Saw this video of a talk given by Steve Powers (who we’ve written about before) posted on Juxtapoz.
Steve Powers (aka Espo) speaks about his art at the PSFK Conference NYC. Powers discusses his recent public and private art projects, along with explaining his one-a-day art “Daily Metaltation” pieces. Powers is one of our cover artists to the current May 2012 printed Juxtapoz.
[via Juxtapoz]
Image via Artlog
Michelle and I visited this project when it first appeared at MOCAD back in 2010, and it’s incredible to see the next phase of this, just announced as a massive new addition to the project in Detroit that seems possibly not unlike Project Row Houses, but with a distinct Detroit feel.
From the article on Curbed:
The installation will be a replica of Kelley’s childhood home in the suburbs which will be used to provide social services to Detroit residents. Kelley himself oversaw the first stage of the project in 2010, when a mobile-home version of the suburban dwelling made a maiden voyage from downtown Detroit to visit the original Kelley home in the suburbs. The video of this, completed just before he died, is what premiered at the Whitney Biennial yesterday. Kelley’s idea was to create a symbolic reversal of the white flight that occurred in Detroit in the 1960s.
From the NYTimes article:
It will function nothing like a traditional museum or gallery and will show none of Mr. Kelley’s work, at his own insistence. The mobile-home part will remain detachable and will sometimes take its leave of the rest and journey through Detroit. The home as a whole will operate as an unconventional community service office, providing things like haircuts, social services, meeting space and a place to hold barbecues and perhaps for the homeless to pick up mail. “We’re thinking that our education staff will actually move out to the homestead and work from there,” said Marsha Miro, the acting director of the contemporary art museum.
It’s really curious to think about a long-term project like this being launched by an artist and carried forward (posthumously) by a museum, not to mention the complications of the politics of the architecture itself. I’m not sure what it will mean for the community immediately surrounding MOCAD, but it’s an incredible example to point to in terms of how we might rethink a number of institutions that provide social services.
We recently acquired a Graphtec CE5000-60 cutter and we’re already dreaming up a whole bunch of new projects to put it to use. It cuts up to 24″ vinyl rolls (though I’ve also seen it score and maybe even cut cardstock) and with the Illustrator plugin, its incredibly easy. Above, a test with some gold vinyl.
It took only about 15 minutes to get it setup and running — there were some adjustments that needed to be made to in the offset to get the test triangle / square with the appropriate straight lines, but once that was setup and after I found the solution to the HP-GL error 1 (change the command from HP-GL to GP-GL), I was able to send files from Illustrator just the same as you would send a file to print.
In these early tests, I’m just using some masking tape to transfer the vinyl.
It comes off pretty well — I was impressed with the quality and speed of the cut even with a cursive font like this.
I think they sell larger/wider rolls of masking-tape like material, but for now this works.
The maiden transfer onto a wall.
Easy transfer, just a little trouble with the bottom loop of the f.
So, a successful first test! In the past, we’ve worked with Printhouse for a lot of our one-off vinyl cuts, so if you’re looking for someone local we can highly recommend them. The things we’re going to be doing are just going to require so much volume that it was worth investing in one ourselves to do our own cuts. No details just yet, but I’m really looking forward to playing with this some more and I can’t wait to launch these new projects soon!
Another installation of In Store by Daragh Sankey covering some of the incredible work that happened as part of our SRSI project a couple of summers ago.
Here’s the overview of this week’s segment on the Department of Unusual Certainties from Daragh:
I basically shared an area with these guys. Like Sara French and of course the Broken City Lab crew, we were all there over the whole month. (I wasn’t actually there the whole time, but came down for the first couple weekends.)
I had to decide in the editing how much of their footage to include – I had quite a lot, because of their long stay and also because of the sheer scale of their ambitions. I had a cut that only concentrated on the speed dating event, but I thought there was a lot of interest that got excluded so I made it what you see now, perhaps sacrificing cohesiveness for scope and … awesomeliness, hopefully.
Here’s a downloadable PDF of the Tip Sheet from the DoUC site.
Vacancy. It’s one of the big challenges for Windsor, as it is for any shrinking city. The downtown has been hit much harder – Windsor is a classic North American “donut city” where suburban expansion and downtown decline go hand in hand. (More on this in an upcoming film.) There are no easy responses, and I hope that my use of end titles will not seem like I’m trying to argue that the Department’s activities in Windsor led directly to a decrease in the vacancy rate. But their recognition that there was a lack of communication amongst store owners, and their tapping into some of the energy that resulted from opening the lines of communication, seemed to be heading in the right direction, at least.
Nothing’s set in stone, but I have probably three more films to go, maybe 4. There’s some really great stuff coming up, so stay tuned!
This is going to be an incredibly fun project! Our friends at DodoLab finally return to Windsor, make sure you check it out!
A Project by Professor William Starling of DodoLab
May 5 – June 9, 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday May 5, 1-4pm
AGW Talk/Tour: Sunday May 6, begins at 1pm
DodoLab and SB Contemporary Art are pleased to announce the visit of the eminently knowledgeable Professor William Starling to the city of Windsor. Prof. Starling has been discretely visiting Windsor over the past two years to study and converse with the vast flock of his species mates that now roost in the understory of the Ambassador Bridge. While his kind is in shocking decline in his home range of Northern Europe and the United Kingdom, starlings remain ubiquitous across North America where the vast undulating clouds of birds (called murmurations) can be a common occurrence, particularly in the Windsor area.
While studying the starling community around Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge, the situation on the adjacent Indian Road with its long line of boarded up and empty houses came to his attention. Starlings frequent this neighborhood, and so the professor has been developing a rich inter-species narrative of adaptation to changing environments and the phenomenon of “invasive species” and habitat loss (his areas of expertise).
Professor William Starling’s activities are in conjunction with Windsor’s Mayworks 2012. His stay here includes this exhibition of creative research material from a recent visit to the UK as well as an exhibition tour/talk of Land Marks: Contemporary Photographs from the Art Gallery of Windsor’s collection. The professor can also be found on Sunday morning 11am to 1pm, strolling the Riverside between the Ambassador bridge and the AGW.
Please find below a letter from Professor William Starling to the Citizens of Windsor. We are looking forward to his visit here in Windsor and we hope that will be able to welcome the Professor this Saturday May 5 at SB Contemporary Art. Or, tour and visit with him at the Art Gallery of Windsor on Sunday May 6 afternoon as he discusses the Landmarks collection exhibition. This tour is free to the public and begins at 1pm.
An excerpt from the letter:
Dear Citizens of Windsor, It is with great pleasure that I, the eminently knowledgeable Professor William Starling, have the distinct opportunity of informing you of my recent visits of investigation to your fair city. I have been fortunate, on numerous occasions, to secure handsome lodgings in this city’s centre and it has been my intention to initiate and engage in various forms of inter-species dialogue, to share my extensive knowledge of (and ongoing research on) adaptation to changing environments, the phenomenon of “invasive species” and habitat loss. It is my hope that my presence is welcomed and that some of you will wish to be my guide as I explore the city and that you will even deem it proper to share with me your thoughts in response to the following query.
Dear Windsorians, your official city motto states “The River and the Land Sustain Us” yet I have been set to wonder if this statement still rings true to you or if you require something more? What would this new element of sustenance be? You may respond to my question in one of two ways, by sending me a message at professorstarling@gmail.com or by visiting SB Contemporary Art where the good people of DodoLab have kindly designed and provided for us some lovely black paper starling silhouettes. I would like to request that you take the opportunity to record on said silhouettes that which you feel truly sustains this city today and for the future. Your Starling will be added to a rather unique exposition that opens this coming May 5th and continues through June 9th.
This exhibition is in conjunction with Mayworks Windsor 2012. Please see website for listing of events http://www.artcite.ca/mayworks/
As the history of modernism has repeatedly demonstrated, the greatest potential for transforming and re-energizing artistic practice is often realized precisely at those points where it’s established identity is most seriously at risk.
-Grant Kester in The One and The Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context
This is part of an ongoing set of one-question emails sent to people we know, or would like to get to know, about things that interest us and inform our collective practice. They’ll be featured on the site weekly, usually on Fridays. These questions are more about unfolding ideas than about the people we’re asking, but we do ask those kinds of questions too.
We’re pleased to continue this project with a question for Caroline Woolard, one of the founders of two incredibly great initiatives, OurGoods.org and Trade School.
Most people already have curiosity, enthusiasm, and strong desires to speak truth, hone a craft, produce beauty, and connect with others. So I will rephrase the question: How can we practice sharing, organizing, and creating in ways that transform ourselves, our communities, and the world? Here are some ways I do this:
Create online tools for collaboration and exchange!
We are only twenty years into the internet-era. We are in a beautifully experimental stage of the information revolution. Since the internet reached a critical mass in 1990, many people have been asking online platforms to foster deep connections in real time and space. At OurGoods.org, we support the production of new work through barter, because resource sharing is the paradigm of the 21st century. OurGoods is specifically dedicated to the barter of creative skills, spaces, and objects, because we want to build tools for the communities we are part of.
Learn from elders in sharing communities
We are in a contemporary fumbling for sharing rituals at intimate-distance. I’ve been looking to 30-year-old intentional communities and collectively-run spaces and institutions for advice. I’ve been visiting the intentional community Ganas, in NYC, to learn about the relationships they’ve built to share money, cars, houses, and work for over 30 years. At Ganas, for three decades, a voluntary daily meeting is set aside for members to talk through their personal struggles with cooperation. Members of Ganas recognize that no change will happen unless we struggle to “become the change we want to see in the world.” We are conditioned to compete, talk over, and gossip. We need more spaces to practice cooperating, listening, and working through conflict. Jen Abrams, a co-founder of OurGoods, has worked in the oldest collectively-run women and trans theater space for 13 years. She reminds me that, “you have to take time to check in with one another…emotions are not efficient… either you address your feelings together before the meeting, or you end up working through them while trying to have a meeting.”
Vocalize your Values
At Trade School, we asked a facilitator to help us come up with our principles. We talked about why we were each involved in Trade School New York (there are now Trade Schools in over 6 countries) and brainstormed about the things that are at the core of our work (the things that probably won’t ever be changed). After 2 hours, we made this rough set of working principles:
WHAT?
1. Trade School is a learning experiment where teachers barter with students.
2. Trade School is not free– we believe in the power of non-monetary value.
3. We place equal value on big ideas, practical skills, and experiential knowledge.
WHY?
1. Everyone has something to offer.
2. We are actively working to create safe spaces for people and ideas.
3. We want more spaces made by and for the people who use them.
HOW?
1. Trade School runs on mutual respect.
2. We avoid hoarding leadership by sharing responsibilities and information.
3. We are motivated by integrity, not coercion.
4. Our organization is always learning and evolving.
Practice forever
We recognize that bartering is a way to experiment with value. Because value is subjective, some people may not value the work that you make as much as you do. After bartering for years on OurGoods.org, we’ve come up with these basic guidelines:
1. Be clear: Define the exchange. Articulate what constitutes a job well-done.
2. Do your homework: Read your partner’s profile and feedback. Meet before you agree.
3. Be accountable: Do what you said you were going to do, when you said you’d do it.
4. Communicate: Stay in touch. Talk about what’s going right (or wrong) as it happens.
5. Leave feedback: This is what makes our community work.
Caroline Woolard is a Brooklyn based, post-media artist exploring civic engagement and communitarianism. Her work is collaborative and often takes the form of sculptures, websites, and workshops. Woolard is a co-founder of OurGoods.org and Trade School, two barter economies for cultural producers, and a coordinating member of SolidarityNYC, an organization that promotes grassroots economic justice.
For some artists, the systematic self-criticism of art meant autonomy-as-a-value comes to stand for something other than the production of art objects. The working role of the ‘artist’ is thrown into crisis. Avant-gardes often did not conceive of themselves as a vanguard of artists leading the way, but as artists refusing the role of artists.
The series continues… with an introduction from Daragh’s site:
There is a whole narrative to Bell Payphone Labs. Laura got into the lab coat for every installation she did, playing the role of the phone scientist. She had a little lab area in the storefronts the whole time as well, with educational posters about her department’s enterprises. I realized I had some assumptions about artists heading into this project: artists worked alone, used their own identities, and were removed from day-to-day life. Like lawyers, or dentists. But over the course of things I realized there were many artist collectives, artists who assumed different identities, and many who engaged with the world in far more interesting ways than I was expecting.