Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition

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Join us for the Pecha Kucha for the Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition (Weisman Plaza)

Back in March, the Target Studio for Creative Collaboration at the Weisman Art Museum put out a call for a Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition. Northern Lights.mn teamed up with Short Elliott Hendrickson (Bob Kost, team leader, and Rachel Baudler), EE&K Architects (Peter Cavaluzzi), and artist Christopher Baker, and we were selected as one of four finalist teams.

The broad outlines of all four teams’ (4rm+ula), coen+partners, and VJAA + HouMinn) proposals are currently on view in the Target Studio at WAM. On Wednesday, October 26, we will present our final proposals to an expert jury in the afternoon and to the public at large at WAMChatter. Final selection of will be announced the following day.

Join us Wednesday, October 26 at 7 pm for 24 minutes of exciting pecha kucha by the 4 cross-disciplinary teams about the Mississippi River Bridge Plaza Design Competition at WAMChatter (preceding reception at 6 pm).

Check out the blog of our team’s “discussions.”

SEH/EE&K/Northern Lights.mn/Christopher Baker team members

Bob Kost (SEH), Peter Cavaluzzi (EE&K), Steve Dietz (Northern Lights.mn), Christopher Baker (SAIC), Rachel Baudler (SEH), Michael Imranyi (EE&K), Mister Blue (SEH), Yehui Xu (EE&K), Dongshin Lee (EE&K), Gaylen Perkuhn (EE&K), Amier Hossein (EE&K)

Parasite

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“parasite is an independant projection-system that can be attached to subways and other trains with suction pads. parasite projects inside films inside a tunnel. these tunnels bear something mystic – most people usually have never made a step inside any of those tunnels. confusing the routine of your train-travelling-journey, your habits and perception the projections parallel worlds – mak — TheGreenEyl

Open call for Northern Spark projects

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Northern Spark Open Calls

Northern Lights and our partners are sponsoring more than 20 calls for participation in the Northern Spark nuit blanche twin cities. Some are based on specific locations, some on specific media, and others are free form. The deadline for submitting proposals is March 7, 2011. Any artist – or in the case of some of the calls, curator or organization or business – may submit a proposal, but all projects must take place within one of the 6 Festival Zones. More information here.

Northern Spark nuit blanche

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Northern Spark

Northern Spark homepage

For one night only, more than 60 regional and national artists together with the Twin Cities’ arts community will display new art installations at public places and unexpected locations throughout the city. Directed and produced by Northern Lights.mn, Northern Spark takes place this summer from sunset on June 4 (8:55 p.m.) until the morning of June 5, 2011 (sunrise 5:28 a.m.).

The Northern Spark event will include a wide diversity of art forms and projects including multi-story projections, audio environments with vistas, installations traveling down the Mississippi on barges, houseboats and paddleboats, headphone concerts, and the use of everything from bioluminescent algae and sewer pipes for organs to more traditional media such as banjos and puppets.

The event is a collaboration of more than 40 partners, each of which will sponsor one or more projects for the duration of the night. The goal is to showcase the urban splendor of the Twin Cities in a unique way, introducing a broad and diverse audience to innovative local and national talent in an inspiring journey through the night.

Participating artists

Participating artists involved in the nuit blanche include Christopher Baker, Phillip Blackburn, The BodyCartography Project, Bart Buch, Jim Campbell, Barbara Claussen, Wing Young Huie, John Kim, Suzanne Kosmalski, Debora Miller, MAW, Ali Momeni, Janaki Ranpura, Red76, Rigo 23, rolu, Jenny Schmid, Andrea Stanislav, Piotr Szyhalski, Roman Verostko, Diane Willow, Works Progress,  Marcus Young, and others.

Participating organizations

Northern Spark participating organizations include: 1419 Artists in Residence, All My Relations Art, American Composer’s Forum, The Art Institutes International Minnesota, Art Shanty Projects, Beijing Film Academy, Black Dog Cafe + Wine Bar, Burnet Gallery at Le Meridien Chambers Minneapolis, College of Visual Arts, The Film Society Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Forecast Public Art, Franklin Art Works, The Friends of Saint Paul Public Library, Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Intermedia Arts, Kulture Klub Collaborative, Landmark Center, Macalester College, MAW, McNally Smith College of Music, Le Meridien Chambers Minneapolis, Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota Museum of American Art, mn original, mnartists.org, Mpls Photo Center, Northern Lights.mn, Northrop Concerts and Lectures, Public Art Saint Paul, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Regis Center for Art, Saint Paul Public Library, Schubert Club, Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory,  Science Museum of Minnesota, Soap Factory, SooVac, W Minneapolis-The Foshay, Walker Art Center

Supported by

Northern Spark is made possible in part by a grant provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature from the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.

Connect to Northern Spark

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Art in odd places – call

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Art in odd places - A festival exploring the odd, ordinary and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.

Art in odd places. A festival exploring the odd, ordinary and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.

Art in Odd Places aims to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas.

Art in Odd Places’ seventh annual festival will take place for the fourth year on 14th Street in Manhattan. AiOP is an art festival placing visual and performance art into the public realm, engaging pedestrians and passersby. AiOP’s mission is to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas. We would like the curators to focus on the idea of Ritual and the concepts of ceremony, habituation. myth, obsession, liturgy. Selected artists should reveal in their work how these notions permeate our everyday life.

There is no curatorial honorarium. AiOP is an artist-initiated grassroots all-volunteer project and no one is paid, though this year we are applying for grants to not only cover festival costs but to have a modest honorarium for everybody in the team. Honorarium will depend on funding. This position requires enthusiasm, good humor and a collaborative spirit and provides, in return, the chance to place your stamp on the festival! Art in Odd Places will provide advice, postcard invite, program guide/map, website, marketing, PR, and general liability insurance for the festival. Please visit artinoddplaces.org for past festival projects, press and submission requirements.

Deadline is February 15.

Art in odd places – call

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Art in odd places - A festival exploring the odd, ordinary and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.

Art in odd places. A festival exploring the odd, ordinary and ingenious in the spectacle of daily life.

Art in Odd Places aims to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas.

Art in Odd Places’ seventh annual festival will take place for the fourth year on 14th Street in Manhattan. AiOP is an art festival placing visual and performance art into the public realm, engaging pedestrians and passersby. AiOP’s mission is to stretch the boundaries of communication in the public realm by presenting artworks in all disciplines outside the confines of traditional public space regulations. AiOP reminds us that public spaces function as the epicenter for diverse social interactions and the unfettered exchange of ideas. We would like the curators to focus on the idea of Ritual and the concepts of ceremony, habituation. myth, obsession, liturgy. Selected artists should reveal in their work how these notions permeate our everyday life.

There is no curatorial honorarium. AiOP is an artist-initiated grassroots all-volunteer project and no one is paid, though this year we are applying for grants to not only cover festival costs but to have a modest honorarium for everybody in the team. Honorarium will depend on funding. This position requires enthusiasm, good humor and a collaborative spirit and provides, in return, the chance to place your stamp on the festival! Art in Odd Places will provide advice, postcard invite, program guide/map, website, marketing, PR, and general liability insurance for the festival. Please visit artinoddplaces.org for past festival projects, press and submission requirements.

Deadline is February 15.

Speakers’ Corners

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Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena, The Urban Speaker at the 2010 Conflux Festival. via Alias Arts

There are many “updates” to the traditional Speaker’s Corner, including Monica Sheets’ Free Speech Machine and Daniel Jolliffe’s One Free Minute. What I particularly like about Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena’s The Urban Speaker is the way it uses signage and the semiotics of construction sites to both call attention to the piece and to camoflauge it in the urban environment.

01SJ Biennial

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San Jose, California, is the 10th largest city in the United States. Surprisingly, it is not necessarily on everyone’s top 10 list of places to visit. If, however, you have even a passing interest in contemporary art, in particular the ways it intersects with contemporary (digital) culture and technology, San Jose is the place to be for the next two weeks.

Admittedly, as the current Artistic Director of the 01SJ Biennial I may not be an entirely unbiased voice in this matter, but let me share 10 reasons you should come to San Jose for 01SJ, September 16-19, and see at least some of 100 art installations, 46 commissioned works, 9 exhibitions, 20 workshops, 12 public artworks, 4 urban games, 1 drive-in movie theater, a nighttime street fair, a green prix of eco-locomotion, an epicurean multi-media dinner, a requiem mass for fossil fuels, audio ballerinas and robotic sitars, musical performances, operas, and more.

1. Largest DIY garage in the world

1. Largest DIY garage in the world

I don’t know if it really is the largest "garage" in the world, but Out of the Garage, Into the World takes place in the 80,000 sqaure feet (7,432 square meters) South Hall of the San Jose Convention Center. Essentially a domed parking lot, for two weeks, beginning September 4, 01sj.org/art/out-of-the-garage/ will publicly build their projects in and around a scaffolding structure designed by Madrid-based architect Angel Borrego Cubero. The projects run the gamut from a book-making workshop by Guggenheim fellow Monica Haller for war veterans the Eyebeam Roadshow to a contemporary hurache workshop by Pilar Aguero-Esparza and Hector Dionicio Mendoza to mobile archipelagos by Nova Jiang to a zipline "xAirport" wearing innovative wing designs over an artificial marsh "ark" for endangered frogs by Natalie Jeremijenko to public orchards, DIY solar sculptures , gift horses, i-weather, pirate radio, and much more . The entire "garage" is serviced by a full tech shop with laser cutters, CNC mills, shop bots, and industrial sewing machines.

Come often to see these works-in-progress September 4-14, admission is free, and only $5 for multiple visits September 16-19.

2. “Drive in” trip out

2. “Drive in“ trip out

As part of Out of the Garage, Into the World, artists Todd Chandler and Jeff Stark and cohorts will be constructing Empire Drive-In, a full-scale drive in theater using salvaged materials, including the cars for seating. There will be a daily film program and nightly live cinema performances such as Chandler and Dark Dark Dark’s Flood Tide Remixed, Graham Weinbren’s 50 Letters, Stephanie Rothenberg’s Second Life talk show Best Practices in Banana Time, Zoe Keating’s remarkable cello in collaboration with Robert Hodgin’s visuals on Into the Trees, the California premiere of Rick Prelinger’s latest archive mash up The Lives of Energy, Sheepwoman by SUE-C & Laetitia Sonami, and a series of telematic performances, Domain, curated by Rhizome’s John Michael Boling, by Jeremy Bailey, Petra Cortright, Constant Dullaart, and JODI.

3. Art in the streets

3. Art in the streets

Art is not just in the garage and theaters and galleries at 01SJ, it is also in the streets, everywhere. Luke Jerram’s acclaimed Play Me I’m Yours has 20 pianos throughout San Jose, which anyone can play – and decorate. Rigo 23 is producing a newly commissioned video projection, Oglala Oyate: Sister City for a Better Future. Chris Baker’s interactive projection, 01sj.org/2010/artworks/offscript/, will play nightly at Santana Row . Yung-ta Chang’s Signal Flow, in a nod to San Jose’s radio history, will greet visitors to South Hall along with Sabrina Raaf’s Meandering RIver. A half dozen works have been commissioned by the San Jose Public Art Program for 01SJ, and Chico MacMurtrie’s Inflatable Architectural Growth will expand on 1st Street during AbsoluteZER0 and the Green Prix.

4. City Hall reacts

4. City Hall reacts

Each Biennial San Jose’s Richard Meier-designed City Hall has been the canvas for a major public art commission. On Thursdsay, September 16, duirng the 01SJ Opening Ceremonies, the Rockwell Group LAB will power up Plug-in-Play, an interactive projection, which suggests a new type of environment where social interactions, citizenship, and personal activities are more dynamically reflected. Inside the City Hall Rotunda, Ken Gregory will present his sound sculpture, wind coil sound flow . During opening ceremonies, Benoit Maubrey and Ballet San Jose will perform Audio Ballerinas.

5. AbsoluteZER0

5. AbsoluteZER0

Now an annual event, AbsoluteZER0 is a vibrant street festival where the public can engage with art, music, science, and technology in new and compelling ways outside on city streets. From an Art Ark to CITY/SPACE/SHARE, a pilot project out of CCA intended to revitalize vacant storefronts and transform urban activity in the City Center of San Jose to Marcus Young’s solo dance program Can’t You Feel It Too? to Steven White’s two-person Ferris Wheel, Over the Top, AbsoluteZER0 is an event not to be missed.

6. Play in the streets

6. Play in the streets

"Go play in the streets" is not just something your mean uncle said. At 01SJ it is a new strand of programming where artists use the city itself as a playground for "serious play." The world premiere of Blast Theory’s A Machine to See With is co-commissioned with the The Banff Centre, and Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Initiative. It mixes documentary material, stolen thriller cliches, and the films of Jean-Luc Godard and invites you to become someone else. Step inside a film as you walk through the city, receiving phone calls. Are you the protagonist or a bit part player? Start making decisions and you will find out. Participation slots are limited, and you can buy tickets ($12) here. You can also become a Zoropathian or participate in an EST-like seminar, LevelFive in commissioned projecs by Ken Eklund and Annette Mees and Brody Condon. And don’t forget to transform your favorite hoodie for an interactive game of zombie tag during AbsoluteZER0.

7. Artful eco-motion – the Green Prix

7. Artful eco-motion - the Green Prix

The Green Prix is a parade and all day festival of sustainable, ecological friendly, and fun modes of transportation—artful “eco-motion.” It will include and Aeolian Bike Ride, Art Bikes, a burlap 1964 Ford, a Gift Horse, Maria del Camino, a video game concept car , a mechanical elephant on wheels , solar cars and much more. And It is open for EVERYONE: artists, designers, families, schools, and anyone else who has or wants to create a new mode of sustainable transportation. It is your opportunity to create, participate in, and cheer on innovative projects related to eco-themed transportation. So break out your banana-bikes, self-propelled jet packs, soapboxes, and solar cars to come out and strut your stuff in front of a cheering audience. The Green Prix Parade will begin at 11:00 am on Saturday, September 18th. It’s not too late to register here . The Green Prix culminates in a special mass by O+A at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Requiem for fossil fuels.

8. After midnight

8. After midnight

During 01SJ, San Jose will be a 24/7 city. Three midnight concerts by contemporary sound artists curatd by artist and musician Stephen Vitiello will take place on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night at midnight inside one of San Jose’s historic venues, Trinity Cathedral. untitled composition for piano, field recordings, sine waves by Olivia Block, Possible Landscape (for Donald Judd) by Steve Roden, and Untitled by Stephen Vitiello and Molly Berg . For other nighttime events check out the live cinema at Empire Drive-In, Randall Packer’s multimedia opera A Season in Hell , and KarmetIK’s symbiotic Robotic/Human Ensemble in collaboration with Abhinaya Dance Company.

9. Workshops and artist talks

At the heart of 01SJ is the artists, of course, and many of them will be participating in an artist talk series beginning Tuesday, September7, through Sunday, September 19. The full schedule is here. And you can do more than listen to many of the artists, as enlightening as that can be. Many are offering hands-on workshops open to the public from a barn raising to a biodiesel bus tour of San Jose’s urban orchards and farms to DIY solar sculptures to a youth workshop on future sounds to Imaginary Airforce Flight Attendant Training and much more. The complete listing of workshops is here.

10. Help 01SJ to continue

The 01SJ Biennial is one of very few similar events in North America. ZER01 receives very little support from government sources, unlike similar events in Europe, South America, and Asia. Help this important event to continue by chipping in whatever you can. Every $5 helps. Donate here.

Above all, come and visit. Tickets are online here.

See you in San Jose @01SJ.

Auctions speak louder than words

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Futurefarmers, Auctions speak Louder than words on Vimeo.

On Saturday (September 4), Futurefarmers will present (perform) Auctions Speak Louder Than Words, the culminating event of their month-long residency A People Without a Voice Cannot Be Heard. Bring your stories – and 3 objects.

Here is how it works:

Objects on Blankets

11 am–1 pm
Futurefarmers invite us to consider what our possessions say about us in this unusual auction. Bring a blanket and three objects from home and spread out on the Field prepared to share a story with others. Throughout the morning, Futurefarmers will collect these stories as special “vocal” guests roam the field.

Auction and Drawing

1–2 pm
An auction commences where you may be invited to have professional auctioneers Glen and Dale Fladeboe auction one of your objects by retelling your story in their own inimitable voice. Futurefarmers will be making interpretive drawings of the selected auctioned objects and the owner of the object can choose which to keep—drawing or object—and which one is awarded to the winning bidder.

Conflux

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The deadline for Conflux is now past, but I will be part of the Skillsharing & Conversation Series at Conflux HQ and hope to see you there. I’m really looking forward to finally being able to participate in this stellar event Oct. 8-10.

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.”

Fountain 193

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FONTE 193 from cinthia marcelle on Vimeo.

FOUNTAIN 193
Cinthia Marcelle | 2007, Brazil | video | 12’ | color, sound

1 firefighter truck constantly drives in a perfect circle with its hose shooting water to the centre of the geometric figure, provoking the image of a fountain in reverse. This project was realized in collaboration with the Fire Department of Belo Horizonte, Brazil and the Biennial of Lyon: The 00s – The History of a Decade that has not yet been named, France.

via Today and Tomorrow via  Plotz! Blitz! Szpilman!

Summer in the city

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Brad Downey, The Beginning and the End, 2010. via Eyeteeth.

“Louisville-born, Berlin-based artist Brad Downey has apparently been interpreting the ’68 Situationists graffito “Beneath the paving stones, the beach” (“Sous les pavés, la plage!”) by unearthing German street stones to create sand castles, impromptu 3D installations, and domino-style performance interventions.”–via Eyeteeth

Brad Downey, Castles Beneath Cities, 2008

See also Street Art and Cracks in the Matrix.

Relational architect

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image: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Vectorial Elevation (2010) English Bay, Vancouver, Canada, Winter Olympics 2010 Photo by Doug Farmer (www.douglasfarmerphotography.com)

Image: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Vectorial Elevation (2010) English Bay, Vancouver, Canada, Winter Olympics 2010 Photo by Doug Farmer (www.douglasfarmerphotography.com)

Rafael has created remarkable “platforms for participation” around the world, with only one major U.S. public project to date, Pulse Park, at Madison Square Park in New York City. Great opportunity for those in Philadelphia area to hear him speak.

Straight talks – some plane “reading” on art in public places

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Art and Architecture in the Public Sphere of Cities. Joshua Decter, director of the Master of Public Art Studies Program at USC, organized and moderated this event exploring art and architecture in the public sphere, and unorthodox ways of engaging the public. The panel featured Anne Pasternak, president and artistic director of Creative Time, New York; Los Angeles based installation artist Doug Aitken; and Peter Zellner, Los Angeles-based architect and founding principal of ZELLNERPLUS. The event was presented as part of Visions and Voices, and was held on February 2, 2009, at the Davidson Conference Center.

Public Space, Public Art and Public Life. USC Norman Lear Center director Marty Kaplan moderates this incisive panel discussion that explores the interplay between art and architecture in urban spaces. Panelists: artists Christopher Janney & Anne Bray; USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Scott Fisher; Ted Tanner of AEG Real Estate & LA Live; Fox Music’s Robert Kraft; USC School of Architecture Dean Qingyun Ma.

Architecture, Design, Art: Strategies for Survival. USC — April 23, 2009 — “Architecture, Design, Art: Strategies for Survival” was a conversation among Teddy Cruz, Marjetica Potrc and Krzysztof Wodiczko that took place on April 6, 2009. The event was organized and moderated by Joshua Decter, director of the Master of Public Art Studies Program (Art in the Public Sphere) at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts, and was the second part of the “Participation and Friction: Rethinking Art and Architecture as Public Culture” series, sponsored by Visions and Voices: The USC Arts and Humanities Initiative.

See also the Roski School of Fine Arts Masters of Public Art Studies Guest Speakers / Lecture Archive for talks by a growing list of speakers, including Doug Aitken, Ute Meta Bauer, Teddy Cruz, Steve Dietz, Mark Dion, Sam Durant, Andrea Fraser, Rudolf Frieling, Hou Hanru, Paul Ramírez Jonas, Grant Kester, Norman Klein, Michael Krichman, Miwon Kwon, Rick Lowe, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Allan McCollum, Anne Pasternak, Patricia Phillips, Marjetica Potrč, Gregory Sholette, Rochelle Steiner, Gloria Sutton, Nato Thompson, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Peter Zellner, and Tirdad Zolghadr.

Public Art Initiative

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“The place and role of artworks and artistic practice in public spaces has long been a topic of interest, concern and debate within and outside the university, involving artists, institutions of government, and members of the public. At the same time, many artists and scholars have questioned and challenged both conventional definitions of the artwork per se, and the nature, possibilities, and limits of conceptions of “the public,” in cultural, historical and political terms. Co-organized by John Carson of the School of Art and Jon Klancher of the English Department, the Public Art Initiative (2008-2011) has drawn together faculty members from Carnegie Mellon’s Colleges of Fine Arts and of Humanities and Social Sciences, and from the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University. Faculty involved in the Initiative will organize a series of events, conferences, performances, and courses, as well as supporting three major projects on: Controversy in the Arts; Performance and Ecology; and Public Art as Social Space. Beginning in fall 2010, the Public Art Initiative will begin a series of workshops and talks aimed at initiative conversations and collaboration between participating faculty and leaders of Pittsburgh-area arts organizations.”

via Center for the Arts in Society

Larry Bogad (and Christian White) visit the Waffle Shop