[video]
The Stories in Reserve series released its first volume earlier this month, and one of our Conversation and Skillshare presenters has a tour in this volume! Ricardo Miranda Zuniga presented the http://votemos.us/ project for last year’s Conflux Festival, and we’re excited to welcome him back to Conflux 2010.
Stories in Reserve are the Lonely Planets of the psychogeographic world. As their website puts is, “Places may be distinct spatial categories in our minds, but they are far from materially exclusive—their boundaries form overlapping volumes that share varying amounts of matter and history.”
It brings to mind a discussion I had with some friends a couple of years ago when they first moved to East 29th St. It was the inspiration of much discussion as to whether they lived in Murray Hill or in Kips Bay. Where did one place stop and the other begin? Unlike the border between, say, Brooklyn and Queens, the distinction is fuzzy and subjective. This is an audio guide to that fuzzier aspect of a place.
Zuniga’s guide is a walking tour of Tijuana, and looks at the nature of “transnational commerce.” While there’s a distinct (though some of the right wing would argue that it’s not distinct enough) border between the US and Mexico, what constitutes a “nation” is more than just land. There’s language and food and culture and a shared history that can’t (and shouldn’t) be contained to a certain physical area. To experience the psychogeographic aspect of this corner of the world, download Zuniga’s guide here.
aaaand we are done taking submissions for Conflux 2010! Stay tuned for deets on the exciting folks who will be investigating, acting and transmitting with us.
Submitting to Conflux 2010, that is. And you only have three days left to do it in. Just look at all the good company you’ll be in…
Mr. Jason Eppink! You may have seen his Pixelator turning vaguely annoying video screens on subway stops into mesmerizing artistic distraction a couple of years ago. Go skim his back catalogue: http://jasoneppink.com/
Mr. Tom Peyton and Friends! This merry band comprise the forces behind DoTank:Brooklyn, the fine folks who are Bringing Us to Light this October. Of course you should also check out their other delightful urban exploits: http://dotankbrooklyn.tumblr.com/
Mr. Galen Joseph-Hunter! Free103point9’s executive director will be giving a seminar on New York State’s Distribution Grants. Be there or be square, psychogeographers!
At Conflux 2009 you turned your Probability performance into a workshop which introduced participants to the ways of Google Earth pro, Google Sketchup and the nuances of a successful flythrough—so what did they come up with?
WWKSF: Since we started working on Probability about a year ago we’ve been keeping our eyes open for other people using Google Earth as a glorified presentation tool, mostly because we’re really waiting for there to be a better way. Unfortunately, we haven’t really seen too much pop up. Slowly, Google is adding features to Earth with allow custom overlays and better integration of different 3D specs but the fact remains that using SketchUp and Earth the way we do in Probability remains extremely difficult and pretty cumbersome. That - however - doesn’t really stop us because we think it looks amaaaaazing. We just certainly wouldn’t fault anyone for seeing what the process is and going “Oh man… I’ll wait until thats a little easier.”
MemeFactory seems to be your most popular performance/lecture. Do the memes “rank” differently in each performance or have you noticed any trends? What can you tell me about Forwards\Backwards?
WWKSF: MemeFactory is definitely a great crowd pleaser. Our methodology for determining what we talk about at each MemeFactory performance (and it IS different every time) is pretty loose. It all starts with the stuff we think is the funniest, and then we take into consideration the probable level-of-internet-expertise of the audience and a million other things. So in that sense, there is no real “rank” for the way we organize things. For example, Crank That was the “headliner” for one show and the opening example for the next. Different memes serve many and varied purposes when explaining the online ecology; your standard audience loves cute animals and fears being goatse’d. Those’re about the only constants.
Forwards\Backwards is a performance for 1 vocalist and synchronous audio / video about time travel. It retains much of the same look of our other shows - a 1 for 1 relationship between a performer and his or her screen displaying media, but that relationship is reversed. In our work up to this point, the screen has always been controlled by or following the pace of the performer. Forwards\Backwards explores the idea of the performer having to keep pace with his screen - which runs autonomously - with the additional challenge that he cannot even see it. In this way it becomes a kind of memory-related parlor trick, and presents a performer/screen relationship which is new for us.
The pace of your performances reflects the instantaneous exchange of information the internet affords us, but do you find that participants of your theoretical derives are able to keep up? In your opinion, are memes and Google flythroughs turning the world into Marshall McLuhan’s global village, or are our modems and monitors causing more missed connections than meaningful ones?
WWKSF: Our first performance in front of an audience was proceeded by about 2 months of fret. All of our shows operate on the idea that whatever your ears get, your brain will put together eventually (maybe not at the moment you hear it, since our performers speak so quickly, but soon after). And whatever your ears miss while your brain is putting stuff together, will hopefully be filled in or supported by what your eyes get from the visuals (which are also moving blisteringly fast). Back in 2008, we had no idea if this was going to work. After the first show, I had a friend of mine approach me and say “How did you do that?” after asking what he meant, he explained that while he couldn’t tell me a complete sentence from the show, he knew exactly what had been said - knew exactly what the show was about. In the last two and a half years of doing this kind of work, that reaction - thankfully! - has been shared by many people.
We find that our audiences are not only able to keep up - possibly due to their modern media “training” - but they are elated that as performance makers we give them so much credit. We don’t spoon feed or patronize or talk down. We do our best to present challenging and rewarding constructions of logic which put to use those cognitive abilities we’ve developed as consumers of modern culture.
As for the possibly-changing size of the globe, my opinion is that the internet is a symptom and not a cause. In the same way that the industrial revolution necessitated the railways, our growing “need” for goods and products gave rise to a system which supported that; the media revolution necessitates a global information framework. Starting with radio, our constantly growing “need” for information gives rise to a system and way of life which supports that. Now we ask the same questions about the internet that we did about the the printed word, the radio or television before they became defacto cultural standards. I think it is damaging - or at the very least occasionally irresponsible - to think of them as Determining Factors in Cultural Development; rather I consider them products of a culture’s advance. The situation - and all previous media situations - are simultaneously idyllic, grotesque and mundane. To me that is what is most fascinating. “Too bad,” said Jean Baudrillard, “We are in Paradise.”
***
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR is a Brooklyn-based group of performers and the works they perform. Our performances look like lectures (suits, podiums, slide shows, the works), but are much more theatrical. For instance: there is music. We create complex and fast paced situations which are also engaging and affable.
WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR is directed by Mike Rugnetta and Patrick Davison
Mike Rugnetta is a composer and programmer. He has performed or had work show at HERE Art Center, The Kitchen, Judson Memorial Church, Mass MoCA, The Wexner Center for the Arts, The Walker Art Center, St. Mark’s Church, 3rd Ward and others. He is also a principal artist with Avant Media and his favorite word is elucubrate.
Patrick Davison is a digital artist living in Brooklyn. He is co-director of WWKSF, and has performed work in New York City at the Kitchen, NYU, Columbia University, The Gene Frankel Theater, and 3rd Ward in Brooklyn. He works closely with Eyebeam Senior-Fellow Michael Mandiberg, and film-maker Julie Talen.
Find WWKSF On: Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, YouTube and, of course, WWKSF.com
Artist, historian and urban spelunker Steve Duncan will be giving a keynote talk October 8 in the auditorium at Conflux HQ.
Steve’s photography explores the hidden side of quotidian urban life, taking his audience to the forgotten spaces of New York, Paris, Rome and beyond. As of late you may have caught him talking about the Paris catacombs over at Flux Factory.
Beyond making pretty images, (more of which can be appreciated at undercity.org) Steve’s explorations are also the springboard for historical research. In his words, he tries “to peel back the layers of a city to see what’s underneath.” While delving into the physical urban layers he also digs into the temporal layers by researching the history of urban terrain all over the world.
Be sure to catch him in NYU’s Barney Building auditorium the Friday evening of Conflux!
Conflux proposals must be submitted by August 15 ($10 administrative fee). All proposals will be judged based on artistic merit, originality, and feasibility. Check the FAQ for guidelines and details.
This year’s festival is based on themes of INVESTIGATION, ACTION and TRANSMISSION. Conflux participants will transform New York’s East Village into a laboratory for creative experimentation and civic action. Through public interventions, artist-facilitated walks and tours, interactive performances and installations, bike and subway expeditions, and more, Conflux artists will confront and rewrite the rules of urban public space.
At Conflux 2009 how did you and your workshop participants decide what was the definitive commercial for NYC?
MH: Anyone who wanted to participate in the making of a commercial for NYC met outside the Barney building at NYU and we brainstormed ideas. Collectively we came up with the concept, then immediately went out and shot it, and edited that evening. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever done, but considering the time frame and parameters, it definitely worked.
Now you’re hosting It’s Effin’ Science on G4. It looks like a fun gig but do you still get to do your own social experiments? Who picks the experiments for the show? Do you ever miss the mule?
MH: Working on Effin Science has been awesome! I don’t pick the experiments, they are all written by the exec producer, Rob Fox. I just show up and blow shit up and then make commentary.
I’m working on a new project with Creative Time in NY called The Advice of Strangers, where for one month, people will be able to vote on most all the decisions I make in my life.
Yes, I miss Hail. She is a wonderful creature that spans time.
So you’ve traveled across the country a few times, both the physical and virtual landscapes. How do you think gps and google earth are affecting the way we relate to our environment? Have you seen anyone else attempt a google maps road trip?
MH: GM, google earth, flickr, youtube all are both shrinking our universe and expanding it at the same time. In taking a virtual road trip, there is now so much info to access along the way, pictures and videos people have uploaded, street and satellite view and a live feedback loop. You don’t even have to leave your house to explore anymore.
***
Marc Horowitz is an artist, actor, writer, filmmaker, comic, and internet celebrity based in Los Angeles, California. In 2005, Marc gained national attention while working on a catalog shoot for Crate and Barrel. He wrote “Dinner w/Marc” along with his cell number on a dry-erase board featured in a home office shot for the catalog. When the catalog was distributed, Marc received more than 30,000 phone calls. He spent the following year driving across the country and having dinner with individuals that had called. This project was aptly named “The National Dinner Tour”. He was also given the distinction by People magazine to be added to their list of the “50 Most Eligible Bachelors”. Marc was featured in Nissan’s popular national ad campaign, “Seven Days in a Sentra,” where he lived in a 2007 Nissan Sentra for seven days. This unique campaign was written about in the New York Times Business section and AdWeek.
Follow Marc on twitter, flickr and you tube and see what else he’s up to on ineedtostopsoon.com
[video]
So last year, you gave visitors an intro to urban alchemy, the transmogrification of common public infrastructure into rare moments of unauthorized culture. Did your group create or discover any urban alchemy? What inspired you to make the first pixelator?
JE: I focused on developing a way of seeing, so we didn’t actually transmogrify anything during our walk, but we did brainstorm a lot of really great ideas, including turning sidewalk friction strips into music staffs and newsracks into aquariums.
The Pixelator has a lot of prior art. I’d seen what Ji Lee (Abstractor) and the Anti-Advertising Agency and Graffiti Research Lab (Light Criticism) had done, and I saw some work by Aram Bartholl (TV Filter) and I just put two and two together and stuck it on the street and documented it in a compelling way, and it blew up.
Is the night market video available yet? Are you able to tell readers anything about it? Can you tell us about your Conflux project this year?
JE: Alas, Surprise Surveillance Theater documentation has been a monster to edit. It’s coming, I’m just not sure when yet. We got a nice mention in Wired, though!
This year for Conflux my frequent co-conspirator Jen Small and I are proposing a project titled “Be My Mayor”, based on something we did last year called “Tag Me On Flickr As…” It’s a weekend-long bet that involves stalking, lots of free drinks, and Foursquare. Did we just make Foursquare creepier? MAYBE.
Your friend Matt Green has now walked from New York to North Dakota and you’ve built a blog to tell his story geographically. Do you think the internet and gps applications are changing the way we interact with our environment, or vice versa—is the internet geotagging the environment, or is the environment geotagging the internet?
JE: Man, that guy is almost in Wyoming now! He is a walking machine!
Locative technology is undoubtedly changing the way we understand and interact with the world. We get lost less, we travel more efficiently, we look at maps more, all for better or for worse. One interesting shift, I believe, is that we increasingly understand our spatial contexts primarily from a top down view, rather than from the ground, because of the pervasiveness of internet maps and directions.
But there is freedom in order. One of the best things about the Manhattan grid is that it encourages exploration. You can’t get too lost if you know how the streets and avenues are numbered, and so you have more freedom to improvise.
***
Jason Eppink was originally trained as a filmmaker in Los Angeles though he quickly realized following this path would have him running coffee for the next few years before doing anything mildly creative. And Jason doesn’t know the first thing about coffee. After hosting a long-running public access television show, finishing a few art films, and dabbling in viral video, he finally just gave in to this whole Art thing.
Informed by his years in film, as well as an interest in programming and the open source movement (where applicable, he distributes his own source code) Jason likes to engage the public with victimless pranks, street art, and interactive sculpture. As a result, much of his recent work falls somewhere in the gray area between art, prank, and activism. Really, Jason just likes to think he is a dude who is making things a little better.
When he’s not doing whatever it is you call what he’s doing, Jason serves as a curator at a museum in New York City that doesn’t want to be publicly associated with any of his mischief.
Jason is currently working on a documentary about AC Window Units, generously funded by Queens Council on the Arts.
He is also leading a mystery bus tour July 10th called “Rock the Block” at Flux Factory (Sign up for their e-mail list @ http://fluxfactory.org to reserve seats when they’re announced.)
Find out more about Jason Eppink’s exploits on jasoneppink.com