Archive for the ‘local’ Category
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
NY Designs and Length x Width x Height are two LIC-based design firms housed in the former IDCNY building at the foot of Queens Boulevard and down the block from LaGuardia Community College. NY Designs focus on uplifting new small businesses who have an emphasis on design and technology – and they basically provide a giant co-working floor for business to interact with each other and cross-pollinate activities and ideas; LxWxH are helping establish a general membership fabrication shop (from chopsaws and table saws to laser cutters and CAD software). Both things that really help establish Long Island City as an incubator of creative design and production. But it could be better!
stiles are having a social media competition to give away a Weeke Vantech CNC router – and NY Designs are in the running! (that dog is the secret weapon!)
To help their chances of entering the Final Round of the competition, just click below to view the original video and hit that “LIKE” button below the video! And see some of the people and projects you’ll be helping support if they win this thing!
here’s a link to more info on the contest
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
So here’s the skimmy. The World’s Largest DIY Event needs some DIY assistance to help spread the word. NYC is made up of five boroughs, each of which are cities in their own right. We have a lot of territory to cover! You help us with a couple minutes of your time, by going to the places you already go and dropping off some postcards and putting up some posters, and we’ll reward you with two adult single-day passes, a $50 value. Want more tickets? Just tell us what you’re willing to do, what neighborhoods and sites you’ll cover, and we’ll work something out!
It’s easy. We will send you a packet of 25 flyers and 200 postcards and you go to all the places you already go (maybe a few more) and pin or tape a flyer on a bulletin board or in a window and a small stack of postcards on the front counter. Of course you will need to ask permission first! Then in a few of the places snap a picture for us and when your done send us a few so we can see the great work you have done.
When your done let us know and we will send you two Adult tickets to World Maker Faire. You won’t have to wait in line for your tickets, save a little cash and you will have helped us spread the word about this great event within your community.
Here are some great places to consider:
Bookstores
Colleges
Coffee shops
Cafes
Toy Stores
Hobby Shops
Craft Stores
Restaurants
Scrap Stores
Community Centers
Hacker Spaces
Tech Shops
After School Programs
Garden Centers
Thrift/Vintage Stores
1)To join, email us your name, address and phone as well as the area you’ll be covering to: streetteam@makerfaire.com
2) We’re looking specifically to cover the following neighborhoods. Have another place in mind? Email us!
Neighborhoods to cover:
Park Slope
Gowanus
Sunset Park
Ditmas Park
Kensington
Williamsburg
Bushwick
Greenpoint
NYU
Parsons/New School
Hunter
SVA
Columbia
Pratt
East Village/Lower East Side
Long Island City
Sunnyside/Jackson Heights
Astoria
Ft. Greene
Navy Yard
Jersey City
Hoboken
While you’re out:
1) Snap and send us 3 pictures of locations you have placed World Maker Faire flyers and/or postcards. We’ll post ‘em up here!
2) Please don’t post flyers/postcards at any location w/o asking permission or if not permissible
3) Please don’t post flyers/postcards all in one place. We are trusting that you will be a good World Maker Faire street team member and will spread these materials out throughout your community 
source photo from Free Williamsburg
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
The Color Wheelz in Long Island City project was a resounding success! We made around 15-20 new installations in and on the Color Wheelz van, and talked with another 50-60 people passing by, visiting the neighborhood, taking a daily constitutional, or otherwise enjoying a really lovely day in Queens!
painted linoleum arrows lead pedestrians passing through the nearby intersection to the van; I also installed some triangles across the street to get people to glance eastward and see our activity
artist Julia Vallera talking with passers-by, describing the project, talking about Flux Factory, notions of neighborhood and community, color, and participatory art
a wonderful shot of the Manhattan skyline from 45 Road and 21 Street in LIC – that building tip is the Chrysler Building, and that van is the Color Wheelz!
the Bigger Bird public sculpture (yellow thing), the Citi building, and the Color Wheelz van parked on 45 Road
[full photo set on my Flickr]
Saturday, August 14th, 2010
Flux Factory is a not-for-profit arts organization supporting innovation in things. Until November of 2008 we were located on 43rd Street near Northern Boulevard, in an industrial wasteland – surrounded by warehouses and bordered by the edge of the Sunnyside Yards. After our eviction by the MTA to pursue development on the East Side Access project, we spent some time in limbo before eventually relocating to the Dutch Kills sub-neighborhood of LIC, on 29 Street just north of Queens Plaza. Both of our facilities were located in LIC, yet the two are worlds apart in terms of operation and our interaction with the surrounding community. We’re learning there’s still lots to learn from LIC!
Inviting artist Julia Vallera and her Color Wheelz project to Long Island City is part of that learning process, an investment back into our community and an exploration of identity of the surrounding neighborhood at large. LIC is a very large neighborhood! Like the Queens borough, LIC is extremely diverse and is not typified by any one singular identity, ethnic group, language or architecture.
The John F. Murray Playground presented itself as an ideal location for this exploration and understanding because of its location and relationship to other spaces: it is equidistant between the Pulaski and Queensboro bridges – structures that lead to other boroughs and worlds unto their own; it is sandwiched between an Avenue and a Road, and between two Streets that are somehow numerically 10 streets apart, typical of the street-ordering system of this borough; on one side of the park one is greeted with incredible skyline-views of Manhattan, on the other the irony of the tallest building in NYC outside of Manhattan all by its lonesome surrounded by much lower mixed-use neighborhoods.
The Playground itself also includes a little bit of everything: a dog run, handball and basketball courts, public art (Bigger Bird), game tables, sitting areas, a ballfield and playgrounds for children of all ages. It is my hope that the Color Wheelz van will allow all who interact with it to explore and express their relationship to this playground, to the surrounding neighborhood, to our wonderful city within a city!
Nick Normal for Flux Factory
http://fluxfactory.org/
Julia Vallera and Color Wheelz:
http://www.juliavallera.com/
http://coloriumlaboratorium.com/
this text will be made available at the project site as a trifold – download PDF
Monday, August 9th, 2010
It’s my pleasure to bring Julia Vallera’s project, the Color Wheelz, to Long Island City this weekend. I first met Julia about 4 months back and pitched her the idea, because I saw it as something to help me understand LIC and what this neighborhood means to its inhabitants – which I’m curious to know what they think! We’ll be parked at the Thomas Murray Playground, which I feel is a quintessential NYC park and playground: very urban (basketball and handball courts), very lively (its always occupied), ideally located (just blocks from PS1 and near all the major Western Queens subways, its sandwiched between two main roads, 21st and 11th Streets).
MAP | TWITTER | PROJECT BLOG | JULIA’S WEBSITE
Color Wheelz is designed to transform a 1997 Ford van into a traveling, participatory installation. This van travels through the five boroughs of NYC filled with playful activities, which facilitate exploration into how color relates to community . Visitors at each destination adapt the inside and outside of the van using an array of color related items. These items include glowing neon wire, cling paper, velcro shapes, magnets and fabric. Visitors may turn on neon wire, cut shapes out of cling paper, apply velcro to the seats and walls and/or choose from an assortment of colorful fabrics to cover the interior. They consider the color of objects that surround them, such as buildings, people, clothes, food and nature. These observations inspire color patterns and designs that represent the current environment. Visitors of all ages are welcome and encouraged to create things they never thought they would or never thought they could. Every visitor’s unique color story is archived and supplimented with their personal audio recording or a written record. Meet us at one of our locations to participate in this funfilled exploration and be sure let us know how you think color relates to culture, communication and perception.
