On Saturday night it’s the third FEAST (Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics), a monthly dinner event I have been participating in here in Greenpoint, where we all pool $10-20 contributions, eat a delicious meal and vote for a project to receive a cash grant.  This time, my friend Mary Jeys is proposing her new project Brooklyn Torch, a local currency for North Brooklyn.

Hunter College IMA/MFA Spring Show:Medium of Exchange

MFA/IMA Student Group EYEspeak is holding their Annual Showcase of Interdisciplinary and New Media Art from Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts MFA Program.

PLACE:  The Black Box Gallery
Hunter College North Building, 5th floor, Room 544N
695 Park Avenue (enter on 68th Street)
New York, NY 10065
DATES: May 8th–10th 2009
HOURS: Opening Reception, Friday May 8th 6–9 PM
Saturday May 9th and Sunday 10th 12–6 PM
Admission to the IMA Spring Show is free to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Vote for Brooklyn Torch
@ FEAST!
Church of the Messiah
129 Russell Street, Brooklyn
6-9p; $10-20, no one turned away
Sat, May 9th

Drew Cogbill presented Pigeon, a social network using telephones he hopes can bring social networking to places where internet is not as ubiquitous (sign up to be a test user!). Meng Li and Elim Cheng presented Peek, Poke, Talk, a delightful bench that encourages interaction between strangers. When people sit far apart from each other on the bench, their shadows are triggered to interact and flirt, high fiving, whispering and teasing each other with a power drill (he he…).

We’ll be posting the program and links on our newly minted website soon. Laura Chipley took some wonderful photos (three below).

The crowd

Setting up

Onlookers at Locations & Dislocation

Thanks so much to my co-conspirators: Suyin Looui, Francisca Caporali, Laura Chipley, Pilar Ortiz and Ariana Souzis, who really took the lead this year.

We had the honor of guest artist critiques with Mendi + Keith Obadike and Jennifer McCoy. I got some great feedback on my Comment Williamsburg site and got to see Colonial Glass projected on a giant screen. As usual, working with the gang was pretty amazing, especially considering we do the work of 30 people with just a few of us. Below are pictures from Laura Chipley, you can see more of hers here.  More documentation forthcoming.

Havemeyer Street (our installation)

Wear and Tear (Suyin Looui, Samara Smith & AE Souzis)

Urban Homesteading Project (Francisca Caporali, Laura Chipley & Pilar Ortiz) and Varnish on (Mike Schuwerk & Cristina Gil Donaire)

IMAterial art

IMAterial
May 1 –3, 2008 (opening May 1)
THU & FRI 6 –9 PM / SAT 1-5 PM
The Black Box Gallery
5th Floor, Room 544HN
Hunter North Building
695 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10021
Enter on 69th Street between Park and Lexington

IMAterial
Noun, Adjective

1: The 6th annual exhibit from Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts MFA program.
2. Lacking a material body or form; the physical intangibility of new media and digital work.
3: The challenge of new media and interdisciplinary media artists to make their artistic and political work both relevant and of substance.
4. Incorporeal; metaphysical forces; the underlying spirit that drives the artistic production and practice of the students and faculty in the IMA/MFA program.

Jackie Goss
Animated Documentaries: “Stranger Comes To Town” & “How to Fix the World”
Thursday, December 13 // 7:30 PM @ 16 Beaver
Screening and Discussion // free and open to all

16 Beaver Street, 4th/5th fl.
New York, NY 10004
212.480.2099for directions/subscriptions/info visit:
http://www.16beavergroup.org

TRAINS: 4,5 Bowling Green / R,W Whitehall / 2,3 Wall Street /J,M Broad Street / 1,9 South Ferry

Stranger Comes To Town
28 minutes 2007

They say there’s only two stories in the world: man goes on a journey, and stranger comes to town.

Six people are interviewed anonymously about their experiences coming into the US. Each then designs a video game avatar who tells their story by proxy. Goss focuses on the questions and examinations used to establish identity at the border, and how these processes in turn affect one’s own sense of self and view of the world.

“Stranger Comes to Town” re-works animations from the Department of Homeland Security –combining them with stories from the border, impressions from the on-line game World of Warcraft, and journeys via Google Earth to tell a tale of bodies moving through lands familiar and strange.

How To Fix The World
28 minutes 2004

Adapted from psychologist A.R. Luria’s research in Uzbekistan in the 1930s, “How to Fix the World” brings to life Luria’s conversations with Central Asian farmers learning how to read and write under the unfamiliar principles of Socialism.

Colorful digital animations play against a backdrop of images shot in Andijian (where Soviet-era President Karimov’s supression of Islam lead to violence in May 2005.) At once conflicting, humorous, and revelatory, these conversations between Luria and his “subjects” illustrate an attempt by one culture to transform another in the name of education and modernization.

The subtleties of this transformation, as well as the roots of current cultural conflicts, are found in words exchanged and documented seventy-five years ago.

Jacqueline Goss makes videos and web-based works exploring the rules, histories, and tools of language and mapmaking systems. Her projects take as their source specific acts of writing and cartography that bring about cultural change, technological innovation, or create social narrative ruptures.

For the last few years she has used 2D digital animation techniques to work within the genre of the animated documentary.

A native of New Hampshire, she attended Brown University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She teaches in the Film and Electronic Arts Department at Bard College in the Hudson Valley of New York.

www.jacquelinegoss.com

I was truly delighted that all our hard work paid off, and I’m deeply in gratitude to the wonderful people I organized the event with: Alana Kakoyiannis, Ariana Souzis, Francisca Caporali, James Wagstaff, Laura Chipley, Pilar Ortiz & Suyin Looui.

Suyin, Me & Ariana (pic by Fivel Rothberg)

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// [ ESC ] is Electronic Social Club: a network of NYC graduate students connected by the practice of creating social dialogue through projects in media, art and design. //

Mixer + Presentations
November 15, 2007
7-10 PM
Hunter College Black Box
695 Park Avenue, Room 543 Hunter North

Directions:
6 train to 68 street or F to 63 street
enter on 69th street between Park & Lexington
elevator or stairs to the 5th floor

* Free & open to the public.
electronicsocialclub[AT}gmail[DOT]com
www.eyespeakIMA.org