Lawrence Weiner, Asher notably denies the viewer the kind of visual gratification associated with art. But, Buchloh contends, Asher pushed this denial further by completely removing that denial from the context of the pictorial plane. In particular, he compared Asher's work to removals completed by Weiner in the late 60's that however successful as artworks, remained in the context of the pictorial frame. As an example, the 1973 project for the Toselli Gallery in Milan was cited as an example of Asher's move from pictorial space to architectural space... in this case by sandblasting the paint from the walls and ceiling of the gallery. Not only is the art object voided but the architectural space itself becomes a place of contemplation.

Speaking about Asher's use of repetition, Buchloh evoked Asher's astonishing re-installation of a trailer in different parts of the city for the Sculpture project Münster over the course of forty years. In terms of repetition, Buchloh linked Asher's strategy to artists Piet Mondrian, Carl Andre and Dan Flavin. But in addition to refusing the cultural demand for innovation, Asher seems to add an ethical dimension to his critical practice, in part by bringing questions of history and temporality to bear on the spaces of art production and reception.

Finally, Buchloh suggested that Asher's work offers resistance to the spectacularization of aesthetic practice and to the aestheticization of everyday life. Difficult and valid questions were raised about the definition and nature of the 'aestheticization of everyday life' during the question and answer period... Overall, a great pleasure to be able to experience an Asher exhibition first hand and to hear Buchloh speak so eloquently about someone who has maintained a rigorous, critical art practice for so many years.

Rome in a Day

2008-01-17T23:48:00.000-08:00

This weekend I'm participating in the building of rome in a day. If you're in L.A. come check out the madness.

Errant Bodies event in Stockholm

2008-01-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

Konst-ig bookshop presents
Errant Bodies Press
A celebration of books, words, sounds, projects and activities
Friday, January 18, 17:00
Åsögatan 124
Stockholm
Tel: 08 20 45 20
http://www.konstig.se
Join us for drinks, readings and soundings
With reading by Brandon LaBelle, audio installation by Marie Wennersten and Carl Michael von Hausswolff & Thomas Nordanstad's film works.

Errant Bodies Press is a publisher focusing on sound art, performance, spatial strategies and related theory. Since 1995 it has published anthologies, monographs, CDs and DVDs, artists books and special projects from artists, writers and activists working with sounds, places, bodies, narratives, and visual languages and documents. Their publications include Site of Sound: Of Architecture and the Ear, Writing Aloud: The Sonics of Language, Social Music, Surface Tension: Problematics of Site, among others.

Rainbow Audio Transformation

2008-01-07T07:15:00.000-08:00

8 –13 January 2008
Opening Friday 11 January at 20.00
at Extra City, Antwerp

This project brings 12 artists together working on a collective experiment on the relation between colour and sound, departing from the 7 colours of the rainbow, with white and black added. Each artist and/or collective works on a specific colour, using both intuition and scientific sources, and will produce a looped sound piece. After approximately one month of experiments, all artists come together in Antwerp for some days, after which these individual works will be synthesized into one collective installation, made up of 9 sound works played simultaneously.

Participating artists

Mike Harding and Philip Marshall
working with RED (wavelength ≈ 625–750 nm) and ORANGE
(wavelength ≈ 585–620 nm)

Finnbogi Pétursson
working with YELLOW (wavelength ≈ 570–580 nm)

Maia Urstad
working with GREEN (wavelength ≈ 520–570 nm)

Leon Milo
working with BLUE (wavelength ≈ 440–490 nm)

Brandon LaBelle
working with INDIGO (wavelength ≈ 450–420 nm)

Jana Winderen
working with VIOLET (wavelength ≈ 380–420 nm)

CM von Hausswolff
working with WHITE (all colors of the light spectrum)

Building Transmissions: Nico Dockx, Kris Delacourt and Peter Verwimp
working with BLACK (which absorbs all colors and reflects none)

Soapbox Event, by artist Pia Lindman

2007-12-04T01:40:00.000-08:00

Dear friends, colleagues, citizens and non-citizens,
I am inviting you all to participate in Soapbox Event, my next performance and mass event. Physically, it will take place in April 2008 at the Federal Hall National Memorial in New York City. In preparation for the big shebang, I have started a soapbox blog to foment discussion and I will have open workshops at Cooper Union on Saturday afternoons in February and March.
You are all invited!
Check out the site/participate in the discussion and come and have fun in the workshops!
More information available on the site:
http://www.soapboxevent.blogspot.com/

Landscape Cinema – Ken Ehrlich – 2007

2007-11-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

2007-11-19T18:04:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, November 24, 2007 artist Erik Goengrich invites you for a Foto-Walk in the Passages of Downtown Sao Paulo.

The meeting point will be
in front of "cafe floresta"
in Copan (Av.Ipiranga 200)
at 10am

The walk will last around two hours.
The map and fotos here should give an impression of the walk.

To contact Erik send an e-mail to goengrich at gmx dot net

----------
mais informacao e en portugues:
www.goethe.de/saopaulo

Architecture and Documentary Practice: Writing, Imaging and Performance

2007-11-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

Architecture &: Interdisciplinary Seminars
Bartlett School of Architecture, Tue 27 November 2007, 10 am–6 pm
Organised by Dr Robin Wilson
This is the third of a series of interdisciplinary, one-day conferences held at the Bartlett School of Architecture, Architecture &, initiated by Prof. Jane Rendell. It will explore current issues concerning the documentation of buildings, urban space and processes of architectural production. It will draw together architects, artists, editors and theorists to address issues of criticality, memory and performance in architectural documentation. One session will focus on existing practices of writing, editing and photography in the architectural profession. One will deal with concerns and techniques of documentation in theatre and performance studies. Further sessions will introduce the concerns of individual art and architecture practitioners, working across different media.
Contributors:_Session 1:_Professor Iain Borden (Architectural History and Theory, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL)_Dr Robin Wilson (Critic, curator and lecturer on art and architecture)_Isabel Allen (Design Director of Habhousing and former editor of The Architects’ Journal)
Session 2:_Professor Susan Melrose (Performance Arts, Middlesex University)Dr Juliet Rufford (Writer and lecturer on theatre and performance)_Professor Joe Kelleher (Theatre and Performance, Roehampton University)
Session 3:_Sophie Warren and Jonathan Mosley (Artist/architect)_Mike Marshall (Artist)
Session 4:_AMID [Cero 9] (Architects)
This event is free but please RSVP architectural.research@ucl.ac.uk _Rm G02, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Wates House, 22 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0QB

inflating inflatables

2007-11-14T22:17:00.000-08:00

I'm teaching a class this semester at CalArts called UnBuilt and FarOut. We're looking at experiments in architecture over the last fifty years with a particular focus on collaborative architectural practices whose work might have not been built or whose radical ideas functioned as cultural critique. Two weeks ago, after spending a class looking at the work of Ant Farm and discussing some of the more playful aspects of their work, some of my students proposed that we build inflatables. Inspired by their work, we built an inflatable that we could all fit in and it seems that more inflatables will be popping up around CalArts soon.

Learning from wolf

2007-11-13T12:36:00.000-08:00

Last night Wolf Prix of the Austrian architecture firm Coop Himmelb(l)au gave a lecture at Sci-Arc entitled "Learning from Le Corbusier." He began by comparing Le Corbusier favorably to Mies van der Rohe, who he claimed was merely a designer, while the former was a 'sculptor' – therefore an architect. He showed some of Le Corbusier's poetic solutions to technical problems and spoke of the aim of architecture as overcoming gravity. He also evoked another sculptor – Brancusi – whom he claimed worked according to an "open system." Concentrating on the very recently completed headquarters for BMW in Munich, he showed a series of impressive images, the highlight being a four minute stop-motion animation detailing the four year construction process. The ambition on display did not stop with the gravity quote... he also explained how he convinced the board of directors of BMW to approve his design: namely, by claiming he could build something comparable to Acropolis. A national icon for Germany...
The strangest part of the evening was the fact that he took no questions...
I would have like to hear more about his thoughts on the relationship between sculpture and architecture given his seeming preoccupation with the formal language of sculpture. Also, Given that he described the BMW building as a new kind of public space, how does the project implicate and provoke our notions of what is public?

introduction to orange works

2007-11-09T13:08:00.000-08:00

I recently became aware of the work of Brooklyn-based Orange Works. The group produces interventions in public places that play with and destabilize the visual language around construction sites. By re-contextualizing the lexicon of the bureaucratic demarcation of public spaces, Orange Works offers a variety of re-use opportunities in urban settings.

TALES AROUND THE PAVEMENT

2007-11-04T12:08:00.000-08:00

A contemporary art project that takes place in various locations on the streets of Downtown Cairo
5-15 November 2007
In the megalopolis that is present-day Cairo, public space is a scarce resource. 3ARRASIF: TALES AROUND THE PAVEMENT is a contemporary art project exploring Downtown Cairo's existing public spaces where residents are allowed to gather and interact as a site in which the complex relationship between the city's dwellers and its various governing bodies is constantly negotiated and redefined. 8 artists, designers and architects are commissioned to produce new projects through which they subtly disrupt the urban landscape by reinventing some of the guerrilla-style tactics and survival strategies employed by city dwellers on a daily basis in the public sphere.
Curated by Aleya Hamza and Edit Molnar

TALES AROUND THE PAVEMENT (CAIRO UNCLASSIFIED) is a project commissioned by MEETING POINTS 5 (MP5), a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts festival organized by the YOUNG ARAB THEATRE FUND taking place in the Middle East and North Africa in November 2007.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Marwan Fayed
Eklego Design
Mohamed Allam
Malak Helmy and Essam Abdallah
Mahmoud Hamdy
Kareem Lotfy
George Azmy

Weather Report: Art and Climate Change

2007-10-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

SEPTEMBER 14 - DECEMBER 21, 2007 -- "Weather Report: Art and Climate Change" is an exhibition curated by internationally renowned critic, art historian, and writer Lucy R. Lippard held at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. It is presented in collaboration with EcoArts.

This exhibit partners the art and scientific communities to create a visual dialogue surrounding climate change. Historically, visual arts play a central role in attracting, inspiring, educating and motivating audiences. "Weather Report: Art and Climate Change" will exhibit artwork, in the museum and our partnering venues, and in outdoor site specific locations throughout Boulder, that will activate personal and public change.

Our collaborating partner EcoArts is a new effort bringing together scientists, environmentalists, and performing and visual artists - along with producers, presenters, scholars, spiritual leaders, policy makers, educators, businesses, and people from all walks of life - to use the arts to inspire new awareness of, discussion about, and action on environmental issues, with new possibilities for envisioning a sustainable future. Its programming principles are artistic excellence, scientific accuracy, environmental effectiveness, ethical practice, and whenever possible, presenting activities that strive to follow "the middle way" of being either non-partisan or bi-partisan to reach the widest audience possible.

Participating Artists:
Kim Abeles, Lillian Ball, Subhankar Banerjee, Iain Baxter&, Bobbe Besold, Cape Farewell, Mary Ellen Carroll (Precipice Alliance), CLUI (Center for Land Use Interpretation), Brian Collier, Xavier Cortada, Gayle Crites, Agnes Denes, Steven Deo, Rebecca DiDomenico, Future Farmers (Amy Franceschini and Michael Swaine), Bill Gilbert, Isabella Gonzales, Green Fabrication (via Rick Sommerfeld, University of Colorado, College of Architecture and Planning), Newton & Helen Harrison, Judit Hersko, Lynne Hull, Pierre Huyghe, Basia Irland, Patricia Johanson, Chris Jordan, Marguerite Kahrl, Janet Koenig & Greg Sholette, Eve Andree Laramee, Learning Site (Cecilia Wendt and Rikke Luther), Ellen Levy, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Patrick Marold, Natasha Mayers, Jane McMahan, Mary Miss, Joan Myers, Beverly Naidus, Chrissie Orr, Melanie Walker & George Peters, Andrea Polli, Marjetica Potrc, Aviva Rahmani, Rapid Response, Buster Simpson, Kristine Smock, Joel Sternfeld, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Ruth Wallen, Sherry Wiggins, The Yes Men, Shai Zakai

PRIMARY EXHIBITION SITE:
Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
1750 13th Street, Boulder, 80302
bmoca.org
Tuesday?Friday, 11am to 5pm
Saturday during the Boulder County Farmers' Market (through October), 9am to 4pm
Saturday (beginning November), 11am to 5pm
Sunday, 12noon to 3pm

ADDITIONAL INDOOR GALLERY SITES:
Boulder Public Library, 1000 Canyon Blvd.
University of Colorado, Norlin Library Galleries, 1720 Pleasant St.
University of Colorado, ATLAS (exhibit Sept. 13 Oct. 6, 10am to 2pm), 125 Regents Dr.
National Center for Atmospheric Research, (NCAR) Mesa Lab, 1850 Table Mesa Dr.

OUTDOOR SITES:
Boulder Municipal Campus (Along the Boulder Creek to Boulder Public Library)
Boulder Public Library, 1000 Canyon Blvd.
Central Park (park directly west from the museum)
Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut St.
Eben G. Fine Park, 101 Arapahoe Ave.
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Mesa Lab, 1850 Table Mesa Dr.
Twenty Ninth Street (Canyon St. and Broadway)
17th and the Boulder Creek Path

Waiting for Gordon

2007-10-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

the floor is a double floor, a surface upon a surface, a disjointed and amended space, a room within a room, dislocated and relocated, from Antwerp to Los Angeles, from 1975 to 2007, a floor without its building, and yet finding a building here, suggesting a link while skirting the connection, remaining out of bounds, and yet all the more considered, cared for, examined - scrutiny in the cracks, along the floorboards, amidst the dust - a question in the form of a splinter, poetry in the abandoned, the floor is but a piece, ripped off from its origin, torn from the whole and made a part: it plays its part in this performance of spatial imagination, of art historical surveying, a cataloguing and disseminating of floors... This is Gordon's calling card, in the form of a floor, yet one which I do not stand on, but which I stand back from, admire as a bystander, a participant once or twice or three times removed, like a distant cousin arriving too late for the party... It comes in the form of additions and subtractions, of locations and dislocations, of making do and cooking up more, of occupying and being occupied, and it leaves according to surprising exits, through sudden doors and new perspectives, rough edges and cut slivers: the alphabet of the built is given a boost on this floor, arriving at new dance steps that makes every background useful material for transformative constructions.

LA performance/sounding out

2007-10-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

i you us them whose their mine
Brandon LaBelle
Audiometer aka Tommy Grenas / Michael Esther
Friday, October 26, 8:00--10:00 p.m.
Dangerous Curve
500 Molino Street #101
Los Angeles

casting glances at Smithson

2007-10-08T23:54:00.001-07:00

James Benning's new film screened in Los Angeles tonite... it's an elegant, eighty-minute homage to Smithson's Spiral Jetty and takes the form of an extended series of one-minute shots of the jetty filmed over the course of a couple of years. Without presuming to have an easy answer, Benning seems interested in what happens when geologic time meets cinematic time?

Social Action: KunstMarkt

2007-10-08T09:29:00.001-07:00

Kunstmarkt Am Schöpfwerk - Art Market in Vienna: using art to facilitate social exchanges across ethnic and economic lines
Samstag, 20. Oktober 2007, 14.00–19.00
Ort: Stadtteilzentrum Bassena Am Schöpfwerk 29/14, 1120 Wien (U6-Am Schöpfwerk), http://www.bassena.at
TeilnehmerInnen: ANRONVIAGDPIOVSA/2007, Brandon LaBelle, Dominique, GirlsOnHorses, Mai Gogishvilli, René H., Reni Hofmüller, Biggi Holzwarth, kampolerta, Maiken Kloser, KulturDrogerie, Thomas Northoff, Ferry Rodinger, SambAttac, Anna Witt
Kunstmarktspenden: Linda Bilda, Carla Cruz, Veronika Dirnhofer, Hilde Fuchs, Nina Höchtl, LILA, Cornelia Silli, Karin Sulimma, trans/gender, Mounty R. P. Zentara uvm.

Not a Cornfield publication

2007-09-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

A somewhat mysterious package arrived in the mail recently, addressed to someone with a name close to mine if spelled quite creatively. Upon opening the elegant package I discovered a two volume boxed set of books documenting the Lauren Bon-spearheaded Not A Cornfield project, which transformed a historic downtown tract of land in L.A. over the course of a growing cycle from May 2005 - April 2006. The two volumes extend the project in the form of an elaborate archive. One volume consists of images shot over the course of the project documenting the massive effort to turn a brownfield into an earthwork in the form of an agricultural cycle of corn planting and harvest. The aerial photography included in the collection gives a sense of the scale of this monumental project. The slightly thicker second volume is a timeline of the project and a collection of essays that contextualize the site historically and aim to position the artwork culturally. Divided into five sections that mirror the sequence of the project - brown, green, gold, blue and clear - the "text" volume navigates through the complex terrain of an ecologically-minded, politically charged site-based project in an urban context. Of particuar interest are Michael Dear's assessment of the site in the historical (non)memory of the city, Michael Ned Holte's discussion of the work in relation to other site-based projects and especially in relation to Agnes Denes' "Wheatfield: A Confrontation," and Christine Wertheim's response to the charge that the project should not be considered art. Wertheim employs Duchamp to remind us that what constitutes art after modernity is no longer a matter of categorical inclusivity or exclusivity. I think the legacy of Duchamp is an interesting lens through which to view the project, but not in exactly the way Wertheim proposes. The lasting relevance of the Duchampian readymade is the potential for an artistic project (or act or gesture) to point to the context in which we are viewing the work. The fact that Fountain was deemed too offensive for the exhibition to which it was submitted is precisely why the work had resonance. If Not A Cornfield is read in a Duchampian light, it seems less important that we think of the project as art or non-art. Rather we might focus on the context out of which the project emerged. The context of this project proposed innumerable challenges: the logistical dynamics of a project of this scale, negotiations with the city, relations with a community of activists who worked for years to get the site designated as park land, the inevitable class and racial questions that emerge when doing public projects in an urban context, and the fact that the artist is a trustee to the Annenberg Foundation. This last challenge, which Bon herself reckons with in a forthright manner in the publication, is perhaps the most curious. It is not very often that we are forced to consider the challenges of an artist who, with the help of her family foundation, can receive funding in the millions of dollars to produce a civic-minded public project. While the fact that she herself is a trustee on the board of the foundation funding the project does not diminish the project, it gives the project a very specific valence. The discussion of the question of art or non-art might be more productively directed towards this unique set of circumstances and the very particular challenges that accompany this arrangement. That is to say, the question "Can we consider a corn field art?" is less interesting than "How is this project possible here and now?" Personally, I think one of the ways for Bon to confront the challenge of her position with the foundation would have been to refuse to take authorial credit for the project. This would have allowed the project to question the relation between artistic production and authorial subjectivity.
One of the most interesting aspects of Not a Cornfield was the vast and disparate groups that Bon brought together through a programming series at the site during the run of the project. I remember an evening watching films organized by the Echo Park Film Center and then dancing to cumbias by Very Be Careful amisdt corn stalks and stunning downtown views. Maybe Bon's strength as an artist has more in common with Warhol than Duchamp: She seems to be a master at bringing interesting people together to work on a project that bears her name. Although when I asked her, at one of the symposia at the edge of the cornfield, if she felt an affinity for Warhol during the Factory years, she seemed less than pleased.

notacornfielddotcom/
farmlabdotorg/

Rakett & the open archive

2007-09-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

The Curating Degree Zero Archive arrives in Bergen, Norway. Housed in a truck developed by the organization Rakett, the archive presents books, videos, documents and other materials related to public art and critical art practices. During the next few weeks it will be parked in various locations in the city of Bergen, positioning the truck and archive to converse with given historical locations in the city. Screenings of selected videoworks and artists presentations will also take place in the truck, along with cooking actions. More information: http://www.rakett.biz/

Archinect interviews Nils Norman

2007-09-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across this interview today and it seems to illuminate some of the challenges of working between art, architecture and urban design.

Just Spaces at LACE

2007-09-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

Just Space(s)
September 26 – November 18, 2007
LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)
Organized by Ava Bromberg and Nicholas Brown
justspacesdotorg

OPENING RECEPTION: Wednesday, September 26, 7-9pm

======

/// INTRODUCTION ///

Everyday we confront spaces that don't work - from our neighborhoods and parks, to our prisons, pipelines and borders. In this exhibition and programming series, artists, scholars and activists reveal how these spaces function - and dysfunction - making way for thought and action to create just societies and spaces.

The projects in this exhibition reflect the renewed recognition that space matters to cutting edge activist practices and to artists and scholars whose work pursues similar goals of social justice. A spatial frame offers new insights into understanding not only how injustices are produced, but also how spatial consciousness can advance the pursuit of social justice, informing concrete claims and the practices that make these claims visible. Understanding that space - like justice - is never simply handed out or given, that both are socially produced, differentiated, experienced and contested on constantly shifting social, political, economic, and geographical terrains, means that justice - if it is to be concretely achieved, experienced, and reproduced - must be engaged on spatial as well as social terms.

By transforming LACE, in part, into an active learning environment, Just Space(s) seeks to provide visitors with tools to consider alternatives to reactionary and essentializing political discourse that tends to dominate and frame our conceptions of justice - and constrain our abilities to imagine and implement it. The exhibition presents some of the most innovative and efficacious contemporary artistic, activist, and scholarly work engaging social and spatial analyses. In addition, a library/infoshop and symposia and event series extend the scope and scale of the main exhibition. Taken in whole or in part, Just Space(s) aims not merely to show what is unjust about our world, but to inspire visitors to consider what the active production of just space(s) might look like. It asks a crucial question: How do we move from injustice to justice exactly where we stand - in our neighborhoods and our institutions, at the level of the body, the home, the street corner, the city, the region, the network, the supranational trade agreement and every space within, between, and beyond? While much theorizing about - and active experimentation with - the role and potential of a spatial justice framework remains undone, this exhibition and its public programming contribute to the articulation of a powerful concept/tool that links critical theory and ethical practice.

justspacesdotorg

Experiments in vocal poet3

2007-09-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

Selected by a city council grant program of the current year,
it will take place in Rio de Janeiro (MAC - Niterói) and Curiti-
ba, dates to be confirmed, as an alive event, action props in
the domain of sound art that is besides many other (re)sour-
ces planning to launch the concept of mpoet3, phonetic transmissions with the use of tools ranging from simple microphones to the almighty presence of the microship, as well as sound systems of different kinds, embodying to the verbivoco utterings new audiopossibilities of understanding media. Live broadcasting antipogroms programs will be held in the presentation of the various participants, with an accent in the particular investigation character of their propositions. Achievements as radioart, sound poetry, phantastic sound architectures, visual sonority, nonsensical emissions, etc.will be played along the activities, but the very concern/contend is to what extend this supports can modify the perceptions in sinergetic proceedings.
This apparently exquisite scenary will be, of course, occupied mostly by cultural producers and searchers of the two involved brazilian centers, but also by special guests from abroad that have been doing expressive interferences in the use of really innovative and throbbing action strategies.

Alex Hamburger

more at http://poeticasexperimentaisdavoz.wordpress.com/