Join us tonight for the announcement at the nbART’s Autumn Fundraiser, and keep posted on the project, set for Spring 2012, on our website.

From the press release:

On November 8th, 2011, The North Brooklyn Public Art Coalition (nbART) announced the selection of its sixth public art project, The Newtown Creek Armada, an interactive installation in which a model boat pond will be created on the Newtown Creek, one of America’s most polluted waterways. The Newtown Creek Armada is a collaboration between three Brooklyn artists – Laura Chipley, Nathan Kensinger, and Sarah Nelson Wright – whose individual work creatively investigates industry, ecology, and change in urban spaces. The project was commissioned by nbART through nbECO 2012, an open call seeking environmentally and sustainability-conscious art installations.

As part of The Newtown Creek Armada, visitors will be invited to pilot a fleet of artist-created, miniature, radio-controlled boats along the creek’s surface while at the same time documenting the world hidden beneath the water. Each boat in The Armada will be equipped with an underwater camera and lights, allowing participants to record a unique voyage on the creek. Video from these underwater explorations will be on view at the project location, giving visitors a chance to virtually immerse themselves in the toxic waters of this Superfund site. The Newtown Creek Armada will be launched in Spring 2012 from the Newtown Creek Nature Walk in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The archive of voyages from The Armada will be presented in a gallery installation in Fall 2012.

Our studio has relocated to Bushwick as of March 1. We’ve also had some comings and goings. The current crew is Laura Chipley, Jennifer Jacobs, Mary Jeys, Laurie Sumiye and myself. Megan Sperry will be joining us this summer. (We dig the IMA connection.)

Come check out our new spot this Saturday (12-7pm) and Sunday (12-5pm). It would be lovely to see you!

Here’s our info:

http://artsinbushwick.org/bos2011/directory/?listing=1300

We’re at 119 Ingraham (@ Porter) #411.

Unfortunately the L won’t be running to the closest stop (Morgan) but there is a shuttle from Lorimer L/Metropolitan G. The JMZ to Myrtle is accessible with a walk and you could hit some other BOS studios and events on your way.

I hope you can join us on Saturday to see  site-specific installations, projections and performance by more than 50 artists around the Greenpoint Terminal Market Buildings (off Franklin Street, between Oak, Noble and Milton).  Ours will be at the end of Noble near West Street.

BRING TO LIGHT
Saturday, October 2, 2010
7PM-Midnight
“A nighttime festival of LIGHT AND PROJECTION ART on the industrial waterfront of Greenpoint, Brooklyn”

Bring to Light is partnered with Greenpoint Open Studios, which I will be participating in on Sunday 12-6pm with my studiomates in #201 and several other artists at 233 Norman Avenue between Russell & North Henry.

All three are excellent films (see descriptions below) and will be followed by a short discussion about housing and development in North Brooklyn with the filmmakers and a representative from St. Nicks Alliance.

Also, if you haven’t gotten to see the show, come by a little early (the gallery is open from 3pm) to check out the 20 participating artists’ works in this unique new space.  We had a great time at the opening, the work looks wonderful and it generated many interesting conversations.

DREAM HOUSE/OPEN HOUSE/OUR HOUSE
Friday, Oct. 1
7:30-9:30pm
Arts@Renaissance
2 Kingsland Avenue, Garden Level (C)
Brooklyn, NY (L train to Graham Ave.)

http://renaissancenbk.org/

DREAM HOUSE by Laura Grace Chipley
13 minutes, 2008

Dream House is an experimental documentary about desire, memory and loss. After happening upon a derelict Victorian house in Williamsburg, a young couple becomes obsessed with moving in and starting a life there. After unsuccessful attempts to gather information about the property from city agencies, they break into the house only to find a drug-addicted man and woman already living inside, among the abandoned possessions of the house’s former owners.  Mutual alarm soon gives way to a shared sense of awe, as the squatters give the young couple a tour of the house.

OPEN HOUSE by Diane Nerwen
31 minutes, 2009

“Readily visible under the thin veneer of real estate ads pushing Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s future as a destination for the moneyed, yet “hip”, classes is an urban renewal project on a scale not seen since Robert Moses’ “slum” clearance of the 1960’s. Documenting the brutal nature of the development spree which occurred as a result of the neighborhood’s re-zoning from light manufacturing/residential to the loosening of codes that allowed for forty story towers on the waterfront, Nerwen’s video offers stark evidence against the cheerful notion that the unrestricted laws of free markets are “good for everyone”. With images of a neighborhood being literally torn apart by outside developers capitalizing on a frenzied housing market, and locals under pressure to “sell out” while the price is right, this work documents aspects of an incredible drama that has been woefully underreported in the mainstream media.” — Peter Scott

OUR HOUSE by Greg King & David Teague
56 minutes, 2010

On Dan Taylor’s first day out of prison he had nowhere to go, and faced one of the most important choices of his life: to return to his past of drug addiction or to try for something better. Through a chance encounter the next day, he met Derek, a young Christian anarchist, who invited him to move into a new and very unusual community. Called “Our House,” it was an alternative to the impersonal shelter system, providing the homeless a safe place where everyone lived communally (and illegally) in an abandoned warehouse. Besides a roof and healthy food, Dan also found new friends, a spiritual haven in a makeshift ‘prayer tent,’ and the hope of putting his life back together. But when the building is set for demolition to make way for luxury condos, Dan and the other residents must confront the inevitable end of their community and what that will mean for their futures.

The Gentrification of Brooklyn
@ MoCADA
80 Hanson Place // Brooklyn, NY
Wednesday-Sunday, 11am-6pm, until May 16

Trains:
The 2, 3, 4, 5, B, and Q stop at Atlantic Avenue.
The D, M, N, and R stop at Pacific Avenue.
The C stops at Lafayette Avenue.
The G stops at Fulton Street.

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

I recently watched a great 2006 documentary called Marti Gras: Made in China. Director David Redmond traveled to China to meet the women who make the plastic mardi gras beads for which women in New Orleans famously show their ta-tas.  The film engages with the disconnect of the women’s reality, working for two dollars a day in unsafe conditions to make beads that end up in the trash after being part of a celebration the women cannot comprehend.  There’s also a great short in the extras about Emen Levy, an artist who make mosaics with beads he collects off the streets of New Orleans.

Jennifer Baichwal’s Manufactured Landscapes, a documentary about renown photographer Edward Burtynsky, who went to China to photograph giant factories,opened my eyes to how many products in Chinese factories are made by hand, rather than machine.  This film literally blew my mind and  forever transformed my concept of the word “handmade” and the way I look at manufactured objects.

The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard provides a great explanation of modern production and consumption.  The narrator bugged me enough that it took twice to get engaged, but the animations a great and the research is solid.

The How Stuff Is Made wiki, a project led by Natalie Jeremijencho at NYU, encourages people to investigate everyday objects and share how they are made on the internet.

Johanna Unzueta, who I discovered through my friend Pilar, is an artist who makes handmade felt sculptures of industrial buildings, part of a body of work on the dignity of labor.  The relationship between the handmade movement and manufacturing is something I find both problematic and essential to our understanding of material culture, and Johanna’s projects seem to open up room for dialog.

The film that originally inspired my project is a documentary by my boss Isabel Hill from the early 1990s called Made in Brooklyn.  The film is simultaneously a fascinating argument about the vital role of urban manufacturing in a city that constantly undermines it and a beautiful tribute to the meaningful work provided by manufacturers on the North Brooklyn waterfront before the rezoning that forced many to close.

And finally, two books I’m in the middle of and can also recommend: The Craftsman by Richard Sennett and Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart.

Thus I was delighted by my experience last night at Hoi Polloi’s Sufjan Stevens Winter Song Exclusive Listening Session.  From Alec Duffy:

In the winter of 2007, Sufjan Stevens dreamed up the Sufjan Stevens Xmas Song Xchange Contest.  Over 600 people wrote holiday-themed songs and sent them to Sufjan in hopes of exchanging the rights for their song for the rights for a new, unreleased holiday song that Sufjan penned.  I was the winner of the contest, with my song “Every Day is Christmas.”  Sufjan’s announcement can be found here.  You can hear my song here (just click on the box with the musical notes at the top of the page and it’ll bring you to the page with the song).

As promised, I received from Sufjan the exclusive rights to his own winter song of great beauty, called “The Lonely Man of Winter.”  No one but Sufjan’s closest friends has heard this recording.  Until now.

In an effort to counter the cheapening effects of internet all-availability, and to recapture an era when to get one’s hands on a particular album or song was a real experience, we at Hoi Polloi would like to share this song with Sufjan fans in a special way.

We would like to invite you to our Brooklyn home for an exclusive listening session of this gorgeous song, with hot beverages and cookies provided for your enjoyment.  We’ll share some conversation, slip some headphones on you, and press play.

I have to admit I was not particularly moved by the notion that the internet’s openness had somehow demeaned the value of music, but the listening session proved an amazing experience.  I drank tea and ate fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies with five really lovely strangers, swapping stories about how we discovered Sufjan’s music, the ways we share music, and what we are about as people.  We then listened to the song on headphones twice and concluded by snapping a group picture.

It was a beautiful song.  As one attendee put it, “book Sufjan.”  I thought that I would feel deprived that I could only hear it twice, but I had no such feelings.  Instead, it was a deeply-experienced and clear moment in the middle of a hectic day, in which I dedicated a full ten minutes to listening to music and nothing else.

Alec and Dave are planning to take their show on road, visiting Sufjan fans around the country to share the song in these unique listening sessions, and bringing strangers together in person who may indeed have interacted on a fan forum online, or stood online together at the bathroom at a concert, but would never have had the chance to share cookies and company.

Daniel Wright’s World Collective
Saturday Feb. 7 @ 10pm
The Living Room
154 Ludlow Street (between Stanton and Rivington)
New York, NY 10002
212-533-7237
Directions: Take the F or V trains to 2nd Ave
Free.

Check out their Myspace.

The Living Room’s website.

My brilliant friend & fellow Yalie Jenn Stock will also be doing a video performance that same night and brilliant friend & fellow IMA-er David Watson will be showing a piece on Saturday afternoon.  Info below; hope to see you there!

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vBrooklyn documents the evolving state of Brooklyn, NY, through contemporary video-art. The festival showcases video-artists as they build an historical record of the borough through innovative and personal interpretation and documentation.

Friday, December 12, 8pm
Saturday Afternoon, December 13, 2pm-5pm
Saturday Evening, December 13, 8pm (<—night we’re showing)

$5 admission each event

Wunsch Hall
Polytechnic University
6 Metrotech Plaza
Brooklyn

A,C,F to Jay St. / 2,3,4,5 to Borough Hall / M,R to Lawrence St. / Q,B to Dekalb Ave.

Complete schedule, additional information, and more detailed directions at
http://www.vBrooklyn.org

The festival features IDMI’s 9-channel video system. Over 25 New York City artists will present live and composed multichannel video-performances and screenings focusing on the immense complexity and detail that make Brooklyn a unique city within a city.  vBrooklyn subjects include Brooklyn’s waterfront from Floyd Bennett Field to Greenpoint; landmark bridges and architecture; neighborhoods in transition; and the people and experiences that define Brooklyn as a place.

Performances and Screenings by: Gary Acers, Caroline Bouchat, Francisca Caporali, Angeline Su-Ching Chang, Kym Chapman, Chika, Brian Colby, James Daher, Bilge Demirta, Elle Burchill, Richard Garet, Piama Habibullah, Sean Hagerty, Rikayo Horimizu, Adam Kendall, Jared Lamenzo, David Last, Inhye Lee, Richard Lewis, Laura Lou, Phyllis Burkin Lehrer, Pilar Ortiz, Uni Park, Lenin Paulino, Siddartha Mehta, Karl Mendonca, Naval Cassidy, Ganesh Ramanathan, Kimberly Simpson, Catalin Stefanovici, Jennifer Stock, Caspar Stracke, Bruce Tovsky, VisualHornHonkinG & DJ ActivePhaze, VJ Miixxy, vydavy sindikat, David Watson, Sarah Nelson Wright, WvS, Tamara Yadao, Lan Xu, Marina Zamalin

vBrooklyn is supported by: Forward Motion Theater, Polytechnic University’s Integrated Digital Media Institute (IDMI), Harvestworks, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and the Experimental Television Center.  The Experimental Television Center’s Presentation Funds program is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and mediaThe Foundation.