The mailer doesn’t specify but the Color Wheelz collabo is curated by moi! I met Julia Vallera about 3-4 months back and thought her project would be a great way to “craft” Long Island City, and for its inhabitants – of which I am one – to better understand our dynamic city-town.

…

This month:

Going Places (Doing Stuff) III
Flux Thursday
#24hCycle
Color Wheelz
Room I + Room II
2009 SP Weather Reports

Going Places (Doing Stuff) III

You get on a bus, you don’t know where you’re going, and then something happens!

You’ve probably heard about our amazing bus tours. If you haven’t, click here to learn more! We have four more tours coming up this summer:

August 7 Josh Bernstein, Moses Gates, Matt Levy & Moira Williams: Wild Tilly’s Circus Story
August 14 David Horvitz: 500 Golden Buddhas and the Speed of Water
August 21 Marie Lorenz: Ghost Ships of the Kills
August 28 Margaret Coleman: Demonstrations of Aptitude

Going Places (Doing Stuff) III is made possible in part through support from the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Carnegie Corporation, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Flux Thursday!

Join us on August 12 for this month’s Flux Thursday, our monthly potluck and salon. Dinner starts at 8 pm, with presentations to follow. Resident artist Sarah Tosques will present work from Iceland and New York, and Man Bartlett will be talking about his recent and upcoming performance art. We’ll be there – will you?

Man Bartlett: #24hCycle

Friday – Saturday, August 13-14, 8pm – 8pm
Flux Factory Gallery

What do the news and laundry have in common? Probably nothing! But we’ll be tasked to see how the two play together… over the course of 24 hours in August.

#24hCycle is envisioned as an absurdist summer party, a communal laundry washing experience, and a reading/discussion of the most up to the second news. It’s an excuse to do laundry. An opportunity to become sickly saturated in the news. Laundry will be aired and hung to dry, accumulating in the gallery space around us. Arguments will be lost and won. Our comforts may be met with discomforts, and vice versa. Our private articles of clothing will be made public, and public news articles will be made personal.

You may also bring clothing that you’d like to get rid of; the artist will be donating it to a local organization in need. Some refreshments/libations will be provided, but you’re encouraged to BYO: laundry, laptop, beverages.

For those who cannot be there in person, a live feed will be streamed, and developing interactions will be encouraged online at manbartlett.com/24hCycle.

Flux Factory artist-in-residence Man Bartlett creates performance-based works that take one task to the extreme for an extended period of time, while encouraging dynamic physical and virtual participation. These performances have taken place in diverse locations, such as a Best Buy, Winkleman Gallery, a former factory building in New Jersey, PPOW Gallery, and the Whitney Museum.

Color Wheelz

Saturday, August 14, 11am – 5pm

Flux Factory, in collaboration with artist Julia Vallera (MFA Parsons), would like to present Long Island City with Julia’s Color Wheelz project. 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.

The Color Wheelz van will be parked at the John F. Murray Playground on 21 Street between 45 Ave and 45 Road (map) on Saturday August 14th from 11am to 5pm – JOIN US as we visually craft Long Island City!

Room I + Room II

August 27 – September 6
Opening and performances Friday, August 27, 6-9 pm

Flux artists-in-residence Astrid Bussink, Kate Shaw, and Sarah Tosques are collaborating for an end-of-residency exhibition, showing new works including videos, performances, installation, photos and painting.

Room I

Still from The Art of Crocheting, by Astrid Bussink and Sarah Tosques

Astrid Bussink, a Dutch artist and documentary filmmaker, and Sarah Tosques, a visual artist and educator from Montreal, have collaborated to create a video installation and performance called “The Art of Crocheting.” A decade apart in age, they examine shared concerns as artists and individuals, personal pursuits, dreams and their effects. Astrid Bussink will also be presenting part of an on-going project called Constructions of Happiness.

Room II

Kate Shaw is an Australian painter that cheats on the medium with collage. A new series of her layered, brightly colored, marbled landscape paintings will be premiered at Flux Factory! The exhibition contains paintings, artist’s books, and video inspired by a recent road trip through the southwest and looking at how different cultures intervene with and interpret nature. Other work takes inspiration from an man-made mountain built from adobe (hay and mud) illustrating bible stories, rock shops in Utah, and mountains named after Biblical subjects.

Portfolio Launch: 2009 SP Weather Reports

Sunday, August 22, 4pm

The artist-run SP Weather Station, currently based on the roof of Flux Factory, invites you to a release party for its 2009 Weather Report portfolios. Each portfolio in the edition of 30 contains 12 works produced by 12 different artists who were invited to respond to any aspect of one month of SP Weather Station data in any format they desired. Works from the portfolio, including audio, books, drawings, and prints, will be on display in the gallery; the portfolio will also be for sale.

Participating artists include: (January) Mike Estabrook and Vandana Jain; (February) Susan Goethel Campbell; (March) Emily Larned; (April) Luke Strosnider; (May) Andrea Polli; (June) Mark Nystrom; (July) Patricia Zarate; (August) Jane D. Marsching; (September) Stephanie Rothenberg; (October) Graham Parker; (November) Isaac Gertman; (December) Birgit Rathsmann.

SP Weather Station is an interdisciplinary project that collects weather data, hosts a guest lecture series, and organizes weather-related publications, events, and exhibitions.

For more information, please click here.

Flux Factory is an artist-run not-for-profit organization that provides residencies and work spaces for 14 artists and organizes group exhibits in-house and worldwide as an arts collective. The premises include a gallery, a coworking office, a screen printing lab, and a wood shop. It also has a shared kitchen, library, and lots of great people. Residents benefit from an engaged and creative community, studio visits, monthly art salons, and exposure to a large community of creative collaborators who both maintain personal practices and also develop projects together. All residents have a voice in planning programming and sustaining the organization as a whole.

We’re looking for an artist, community member, and friend who enjoys being part of a wonderful and active social milieu, and has a willingness to work collaboratively and/or socially.

Applications are due on August 1st.

All rooms have big windows and range from $550-700 per month plus utilities. Square footages range from 120-207. Residents must find their own funding for their residency.

Apply here.

It only happens once a month, and its more popular than auto-tune songs in the Top 10.

It’s Flux Thursday @ Flux Factory, your and my favorite non-profit arts space in Western Queens (DEFEND IT!). Don’t get the jest of my jibe? Is that even a word?

Either way there’s only one way to find out: c’mon down! There’ll be a meal (hopefully HOT with this textbook Spring weather) but it’s also a potluck, so bring something for your fellow punters. They’ll appreciate it. And there’ll be some art, maybe some theatre, and if you have works-in-progress yourself and want to show-and-tell, now’s your opportunity! See you there.

This is a little late, but not really. Flux Factory finally started its first Kickstarter campaign with a drive to purchase and install a new heating system (unit, ducting, labor) for our remodeled facility in Long Island City’s Dutch Kills neighborhood.

We’re only two weeks shy of the arrival of Spring, so we’re definitely through the thick of Winter, but this campaign is still as valid as ever. Oddly enough on the day we made this film it was also warm outside, but there were definitely days where everybody was wearing 3, 4, 5 layers in order to stay toasty. Plenty of times my sock-layer scene was lived out. Or hot water became super-chilled in minutes. It wasn’t always very pleasant. We survived – clearly – but the building still needs work, adjustments and improvements. So help us raise the money we need by pledging. With Kickstarter, your money is only pledged if we meet our target goal of $5000 – and our thinking is that if everybody we know gave us $1 we should be good (yes, we know mad numbers of peoples!).

CLICK HERE TO PLEDGE $ WITH KICKSTARTER

scroll down to watch the incredibly awesome and hilarious video made by Gregg Conde and Jaime Iglehart – big ups to them for their hard work on this project.

CLICK HERE TO PLEDGE $ WITH KICKSTARTER

The boat party was a smashing success.

Thanks to me.

Nah I’m kidding y’all were great, everybody who performed or had some act were great. The crowd was great (except for the few who never tipped – I will remember you!). The Bushwick B.oat crew were great (always are). It was great.

Below is a quick slideshow of images from the evening. Unfortunately contrary to my usual mass-snapping of images, I wasn’t able to actually document the event’s spectacle because I was busy working…

And best of all the event was a success for Flux Factory and will help us sustain and survive for a couple more months in this dire economy as we are still learning to tie our metaphorical shoes (i.e. new building: install plumbing, get electricity working, put doors on rooms, buy food, etc.). Life is good:

I’ll be bartending, so bring tips and stimulate my personal economy!

(also this weekend be on the lookout for Mucca Pazza who will be playing at the Knitting Factory (Brooklyn) and the Mercury Lounge (Manhattan))

With the Flux Factory’s recent eviction, starting in early October, I completely boxed up my life and put everything I own into storage, in a shed at an undisclosed location in New Jersey. To be honest even I don’t know the location of said shed; but I would like to incredibly thank my friend Angie for her assistance with my upheaval. I haven’t produced a piece of art in over two months due to the eviction, and I’ve had to spend most of my time consolidating my life, including throwing away a fair number of tools, clothing, raw materials, incomplete artworks, etc. A fitting end to life at Flux Factory.

The month of October also saw me quit my job of 3 years, as I had to make a decision, to continue with life in NYC would require my income and creative control to move up or move on. I made my decision.

This decision was encouraged by some recent family health and grievance issues, which being in NYC I had no control over to either guide or invigorate. Also made problematic that my job didn’t give me much flexibility in terms of vacation, travel for health, time off, etc.

Knowing an eviction was imminent, and my employment would end concurrently, I’ve decided to go nomadic. I’m blogging from a cafe in Flatbush, Brooklyn, currently homeless and crashing on couches throughout the borough. At the end of this calendar week I’ll be travelling by train to my hometown of St. Louis, which I haven’t visited in over two years now (see this link).

But I’m by no means complaining. I’m loving these weeks, these moments with friends, the way in which one survives on coffee.

I’ll go back to about mid-October, when I took a trip upstate to the Farm, and spent some time with the frost, the leaves, and some new family including Pepper and some chickens Americano:

A sign of things to come, the end of Flux Factory’s residence-arm really began with Ian’s departure. He’s on a BMW motorcycle now, somewhere in Georgia or Florida (don’t worry he cast his absentee ballot!) en route out West:

With Ian’s departure, I also become the most-senior member at the Factory. This, I actually didn’t realize until nearly a week after Ian left and someone else pointed this out to me.

Even with an eviction pending, the Flux Factory staff continued to work hard, planning for our final ever party:

Chen works, sans desk, surrounded by boxes and piles of crap:

I love the doors ajar, the box that can’t close, the ad on the floor, the blue fork. Just throw it all away already!

Flux Factory knows how to make trash. We went from this:

To this, on numerous ocassions:

At the same time, we know how to turn a shitty DJ booth:

into a most-awesome DJ booth for one of the most-awesome parties ever:

The Flux Factory’s final party, the End of the End of the End (To Be Continued…) was definitely most-awesome. Props to Shalin for organizing over 50 performances for the evening. Although the true success of any party is when your six – yes, six – kegs run dry and you need a 2am beer run:

Me and Tyler at the Pathmark at 2am.

Flux Factory knows how to party:

White Limo gave a smashing closing performance:

are those Ironclad’s he’s wearing?

Unfortunately our partytude nearly made Seb cry:

and put Daupo to sleep:

it’s a shame I didn’t make a video, but the soundsystem was bumping at this moment.

And my costume, no doubt, was a hit:

me sitting on a couch-costume.

What will come of Flux Factory now? There’s a thought:

So starting this Sunday I’m on the road. Going to St. Louis via DC and Chicago on Amtrak. I’ll be in the Midwest by early next week for at least a month, if not two. My Flux Factory address is dead. Long live Flux Factory.

I’ll be around. My wifi is about to expire. Gotta press publish.

plain and simple, Flux Factory – the non-profit doing innovations in things I’ve long been associated with during my NYC tenure – is coming to an end. The building we’ve occupied for the past six years and the space I’ve lived in for over three is being claimed by the city’s transportation network, the MTA, via eminent domain, to make way for the East Side Access Project.

That’s the major reason I haven’t been posting as proficiently as I used to, as I’ve been busy packing up and preparing to depart the city for two months while I re-align my life and my priorities.

But the most-pressing priority really is this Thursday, two days from now. Flux Factory will be hosting our last-ever party at the current 38-38 43rd Street space in Long Island City. The party will be a performance-blowout, featuring more than five-dozen acts, performers, bands, DJs, happenings, stages, presentations, screenings, talks, poetry slams, etc. It’s chock frickin’ full. The night will breakdown something like so:

Potluck begins at 6pm.
DJs and party begins at 8pm.
Performers begin at 10pm and run until 2-3am.
Party keeps going until 4-6am.
Then we sweep and clean up and the following morning hand the keys over to the Man. seriously.

The evening will include the following performers:

Abigail Ohlheiser presents “Come Get Washed in the Blood”
A drag king and a puppet show
Andy Gilliss
Bright Mares
Brooke McGowen’s “Action for Iraq”
Campfire Stories
Carlos Rigau
Cathy
Cave Bears
Caylie Staples
Children of Terminator X
D.A. Meeks
David Felix Sutcliffe presents “There’s a Gerbil in my Asshole”
The Danger presents “In the Wake of the Serpent’s Tattoo”
Ducktails
Flux Factory Fashion Show
F/M presents “Drone to Dance”
The Genderless Siblings from Yellow Bizarre
Greg and Ted’s Satisfaction Factory
Golden Times / Giggle Town
The Hemlock Society
The Heuristic MC
Igor and Tony Have a Spat
Jeremy Chance
Jeremy Williss
Kate Ferencz
Kitlace/The Stink
Konnichiwa
Lady Firefly feat Wolfgang von Stuermer
Lily Maase
Manburger Surgical Presents “The Final Incompetancy”
Mary Ivy Martin’s “Communidate”
Miss Scarlett
No Sound
The NYC Minutes Confessional Booth
The Oracle of Random Quotes
Peter Bonos
Poetix on Da Rox
The Play Party
Rosa Rugosa
The Spirit of a Century (Junk or chains pressure neglects Rogers-in-cranks) GET LOST
SURPRISE!!!
Soul 45′s from Jonathan Toubin of New York Night Train productions
Taliesin
Tarot
Ted Lee
The Mob
Tiger Mouth, Timothy Hospodar and 0H10M1KE present “Omnium-Gathera”
Unicornholio featuring Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria + Marie Losier
Bernard Losier (dad) and Coco (his wife)
Vardi plays Skyboxx feat. Anne Herzog
The Venn Diagrams
White Limo
The Wonderland Collective
Zebu
Zenith Foundation
and Zuvuya Collective presents “Twilight” and “Ladies Room”

HOLY SHIT that’s a lot of entertainment for one night! It’s $10 to get in, oh, and it’s a HALLOWEEN DANCE PARTY! the Hunter College MFA program are helping us decorate. This is the party you don’t want to miss!

get directions from the Flux Factory website.

Still, an article on artnet mentioning my work is something to rave about, no? More important than my mention in the article, it is really just a fine piece of writing by Ben Davis and I think really does justice to the Flux Factory living-collaborative environment, and understands the space quite well (while the following quote might be seen as a smack on the face, I think it more a really really fair assessment):

I haven’t always loved everything they’ve done; sometimes it has seemed too precious, or only partially thought through.

But read the article for yourself. Like I say it’s lovely, well-written, good images, and I’m thankful.

(this makes me think I need a ‘press’ type of section. Actually I need to re-think the whole frickin’ scheme around here! Bleh – blooooooooogs!)

this was how Melody got introduced to Brian. and yes, this is standard kitchen activity.

I was probably already thinking about public kiosks regarding my recent post because at it turns out I took this sequence of photos the day before I posted about those kiosks, this from Herald Square late at night, which employs lenticular photography to animate an otherwise static advertisement:

hardware geek pdf:

Download the Control Valve Handbook – everything you’d ever want to know about control valve mechanisms! 297pp, just over 3Mb!

NYNYNY aftermath:

the show I was just in at Flux Factory printed a gorgeous catalogue for the show. it’s 108pp, full-color, about 8″x8″. a photo of mine made the inside cover adjacent to the description text about Flux Factory:

maybe someday it’ll actually be for sale on their website? for now shoot me an email or leave a comment if you’re interested in one. they’re $30, all proceeds go to fixing our lack of hot water in January.

my home critical:

speaking of Flux Factory, it’s officially a ‘museum’

douche of the year (and its only January), Cory the Legend:

I know people from Melbourne, I know people IN Melbourne. I’ll go there someday, maybe sooner than I know. Is this what I have to look forward to?

moron.

The list includes my eventual house-move – Art Collective Flux Factory Threatened with Kick-out by MTA – as brought upon us by NYC’s governing transportation body the MTA, which recently bought the land we reside on and if push comes to shove could employ eminent domain to evict us.

Of course, the results are skewed. I cannot believe the recent murder in Forest Hills is less worse than me having to relocate – no one’s life is worth so little. However I do believe our situation is more important than the Mets collapse in September – I mean, any team that bad, who lose 12 of their last 17 when you only need one more to clinch, cmon!

Also be sure to vote for the Best of Queens!

On a side-note, I find it interesting that Forest Hills appears in both polls, as people who know me know of my fondness for Forest Hills, not only because it’s the home of Peter Parker but also because it’s one of the few places in the five boroughs where I consider one could actually live post-loft-style-artist-living and raise a family and have an actual house to call home, which even anarcho-syndicalist punk rockers like myself sometimes desire. It’s true.

NYNYNY opens tomorrow evening at Flux Factory‘s HQ in Queens. While I’m not an artist in the gallery space, I am preparing a projection on window that will be screened for the opening only. This is actually a test run for a larger and longer work for sometime next year, but is complete and on its own by other measures. The work is back-projected onto a window, so a viewer standing in front will not cast their shadow but rather watch the skyline as seen from our roof, as it dissolves into itself over a near-three year timelapse – from an archive of photos I have been taking for that time, collecting shots at different intervals of the day and through the diverse seasons and weather that NYC receives.

The video to be screened tomorrow is 90 minutes, looped. Yes, I did say I plan for a longer work sometime next year!

Duration is key to this work. Each image will last for some time, as do the dissolves happen slowly, patiently. Is that skyline coming or going? Even the hard edge of our skyline is temporal, ethereal – nothing lasts forever!

Sample video below. 9 minutes 50 seconds from 90 minute work.

Family. Lots of family. The Tofurky was delicious! (and my cheeseball was a big hit – all gone, all 4 pounds of it!)

excerpt from Terrifying Girls’ High School:

IMDB link to film

the World Famous Bob:

Bob’s MySpace profile

ADMISSION IS FREE

complete details and schedule and directions on Flux Factory website

in keeping with the Flux Factory event re-blogging theme this week, tonight opens up the first (of 2? it’s so secret I don’t even know!) installment of Secret Clubhouse, albeit the second clubhouse, that is, #2. So it’s the second clubhouse but the first opening. and it’s no longer a secret. except for the first clubhouse, which is still a secret and isn’t opening. which is why it’s #1. eh? okay here are the details:

Secret Clubhouse #2
DATE: Friday, October 19th, 6:00pm
PLACE: LMCC, 125 Maiden Lane, NYC, NY 10038
ADMISSION: Freesecretclubhouse.jpg

The artists in Secret Clubhouse #2 received a key to the LMCC space at 125 Maiden Lane. They alone listened to the phone messages from Secret Clubhouse #1 but never went to that space. Listening to the messages, they created graphical representations of and responses to the descriptions they heard. The events at Secret Clubhouse #1 were thus translated through verbal descriptions to the artists at Secret Clubhouse #2 and now take on a second life on the walls of 125 Maiden Lane. Including works from: Sarah Glidden, Andrea Dezsö, Daupo, David Sandlin, Eun-Ha Paek, Lauren Berke, Fay Ryu

this month’s event should be quite big, and special. There are a good number of folk coming over from other organizations, says the press release:

Arrivals, Departures & Transits, an artist salon at
the Flux Factory @ 8pm on Thursday, Oct 18 featuring:

Ariel Fernandez / Cuba: Havana-born Ariel Fernandez
aka Asho is a Hip Hop historian, journalist, essayist
and event organizer. Ariel has distinguished himself
as a leader and advocate of Cuban youth culture and
social-cultural movements.

Samten Dakpa / Tibet (www.samdak.com/)
Delphine Diallo / France (www.delphinediallo.com)
Katherine Dolgy Ludwig / Canada
(www.katherinedolgyludwig.com/)

Video art by Harout Simonian / Armenia
–
freeDimensional organizes community arts space and
local resources for the support and protection of
individuals who create dialogue on global issues and
inequalities through their art and media.

and of course I’ll be there, so don’t miss this chance of your lifetime!

google map linkage

every Wednesday next month will feature some select movies screened out at Flux Factory, likely in our Lounge (I don’t suspect the weather will stay nice for the Roof), as part of my roomie François’ programme Fat Lipstick. here’s what he has to say:

Here’s the guideline for this one-month long film program: bad taste, saturated levels of color, heavy make-up, cartoonish characters, theatrical violence, domineeringly psychosexual women, larger than life pop art settings, & a healthy disregard for all forms of authority: religious/moral, legal, political, and last but not least, the authority of the established aesthetic tradition! And yes, you can bring your mum: there’ll be make-up for everyone!

I’ll put up reminder posts with more specific info as each event nears but if you want to pencil these in your books now, here’s what will be featured:

Wed. Nov. 7, 2007 at 9pm

Terrifying Girls’ High School: Lynch Law Classroom (1973) by Norifumi Suzuki

Wed. Nov. 14, 07 at 9pm

Female Trouble (1974) by John Waters, Pope of Trash & Prince of Puke

Wed. Nov. 21, 2007 at 9pm

Andy Warhol’s Bad (1977)

Wed. Nov. 28, 2007 at 9pm
Double “Fat” Features Night

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) by The Fellini of the sex-industry Russ Meyer

Show Girls (1995) by Paul Verhoeven Worst Director and Worst Picture of The 16th Annual RAZZIE Awards

I’ll be absent from the first screening unfortunately because I will be attending (as in, working) that month’s dorkbot-nyc meeting, but will hopefully be available for all the other screenings. especially looking forward to the closing night double-feature; I’ve never seen Show Girls but it sounds so good by how terrible everybody says it is, and as for Ultravixens, it’s Meyer at his finest and anything with Kitten Natividad is bound to titillate! Especially with François and company!

opening tonight at the Flux Factory

[photoshoot on Flickr]

In no particular order:

Queens, the Blackout, the Sunnyside Gate

I took this photo a year ago today. It was the 2006 Queens Blackout [Gothamist article from same day].

[full-res image on Flickr]

I still have the NYTimes article from that weekend laying around. The Blackout (capital B) eventually went for a full 10 days, service in my home didn’t get partially restored until the ninth. I still think about the Blackout a lot, mostly for how it drove people out of their homes – at a certain point it was cooler outside in the shade than trapped in your brick-oven apartment – and the number of conversations that took place on the streets that wouldn’t have happened otherwise; how people on Steinway Street watched the ConEd workers pace back and forth in their trenches, scratching their heads; how much equipment surfaced that I had never seen before, boxes with weird appendages, trucks with huge hoses, and how now a lot of that hardware seems common (did the Blackout allow for bigspending?).

The Blackout was also the first time I became intimately engaged with the Sunnyside Gate, or arch. The gate, an 80s art deco style entrance to the heart of Sunnyside, has been in disrepair for some time. During the Blackout I was moved by the ConEd worker moving below it, the entrance blocked off by his truck, manhole and orange barrier ribbon, the irony of him navigating subterranean networks trying to fix a grid in the shadow of something that hadn’t worked in years. As ugly as the gate may be, I understood its silent beauty and wished for it to be lit up, like a beacon.

To this day I continue looking at the gate, and will routinely take the 7 train another stop out just to get another look, take another photo, watch the scene as people pass around, under and through this defunct, monolithic, pitiful structure.

Then the Queens Crapper recently highlighted that indeed money has been reserved for improving the gate, although it hasn’t exactly been well-managed.

Baseball

Earlier this week I caught another game at The Stadium, this time to watch the Yankees take on the Toronto Blue Jays. A friend’s little brother has season tickets and he couldn’t go, so my friend offered to go with me. She once bragged that her father has behind-dugout season tickets, and while I thought if her brother had anything comparable that would be great, as it’s a game of baseball I’ll go no matter what. As it would turn out, these aren’t your father’s behind-dugout tickets:

(the transition from day to night during the course of the game is something I love about evening games, the field flickers and changes right in front of you)

Still, way more exciting than the previous game I went to at Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox, where I spent as much time fearing for my life as I did watching the game! For this game though the Jays put up a good fight and at times shut the crowd up with their game, but when it mattered it mattered and I still suspect it was the cheering and overwhelming noise of the crowd which in the bottom of the ninth made the Toronto pitcher accidentally balk in the tying run, eventually going extra innings which the Yankees won with a walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th from Robinson Cano to score Alex Rodriguez from second base. Pretty spectacular.

We celebrated with a ceremonial peanut smashing:

Hungary – Emergency!

A couple days ago I heard that it was hot in Hungary, like reeeeal hot. Hot enough to be classified a stay-in-your-homes heat wave. Then I came across this website, oddly enough ran from Hungary, which is the best and most-comprehensive Emergency and Disaster Information Service I have ever seen! If you want to be completely aware of how unaware you are of the sheer number of disasters – man-made and natural – that occur every hour of every day, then this is the website for you. It’s fucking impressive. And they have a feed too so you can subscribe to that. 30… 50 disasters a day. With comprehensive summaries and occasional photos, maps, etc. FUCKING IMPRESSIVE!

old wallet, new wallet, and caramel

Talking about Hungary. I figured I should square away a few things about my person before I go on this trip. One of those included finally getting round to acquiring a new wallet. I didn’t want to go abroad looking like a total buffoon:

I still have cards in here from London, that’s almost three years ago! Never cleared the thing out.

that zipper and top ripped a looooong time ago!

where did it all go? all the vitals are in there!

it came with a crisp new buck.

I mean, a buffoon sure, but not a total buffoon! I won’t detail the horror stories about how long I had been carrying that old wallet around… with caramel melted in the change purse! Years… years I say.

the new Transformers movie

I still haven’t seen it. But I have seen this!

and now you have too!

And now… perhaps critically speaking:

Yeah, buried way down here. Way near the end of the post. It’s been a long time coming, but I think it’s finally time to start considering my role and possible departure from the Flux Factory, the live-work artist collective I’ve been a part of for the last two years. Two fruitful and exciting years, but eventually the scales have to tip, and they’ve tipped in favor of a different path.

There are two distinct aspects to life at Flux Factory: what we call the House (living), and the not-for-profit (working), the organization. The House is solid. It’s fun and wacky and is always full of new life (literally, people rotate out of this place about every 3 months). But it has too many overlaps and is too burdened by its association with the organization, or so I have come to believe. It’s a symbiotic relationship yes, but increasingly the organization milks more from the House than it can supply. And I am at conceptual odds, and have been since I stepped foot in the place, with how things are ran.

The fact is that it isn’t a collective. There isn’t an established democratic process and eventually all decisions lie in the hands of a small pool of people, the group that have been here the longest. It was, after all, founded and built up by them, it’s only human that they organize themselves in this way. But as I told one of my housemates last week: if a project isn’t entirely sound, if the artists involved aren’t committed entirely, I would rather see projects not happen, not be forced to happen (just for the sake of fulfilling grant requirements and other burdens). I would then organize all the material, the debates, the notes, the work that never fabricated, into the work. That would be the work!

Around here they force work to happen. There’s always this notion of a ‘last minute push’ – they have devised this very notion because for the most part we spend most of our collective time not making art. While many of the people involved are good thinkers, and crafty people, some are excellent builders, etc., they don’t spend their spare time making work. There’s no ‘little art’, nothing that would show you the working methods, the thinking process, or ever the failed works – only these huge gargantuan installations that are excessive in their resources and use of materials. Furthermore, they don’t know how to document. What’s the point of not making little art – drawings, notes, collage, photos, short videos, etc. – and only relying on these monumental installations if you don’t at least properly document the damned things? Seriously.

Like I said, conceptual odds.

I have many points of contention, many examples, but I’m not looking to build a case study. However, the final blow was finally delivered not in a single moment but over the course of the past two months. I only then realized what I was working with.

The photo that opened this section and the images below show the current state of the Flux Factory gallery, an approximate 2,000 sq. ft. space, your typical rectangular white box space, 12 ft. ceilings, etc. For the course of the summer we were aware that there would be no exhibition proper in our gallery space, and so some of us championed the notion of turning the gallery into work spaces, like mini studios, for people to work on their own projects and especially to work on the upcoming project Sziget. I looked forward to not having to work in my bedroom all the time, and quickly set up camp after the last show was dismantled and its contents put to one side.

Whereas I tried to maintain a healthy working space, overturning my materials, making new work, collapsing some work and refashioning it into newer work, the rest of the gallery eventually degraded into a dumping ground for various people and various reasons. Some things people just didn’t want to deal with in their rooms; some people who made messes and never clean up after themselves; but all seem to not know just how precious this space and time really was. Given the cost of NY real estate and that we are all artists, I was baffled that, this was the best they could come up with?

Some other Fluxers felt alienated by this space, and commented that they could never come to work in it, given the mess. This is the weight of one, two or three people burdening the collective. This upsets me. I can’t contribute to this model any further.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually think the mess and detritus is inspiring. There’s a lot of shit going on in there! But if that isn’t the point, if that isn’t the work, then I’m just confused. This isn’t a Tomoko Takahashi or Thomas Hirschhorn installation – this is just crap.

Time isn’t money, and space isn’t just a way to comprehend the third dimension, these two together are what life is made up of. As an artist if you have very little space but lots of time, you will find a way to carve out for yourself more space (not the carving part but this notion reminds me of that White Stripes song, ‘Little Room’); if you have massive amounts of space but little time, chances are it’s because you’re busy, making more work. For the first time in the 2+ years I’ve lived here we had an opportunity to really understand time and space as it relates to our own and our collective work. I think we squandered the opportunity. Given the chance to do it again, I don’t think a single thing would change. I think this is our eternal collective damnation. Personally, I want a change of scenery.

Asides:

The beard: I’m going to do it. I’m going to shave it off! I’ve had facial hair for nearly nine months, ever since I started growing it last october for the playoffs. At times it has been fairly long, but it is time to go.

Hard drive: I had a failure on my primary… well my only, backup drive. This was beginning to be where I kept everything. It failed suddenly. No indications, no warnings. I have many tricks up my sleeve but they all failed – kaputz! Data recovery is in the $600-$1000 range. All of my documents related to my artistic practice are on this drive – there’s no way to measure that ‘value’, it must be recovered. Data loss has gutted me and will drive me broke.

And I’m out…

it’s been nearly three years since I’ve been there and this time around I’ll be visiting more countries than I toured in the three years I lived there! Oddly enough, when I lived in London while attending uni, I only visited three countries, the UK (obviously), Germany and Northern Ireland (an occupied territory of the first country anyhow)… well okay maybe four if you count Mansfield in Nottinghamshire as a world unto its own!

I didn’t get around much because 1. I was in college full-time and 2. I was relatively broke most of the time, being an already poor American in a country whose currency strengthened against any dollars I had saved up the day after I moved there (seriously day one was around 1.2$ to 1£ and within about six months it was nearly 1.9 to 1! eek!) – I even remember explaining to one of my tutors why, for the first two months I lived there I strictly made pencil art, was because I couldn’t yet afford anything else other than pencil and paper!

But this time I’m making up for it.

Still, hailing from the working class means it’s taken me nearly the entirety of those three years I’ve been away to save up, and I expect it will go faaaast. Thankfully through my participation in Flux Factory’s BudapestNewYork project at the Sziget Festival this year, about 3/4 of my plane fare is sponsored, and food and accommodation while in Budapest are covered.

I am working up until the day before I depart; I will be dismantling the current exhibition the eve before the eve of departure! I arrive in Budapest – which I might note is where my father’s family is from, on the Buda side of the Danube – the morning of 31 July. Immediately I set to work on the Flux Factory installation. Most of the other members will have already been in Budapest for nearly two weeks, but construction on the island can’t begin until 25 July, so I should arrive just on time to start my installation work (details of that in the near future). After 8 solid days of installation, the Sziget festival opens (8 August). I only plan to stick around for a couple of days, hopefully to see Napalm Death perform, but if they’re not in the first couple of days I will just have to depart. Plans are to get to Croatia for a couple of days, where my friend and fellow artist Olja Stipanovic was born, and visit her at her beach front property! Ahhh the Croatian sun! From there a 3-day stint in Kassel, Germany, for Documenta 12 is in order, and then to places such as northern Italy (least likely but potential), Zurich, Luxembourg, Brussels and Amsterdam. An ambitious list but I’m not thinking more than a day or two in any city, and after Budapest I have 15 days to get to London, where-from my departing flight leaves for NYC on 25 August. I definitely need at least 4-5 days in London, which squeezes the other countries into 10 days; Kassel will need at least 3, which leaves me with 7. Okay maybe Zurich and Italy are out of the question!

Still, an exciting trip, and one desperately needed since I didn’t get out of the USA at all in 2006 or 2005 for that matter.

Late last year US Transportation Secretary signed a $2.6billion Full Funding Grant Agreement to construct the East Side Access, which will provide a connection between the LIRR and Grand Central Terminal, and create a last-exit-in-Queens stop in Sunnyside, closer towards the city than the current Woodside stop.

The PlanNYC website sums up the size of the yard:

The property, which is owned by Amtrak and is primarily used by New Jersey Transit, is enormous. It runs from Laurel Hill Avenue on the east to Hunters Point Avenue on the west. To put it into perspective, if the property were in Manhattan, it would span 42nd to 59th Street, from Fifth Avenue to Lexington Avenue.

Laurel Hill Avenue, otherwise known as 43rd Street, is where I currently live, and the Flux Factory site is located on the exact eastern edge of the development project. What does the future hold for our not-for-profit? It is unclear. We will most likely have to move within a year or so. Personally I would like to stay in Queens for a number of reasons, and think a move would be good for restructuring the organization (and of course give me the opportunity to build new bookshelves! schweet!).

The images below show the progress the MTA has already made on the eastern-most fringe of the development site; they’ve ripped up a good number of old train track and filled them in with gravel, likely to be paved over and built anew. Just under the bridge from which the first photo was taken, there are large numbers of materials and trucks parked.

through trees one can see the Flux Factory roof

The project is slated to be completed by 2013, and afterwards housing and commercial development will sprout up around the terminal (that same PlanNYC article puts it between 18,000 to 35,000 housing units alone!). What will Sunnyside look like in a decade, or two (resources like Flickr are already providing an archival look at development of the area)? With an influx of new residents, will area infrastructure such as subways be forced to upgrade(did somebody say G Train?)? I’m really not sure how I stand on this one because I understand it’s pointless (and a waste of other resources) to have LIRR riders go all the way in to Penn Station, when they should be arriving at Grand Central, but building a terminal at this area will also help allow gentrification of the area or at the very least drive up the housing market, making the tip of Queens even less affordable – while it’s good now it isn’t great, and this development could make it out-of-reach for many current residents.

But it is interesting to see such a major development unfurl, almost literally in one’s backyard.

Related websites:
MTA’s East Side Access page

The thought of a boat parked on land, shipwrecked as it were, is already quite intriguing. Where did this boat come from? Who was in charge to let such a wreck happen? What were the circumstances of the wreck and how does a boat crash so far inland? The imagination is pretty free to roam in order to answer these questions, even before coming to the ‘art’. Hopefully, of course, the art will attempt to answer these questions, and add a couple more to the mix.

The boat itself, already, is quite sculptural. It’s also a very unique boat, it’s build and make are uncommon and give the boat an immediate distinction. Throw that onto land, and you have a double-whammy sensation!

Of course, this is a Flux Factory project, and is accompanied by all the complications and excitements that all Flux Factory projects include. Notably, there are 30 artists involved with this Albatross. How do you get 30 artists to agree to concepts and materials, and make sure the final completed installation is coherent, so that all the ‘art’ is understood to be part of this final work? What if two artists have similar ideas or want to use similar materials or objects, how do you make sure those individual works aren’t conflicting and each fit into the larger project without coming across as an argument of materials, one vying for dominance over the other – of course, unless that is the intention of said works, which isn’t likely given the nature of artists’ egos.

Early on in the project, some artists were outright declaring the work they were going to be including in the Albatross, before they had ever even SEEN the boat! I argued over email:

And now artists are starting to throw out somewhat definitely the work they want to make, rather than working with the boat, on site, within the camps, towards an idea. [...] I’m getting concerned that there’s no cohesion.

[...]

some works are suggestive of a shipwreck, others of this captain. if we conclude on a notion of archaeology, here’s a simple question: was this captain an archaeologist, or are we the artists-archaeologists? I think this would produce very different works. asking ourselves questions like these will better-help clarify exactly the work we should be making.

Of course not everyone agreed with my thinking. Notably the illustrators and design-minded artists saw ‘no conflict’ as I did. Which re-affirms my point, or question rather, of how do you get 30+ artists to agree on a project like this? Flux Factory, while it proclaims itself an ‘arts collective’, is not in the business of fabricating very physical works that are collectively produced. It operates better for the facilitation to such ends – a sort of management agency that promotes mostly installation-based works in group exhibitions. This time things are different: ‘Flux Factory’ is more of a banner under which 30 artists are operating, and each have apparently free reign over the works they’re going to include under said banner. The argument again falls back to it has to all come together.

Eventually pushing for this communication improves things, and some artists met up on-site. Still, it was only 1/2 of the artists involved. Not much was said that wasn’t already known, or which weren’t simply practical arrangements (how we have 24-hour access, what precautions to take when working on the boat, how to get electricity to the boat, etc.).

Eventually we plan on tipping the boat onto its side, in order to suggest this shipwreck, and also to give the final installation a new dimension; to expand on what I said earlier, as if a boat on land wasn’t enough, now its on its side – whammy! The shipwreck has landed. I’ve worked minimally on the boat itself; as an artist I can’t really approach the boat as a type of sculpture until it is on its side. It’s silhouette, it’s shape, it’s direction and vector, I can’t work with any of that until it is actually stranded on shore. I’m interested then to work with the condition of the boat, on its side, and to produce a work which acknowledges this condition, which stands as a work on its own but which is also part of the larger work.

Related websites:
some full-size photos on Flickr

another ‘four day’ stint without focused commitment to blogging and I found myself staring at the ‘post box’ as it’s called and wondering how to regain my momentum. and oddly enough it’s not a dilemma of not knowing what to say, it’s a dilemma of having too much and trying to remember where to begin again, of how to collect everything I should have said between then and now. i don’t want to ramble but i’m just too excited by it all so hopefully you’ll bear with me.

it was a crazy past-week for openings and shows. and it’s an even crazier week ahead. Don’t forget to sleep.

the 10th (has it really been that long?) was the Project 1981 opening. I did manage to put some photos up on my Flickr account (oh there I gone and done it now! I said my Flickr! egads!) but I never got around to the meat of the show. I got talking with a friend at the opening about the dilemma of openings themselves. I mentioned that somebody else said I missed completely one piece in the show: because of the crowd, I managed to walk around a vitrine – I later went back to view it once the crowd started to breathe a little bit, but the point is that at openings, depending on the size of the crowd and the size of the space, sometimes seeing the work is just not possible. Not seeing it with certain comforts that is, like space, time and the absence of noise. My friend elaborated: I was told that the opening for the show was basically the run of the show. The work might stay up for another few weeks but it would be by appointment only, not ‘open’ per se. I was unaware of this and commented that it’s difficult because you want as many people to gather at the openings as possible, but you also want to see the work (or in the case of one piece to hear it, impossible at openings because of the noise volume of the crowd). As it would turn out the show is up for a couple extra weeks (the website indeed says until the 28th, by appointment), but for shows that really do only last a week, or a couple of days even, the problem of having the space and time to see the work and maximizing attendance is impossible to solve. But now that I think on it that we were even having that conversation, while immersed in the crowd, is the interesting bit – unable to enjoy the work as it should be but still able to exchange ideas.

two days later I returned to work, still sick at the time, and we had less than two days to complete our installation. while the largest group show I have seen installed in our space, the process was pretty chill and most things were dealt with simply as they arose. and while the opening was a success, I still can’t help but reflect back to the process of these installations themselves, which are sometimes easily the most rewarding part of organizing and installing shows:

(and sometimes way cooler than the work you’re meant to be installing!)

moving ahead Thursday night was the ‘My Country’ opening at the Hungarian Cultural Center. The two artists – Andrea Dezso and Miwa Koizumi, both artists I have worked with on other projects before – are highly aesthetically driven. Miwa carried out a performance for the opening where she used paper-shredded ‘wishes’ written down by viewers to create these small geological-esque paper hill formations and other structures; Andrea’s main body of work on display were approximately 40 small embroideries that illustrated things her mother once told her, many of which manage to be simultaneously sinister and fantastical, touching on topics such as sex, semen, aliens, digestive tracts – you get the idea!

Somewhere in the midst of all this activity also, Manami Fujimori paid a visit out to Flux Factory. Manami is an absolute delight! She’s nothing but energy, completely excited to see work and the spaces of artistic production and life. She was writing about Flux Factory and the crossover of artists who also involve themselves within an arts organization. She’s full of interesting questions and I can’t wait to read her thoughts (it’ll also help kick me in the butt and remind me to finally develop a ‘press’ section in the blog already!).

Finally a 3-day weekend!

Saturday night was the Building Show opening at Exit Art. It’s been a while since I’ve managed to get to an Exit Art opening, but as always it was well-crowded and generally up-beat. I got into discussions with several people since the opening and found that some people are more put-off by Exit Art than I ever have been or even thought to be. Their argument was that too much of the work tends to be ‘redundant’ or copied, and they’re not convinced by the progression of shows over the years. On the contrary I look at the space (I’ve only ever been aware of their 10th Ave site) and I’m completely in awe. And I’m not simply talking about the physical space, but the whole package: the space, the work, the location, the crowd, it all works for me. When I consider how much of the rest of the city is clogged with tourist traps and shitty bars, of course I find haven in a place like Exit Art which has consistently made me think and wonder about it’s programme. Maybe it’s more-easy for others to come to finite conclusions about their opinions, but I like to keep my nerves on-end!

Continuing on, I managed to squeeze in a few house parties as well, including one hosted by Stacey Allan, an old acquaintance that I studied with in Chicago and recently ran into again (again again I should say). Twas good to see her and she had a great crowd, including some Canadian friends of hers that I got discussing with about ‘Artist-Run Centres‘, a phrase and organizational structure I was really only recently introduced to – was intriguing to have such a primary conversation conclude so well, and made me want to travel to Canada this year to view and exchange with some ARCs. And thanks to the President’s Day holiday I was able to enjoy a birthday party on Sunday night for Marcela Cussolin whom I recently befriended (oh who am I kidding holiday or not I would have gone and partiiiiieeed wooooo … ahem). Another great crowd, I told another friend of mine that it reminded me of parties in the Midwest, where people are generally warm, relaxed but enjoying themselves, where the kitchen is usually a focus area (after all that’s where the liquor is) and music is of good selection (speaking of one of the hosts, Chris, had one of the largest selections of ‘mash-ups’ I’ve seen, and was the first person I’ve ever seen to actually interface with Front Row on the Macintosh).

Marcela Cussolin with Andy and cake (NOTE the cake was effing delish!)

OHHHHHH otherwise it was the same-ol’ same-ol’. Yeah, right. In other news I finally got cracking on my upcoming lulu book, working from a newly acquired Epson V350 photo scanner. That thing is a beaut! Most-importantly for my own work, and it’s such a simple design feature that really goes far, is the lid can detach and fold back so you can get large items on the flatbed! Wonderful! The other thing heavily weighing on my mind these days is baseball. Spring training games are just about to begin, and I’m about to do something I’ve never done before, which is invest in a major league sport: I plan on purchasing the ‘premium’ package that allows you to listen to/view every game online. I thought of doing this last year but got deterred because of a couple of reasons; but this year I’m committed to it, I want to see specific pitchers pitch, certain batters hit, and follow more games and players. It’s a hefty investment but it’s not about a financial question, it’s a love for the game.

And the week ahead is nothing easy. Is February always this busy? this weekend initiates THE weekend of art fairs around the city, and for the first time I can say that I’m possibly not interested in them. Of course I’ll end up attending one or two, but I won’t be thinking if I don’t see them all then I’ve fallen short, the way I have in the past (oh the guilt!). Truth is there’s always more going on than one can achieve, so one can’t imagine to do it all. Okay okay, you could imagine, but like I’ve said being from the Midwest means practical living and if I can’t do it all then I’ll just do what I like and be happy with that.

See you next time, folks!

Related websites:
Flickr folder for Project1981 opening
Flickr folder for the Building Show opening at Exit Art
Flickr folder for Marcela Cussolin’s 26th Bday party

we’ve been planning this meeting for nearly two months beforehand. Even still, four people were unavailable (two out of town, two just not present); we were compensated with two bodies who routinely help us with various operations, but still of the remaining thirteen present members in attendance five have only been with us for one or two shows. As such, it was a different climate than the previous ‘big meeting’ – various reasons, new blood, etc.

we acknowledged that last season was the first year in which we put forth a complete four-show season ahead of time, stuck to it, and worked toward specific goals. between the last meeting and now we’ve had major events such as our first auction & gala mirrored by the works on paper exhibition that I co-curated; the Fluxbox show which was featured in Sculpture magazine; Opolis, the third and final installment of the Comix exhibitions; a slew of other events and performances including for myself most-notably the launching of my Normal Space exhibition venue. however, oddly enough we didn’t spend a lick of time actually discussing previous shows. Ahead of us we have the most-daunting timetable yet, including an exhibition not even inside our own state boundaries, an exhibition involving Peter Lynch and Troy Hurtubise of Project Grizzly acclaim, and two shows which aren’t even sorted yet decisions are already being made that will effect the outcome of those shows. My reckoning would say to discuss the previous events in order to better understand our own processes, methodologies, even our own intuitions – apply this knowledge to the upcoming schedule. Move forward from there. But the route instead was to form ‘sub-committees’ to handle show-specific agendas or things more global to the Flux Factory operation – and some things weren’t even really related to the not-for-profit.

I didn’t talk much during the meeting. When someone asked me later that evening or the next evening maybe (can’t remember), why I didn’t say much, I very simply responded ‘I had nothing to say.’

To make a long story short, I’ve spent nearly two years at ze Factory and – regarding the not-for-profit organization – nearly exhausted myself at times. The group is increasingly institutionalizing itself, making further and increasing demands of its own operations, without I believe taking into consideration that in the end it is cogged by human energy and emotion. I’ll explain. When Chris Meigh-Andrews recently paid a visit, one of his first questions was in the scope of ‘is there a pecking order?’ A year ago I would have attempted to find a way to simply acknowledge the presence of the question but manage to create more a topology than a hierarchy with regards to operations; these days, I respond of course there is. It is actually completely natural that there be a pecking order. Humans have always organized themselves into groups – how those groups are formed, and upon what conceptual framework they operate then becomes the interesting and contemporary question. And inevitably, we will run out of steam.

I have tried too hard over the past years to effect my art practices (conceptual, material, etc.) inside the mould of Flux Factory operations. It doesn’t work. After going-on-nine years of incorporated exhibition production, demanding change or shifts is like demanding personal space at a GWAR concert. Not only is personal space impossible but eventually you will get doused with some vile liquid! What I’m trying to say is I need to maneuver myself out of the macro-operations, while maintaining a voice within; Flux Factory doesn’t and won’t likely ever look at art the way I do so. Of course, I want to see it prosper, and I want it to achieve a sense of longevity, and to make an impact with the public and change their perceptions of art and the world, but to do this while achieving my own goals will now require more in/out maneuvers, of placing myself within while maintaining a distance without. It’s tough. It’s unclear. I want to see the beauty of it from the outside again, and I’m sure the future will be exciting.

(work from Hello exhibition at Flux Factory, unknown artist, opens tomorrow)

So seriously, I’m a little behind on my end, with a bit much on my plate at the moment. Which is epitomized by tomorrow’s events: I’m working probably around 12-14 hours, not pleasant; should be in as early as 11am to prepare some things before opening at noon – don’t expect to leave until around midnight; while invigilating the gallery all day tomorrow we will simultaneously be setting up for a duet-concert by Yuka Honda and Petra Haden in Location One‘s performance space; we’re already stretched for resources, and by half-4 today they had only started practicing their second song – they’re asking to stay late but we have to get out of here, it’s Friday after all; i’m supposedly DJing the event, which I wasn’t asked to do but was put on the bill and expected to return – I have NO set list prepared, and I won’t spend my evening tonight stressing out over what music to play tomorrow!; last night the bulb on my eVo v1 projector blew – it’s being installed for the next exhibition at Flux Factory, and word is that the artist pulled out the power cord while the projector was plugged in and running!; it took me over an hour to open up the housing unit and examine the bulb – took so long because of a stripped screw that had to be drilled out with a strip-kit; and oh yeah that show (image above is a piece in the show, unknown artist at this moment) opens tomorrow, at the same time I’m working the concert at Location One, so basically I won’t be able to attend the opening at my home because I’m working a concert for the man (or two women, in this case). Earlier this week I thought I might be able to leave the concert right at the end, and make the tail end of the ‘Hello’ opening at Flux Factory, and then I got told that the space needs to be completely cleared out for Sunday afternoon when some musicians are renting the space for rehearsal – what this means is my mates and I have to spend an hour after we finally kick everybody out cleaning and re-arranging furniture (thus pushing us towards midnight) instead of letting the facility’s janitor take care of it, since they don’t come in until Monday. Bloody bullshit scheduling if you ask me.

Mark and Geraldine have been staying at Flux Factory for around a month now, preparing for the imminent launch – or departure rather – of their work ‘The man who shot Liberty Valance’. They leave tomorrow morning for a near-one-month trip through twelve ‘Etats-Unis’ cities whose names engender allegorical aspirations: they will begin at Freedom – the ‘freedom’ indicative of the ‘open road’ culture of America – then pass through Joy, Comfort and Pride (among others), all the while moving towards Harmony, a fitting finale to a multiple-thousand-mile road trip through an immensely diverse landscape.

Here’s to all the best for Mark and Geraldine! See you soon!

Either way, here’s a summation of goings ons in the arts the past two+ weeks, with an infusion from everyday life. Enjoy.

When I last left off from the ‘this week in arts’ series I mentioned that my work for the La Superette event got rejected; this is actually the second year in a row (and my second time applying) that my work has been rejected. The first time was, I believe, a mis-communication, because I was told my work was ‘too big’, while the work would have been perfectly suited to the installation and general arrangement (but then again, it’s not like it’s a curated exhibition); this time however I was pretty put off by the evaluation that my work was ‘not functional enough’. The event, a ‘DIY’ art-sale, called for things made by artists for sale, at cheap prices, for holiday gifts. The event was held at Eyebeam, a major ‘art and technology center’. The proposal form called for all submitted works to be delivered ‘in a box’ – I decided to take all of these things into account: the box, the context of geeks buying art gifts, the ‘DIY’ cliché, and present it for sale:

I knew that the notion of ‘function’ was a variable, but I also think that gift-giving shouldn’t always be so serious and that humor should also be a variable, so I set out to make all of my works suggestive of other objects that provide function, while stripping them of any real-world credibility; these objects, made facsimile, suggest function: the USB speakers to retrieve sound from a mini (audio) port; the zonet USB wireless adapter to communicate with WiFi networks; the games (one for PlayStation the other for PC) to provide entertainment; the joke security camera (a dummy already) to provide fake security; the battery to supply power; the ink cartridge to provide printing; the antenna to receive analog television signal; the laser-pointer pen for presentations, and of course the box to carry it all in, in the first place. I guess the organisers of La Superette just didn’t get the joke.

And honestly I probably wouldn’t have taken the rejection so harsh, except that I took nearly a whole day off work with lost-wages and lost lots of sleep over making sure to complete these works; but hey, in the end I got to keep them, which makes my gift-giving this season a heckuva lot easier!

Moving along, but still in early mid-December, I wanted to tell you all about the SVA BFA open studios. I actually didn’t even know of the event, until the evening (Sunday) before, when my friend Cassie Thornton told me about it, and we agreed to meet there at 7pm. She ended up not attending, but as it would turn out I know two people on the course; and I think I can safely say they were also the two best works/artists on display!

Naro Taruishi’s ‘EYE | EYE‘ work, part-sculptures, part-screen (LCD displays inside the viewing boxes), presented viewers with a split-screen animation of various forms – some abstract, some geometric, one that was stellar, like a rising moon – that skewed one’s vision. Inside the viewing boxes a piece of panel came right up to your nose, effectively disrupting your stereo vision. However through optical manipulation, what appeared on the left side also extended to your right eye, while the image on the right side remained in limbo, or provided articulation onto the extension of the image from the left side, creating a new stereo vision. One could only think of how the brain was interpreting this information in the first place; it reminded me of when I used to do medical guinea pig experiments for side-cash, and they sometimes fed split-screen images to study how the brain ‘sees’ or determines left from right, and depth of field.

Another female working with split-screen technology, were Chen Yerushalmi’s playful and interactive sitting booths. Two participants each sit in one booth, with one camera in each booth. After some sophisticated layering and joining of these video signals, elsewhere on a projection screen a single collaged ‘face’ is displayed. How many features does one have in common with another; what about the joining of the young and the old – how do features age?; how do similar expressions vary from one person to the next; and the myriad psychological suggestions that arise from having a ‘two-face’ composite. Very intriguing work indeed.

The following afternoon Everett Kane came to talk to the residents of Location One about his practice, which of late is largely drawing-based, which he sees as the foundation of every practice, the gestures of the hand and the act of mark-making on paper; something which I’ve always attributed as having perhaps the most ‘potential’ of all artistic practices, because of its accessibility (pencil and paper is plenty) and therefore its democratic appeal (collage being perhaps the only other medium of this potential: any image, and any other image, or object, or surface, joined together, to create something else, also very accessible). Everett has to be one of the most-prolific artists I know, with the ability to crank out literally hundreds of drawings – all good – every week; don’t fool yourself if you think you make a lot of work because Everett will put you to shame!

Nearly halfway there now. Hey, I told you it’s been a demanding month!

Thursday the 14th was Secret Santa out at Flux Factory. not exactly ‘secret’, because somehow the rules got re-written so that each person who received a gift, ended up giving their gift to their random (was that the ‘secret’ part?) recipient, with a person chosen at random to start it off. I got a nice selection of ties (one of which I’m currently sporting) and some ‘herbal remedies for men’ (wink wink). The event included a farcical storytelling on ‘the Constitutionality of Christmas’ by the-then highly inebriated (I’m not sure I know him any other way, actually) Dan Mulcare (I believe my mate Sarah got it on camera, maybe someday it’ll show up on YouTube? Oi! Sarah! Get that video on YouTube already! You’ve had two weeks!).

On the final Saturday of the Tatlin exhibition at Flux Factory, Mister Resistor gave us a show.

Then there was that befefit for Hwy Rachel on the 20th which I mentioned earlier.

Skipping ahead right to the holidays, during the day of the 24th I went to the 10th Street Russian and Turkish baths. What an intense place! I never thought taking a dip into 50s-Fahrenheit-degree water then walking into a room designed to be a human oven (Radiant Heat!) could be so invigorating!

That evening I finally got to really sit down and test-out my newly acquired projector. It only seemed appropriate that one of the first sources I test be watching an episode of Futurama!

And how additionally appropriate that the completely random image I snapped off happens to be one of the animated cast watching a large-screen television (albeit receiving ‘interference’, if you know what I mean then you know what I mean! heh).

(Wanting to test the component video inputs on the projector, I also plugged in the house PlayStation2 and played Final Fantasy XII for a while; and within the same 24-hour span, I came across this videoblog post over on Alive in Baghdad, where the interviewee explains his fascination of FFXII – and I realized while we play in different regions of the world, we both play ‘to escape’.)

Into the wee hours of the morning Morgan, Daupo, Jean and myself played a few rounds of petanque in Phunquey’s large, carpeted and eerily empty ex-room, including a devastating first-game win by Morgan and me of 13-1!

Waking the next morning with little sleep, a group of us headed to Tatiana’s in Brighton Beach for a Russian dinner, and the first option to arrive out was an appetizer of Onion Loaf – literally a deep-fried batter of onions shaped into a loaf shape, which oddly sliced as easily as any bread loaf! My meal consisted of a tofu salad with blue cheese dressing, raspberries and blueberries, and a plate of home-fried potatoes with a selection of mushrooms; later, I felt bad that I didn’t share more of the potatoes with mushrooms, but when I was served I was immediately hit with multiple demands for my mushrooms, and went on the defensive! I was told to expect to pay $50 for the evening’s meal; this particular plate cost $27 and I wasn’t exactly offered anything in return, so it just felt like people wanted what I had without reciprocating the exchange!

The evening ended with more rounds of petanque:

(NOTE: just as Daupo throws the petanque, Kerry says, ‘Daupo can’t do anything’, then his petanque rolls right into a floor outlet, or dead-zone, effectively killing his throw! CLASSIC!)

the projection as seen from inside the gallery. I think this image is crucial to better-understand the works context: the building across the way is a Presbyterian church which serves the abundant local Korean Christian population. the ramp to their main entrance can be seen, near the middle between the N and O. the right side of the building as seen in the image, or the south side of its facility, rests on 37th Avenue; on this road an excerpt from Lamentations 1:12 reads in large fiberglass letters: Is it nothing to you all who pass by? This phrase has been talked about numerous times at kitchen table discussions at Flux Factory; these discussions were in a way part-inspiration for this work. There is now a discussion emerging between our facility and theirs: ours, a not-for-profit arts space, barely scraping by financially, built and sustained by blood and sweat and sometimes tears; theirs, a monolithic religious site of worship, financially well-off with 24-hour security guard watch and parking lots, including their own multi-van shuttle service during congregations, also their structure includes a full-size basketball court and daycare, among other facilities.

Both spaces are about a type of belief: theirs, a religion, established and historically built upon; ours, an arts program with contemporary goals. Both are about people: theirs a gathering of thousands, with a specific hierarchy and internal government, with jobs and a sustained dialogue with their contingent; ours a motley crew of seventeen, with additional numbers from our associates, a government more for superficials-sake but which is always an issue to contend with, where ‘chores’ are more important than ‘jobs’.

a time-lapse shot of the scrolling, showing how the text moves across the window panes, and the spacing of the LED ‘bulbs’.

this shows how one column of LEDs fall on each window frame, which wasn’t planned or even noticed really, but works quite well, since from outside your eye quickly adjust to this fact and dismisses it; it’s not as if you see less of the text. the shadow cast from the nearby rope is also un-noticeable from street-level, and additionally is quite nice that inside the gallery the projection manages to touch another of the artworks on display – it is both uninterupted and conversing.

another – and hopefully final – image of the work, from street level, with the gallery lights off, showing a passing car and the facility’s entrance and sidewalk. the work floats in the darkness, constantly scrolling a succinct but inviting text; i would hope readers of the text may wonder about where is the text coming from, what type of activities go on in such a place? from there they may decide to enter our gallery, and see the exhibit. Or best they may just wonder about what in their lives is now necessary, and how to proceed.

sometimes I tend to see more of the ‘work’ as it is being made, in the sense that I understand it better, than when the work is ‘on show’ or finally exhibited. it’s all a matter of perspective, but i reckon this is such because one understands the concept better while the work is in transit, has movement, is at a tipping point of sorts. As for this Tatlin show though…. .. But I never intended to write a diatribe, so on with the photos!

As for my own work for this show, some things have changed, while others have been done away with completely. such is the process of making work in the space (literally and metaphorically), and coming to terms with the dynamism of the installation. contrary to a previous blog entry, I do not believe I will be making work in the space anymore throughout the duration of the show; the exhibition is no longer contextualized as a site within which things are made during the exhibition. that was its original intent, but the installation, with the inclusion of hammocks, pillows, counters, viewing stations, etc., has migrated to a type of contemplation space, or a space in which to relax or take in another activity: the hammocks to sleep; the table to eat soup; the viewing ramp to watch a video monitor; etc.

As such I have decided to exhibit only a light projection: a scrolling text emulated in giant LEDs generated from a Yahoo! widget onto the windows looking out onto 43rd Street (including the Presbyterian church across the way!). From inside the gallery the text is backwards: it is meant to be seen from street-level. I have bought my own projector, a Lumenlab eVo V1, specifically for this installation; I did not want to run or even request to run the Flux Factory projector, because my intention is to run the piece 24-7. It will be difficult if not impossible to see during the day, however with winter upon us darkness is in my favor. The piece will get around 14 hours of viewing-time a day.

This time around I am not actually particularly interested in the hype of the gallery. The box as it where, speaks a lot of rhetoric: there is talk at Flux Factory of ‘engaging the public’ or having some sort of dialogue with the ‘community’. But these terms are more like management speak for the art world than anything else, everybody uses them. Flux Factory actually has little engagement with say the local library, or community leaders, and I have rarely met people from the community who engage our space with knowledge of our activities.

Of course I’m not interested in handing out flyers either. So I think this light projection is a good first real attempt on my part to raise some of these concerns, and have a dialogue with people I’m usually unable to: passers-by, the church-goers across the street, the commuters who use 43rd Street as a bypass between Northern Blvd. and Queens Blvd., etc.

Pictures below are commented and show the installation and testing of the projection, including a YouTube video shot last night showing people still working in the space (with the gallery lights off the projection is more crisp, more advertisement-like and floats well in the dark).

The projector installed inside the gallery; Daxeon (sp?) provides the structural support between the i-beams, and creates a trough in which all the electrical cabling can rest, as well as creating a tray for the laptop running the widget to sit on top of. everything is zip-tied together and creates additional structure.

the projection after i first turned the unit on. almost spot-on with the aim already!

the test-projection, as seen from street level with the gallery lights off.

FOR WE KNOW NOW WHAT IS NECESSARY

And it’s always tough to look at art from within the work: having just built and constructed the show, it’ll take some time for that activity and those memories to fade before one can step back (or ‘out’) of the work and come to terms with it.

The ‘into/out of’ maneuver is an important underpinning for fabricating any body of work, as an artist. You have to keep what you are fighting for in your work at the forefront, but at the same time you need the ability to step out of the work, analyze where it’s at, what it means, and also just build it. It must be made.

These maneuvers are especially important in group or collaborative art projects. Highlighting my own dillemma with into/out of, I’m involved with the next exhibition at Flux Factory, a show with a title too long to reprint. Normally a builder for their shows, now I’m taking on the role of artist. I’m not interested in being an ‘artist’ who helps ‘build’ the exhibition. I’m fighting for my work. But I need to step out of my own role on occasion and see how the two (my work and the fabrication of the show) overlap, and how the two might help define each other (such is my interest in group efforts: mutual definitions). I don’t simply want to impose my work on the structure currently being built; I need – even – my work to co-exist with the space, to work within it and alongside it.

Again, I’m not building anything for the show. I don’t see my role in this show as such; I’m working to come to the space near-completion of the construction, and to build inside and into the show, for the opening and throughout the course of the exhibition. That maneuver is the work.

The presentations went in the order:

• Buzzer Thirty (I missed theirs, which I wanted to know most about – but I was told it was short and without any presentation media)
• Flux Factory (Presented by our own Stefany Goldberg, the presentation focused mostly on two or three distinct projects, including the oldest and the more-recent collaborations, using a DVD to show moving images and sound)
• Local Project (The next-best collective after Flux Factory, another LIC-based Queens collective, focussing especially on under-represented minorities and Latino & Black artists)
• Rockaway Artists Alliance (An ‘older’ collective; no feel for what they exhibit because they didn’t have any slides, DVD, etc.; but very officially organized, including an extensive membership which they boasted about)
• Free Style Arts (Never heard of them, but would like to stumble upon their social-situational art on the streets; perhaps a spoiler to see their images, but good Midwestern folk making interesting social-public art)

And that was that! I didn’t stay long because Game 4 of the World Series was on; it was raining in St. Louis and was 1-0 in favor of the Tigers by the time I left; walking past a pub on the way home I peeked in and it was 3-0 Tigers with Miles on 2nd; I said to myself (and to those in company) it would be 3-1 by the time I got home; as soon as I got home the Cardinals started a comeback; that night we won 5-4!!

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In Radical Society the image will be repoduced in black-and-white, but here and only here (exclusive content!) you get to see the ad in all its wonderful colorful glory!

it’s pretty appropriate that they arrived in the mail, since it’s an edition of postcards.

this work is a fusion of two other works, essentially. the most recent is this photo was recently published in issue #8 of Tangent. The photo, of the Sunnyside gate off Queens Boulevard in Queens, NY, was taken on 23 July 2006 during the 10-day blackout of Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside and Woodside, which effected around 100,000 people, or “25,000 customers“, depending on how you looked at it.

the work also stems from the postcard I designed for the inaugural exhibition of Normal Space @ Flux Factory, an alternative exhibition space inside my studio. the postcard for that show had the image on the front, in full-color, but was blank on the back; a URI on the front would have led people to my Normal Space weblog, where there was additional information. There was no need to print anything on the back: the date, time, place, was all on the front, the back would have merely been for ‘design sake’. Plus, by not printing on the back, it was cheaper, and that’s always a plus! But it got me thinking about the almost-superfluous need of the reverse, and how the obverse of the card as-is could operate as works in themselves. Regarding printing on the back: If there’s no need there’s no need.

So these cards, which are simply a picture of the Sunnyside gate with a ConEd worker and truck blocking access under the gate, with pedestrians about, will be left in various places throughout the effected blackout area, now, over a month after the blackout. This suspension or delay of time is crucial: how do we position ourselves now in relation to then ? How do we remember the event, or do we even recall it? Do we only recall the bad side of the story, or did any good come of it: a conversation, a social engagement, a moment that otherwise wouldn’t have happened if everything was up and running? I want the card to inspire the memory of this time and place. I ♥ Sunnyside (and western Queens at large).

I developed this work for an upcoming exhibition, and will create a map on this site of all the places where I leave the card, with documentation of some of these sites.

I ordered 100 cards, but as is with printing processes it’s never exact, so the edition is of 135. However I would like to save some for my archives and to mail to people, so I am thinking of sticking with ’100′ for the number that get left around western Queens, and 35 to distribute otherwise.

this exhibition was an eye-opener, and in a lot of ways still is: it’s still a lot of work. i’m still handling emails from artists, now i’m getting 2-3 invites a week from artists who were in the show, and there’s still lots of paperwork to follow up with.

most troubling has been the notion of perception about the show. Flux Factory is a not-for-profit, completely volunteer ran. Yes we get grant funding and have access to other 501(c)(3) resources, but it’s not like we get paid, or can even buy meals for ourselves, much less our materials and countless exhausting hours putting on some of the best exhibitions in town. Some artists have this perception that we are there to serve them, or that we have a billion-dollar benefactor and should be able to afford to do all the work that needs to be done.

on the contrary: most of us work full-time jobs outside of our initiatives at Flux Factory. and in NYC, most people know that ‘part-time’ usually equates to ’30 to 40′ hours a week. on top of that, most of us are practicing artists, also. We have families and health problems and get stuck on the train, just like y’all. Seven weeks after the closing of the show might seem like a long time, especially when you compare it to the three-week invasion-occupation of Iraq in 2003, but I think it’s pretty reasonable. You can rest assured we will eventually get the work done, because we want to do the work, but it all takes time. Had we a form-letter ready right after the closing, and sent it out, I wouldn’t be pleased with that. That would be hyper-institutional. Instead, we got on with our lives and did the work at our earliest collective availability, and wrote the letter in the context of the show.

most satisfactory has been the joy of communication revolving around this show. I got to contact so many people, look at so many websites, get to flip through so many resumés, and then finally meet and greet so many artists on the night of the opening. like i mentioned before, lots of artists are still getting in touch with me, which is both a blessing and a burden. ultimately, it’s a blessing. if it wasn’t, i wouldn’t be planning my next project.