Martin Sobey curb art. via Good.

Wooster Collective interviews Martin Sobey about what might be called his uplifting random acts of art.

via Good

This curb shot reminds me of Natalie Jeremijenko’s NoPark project, which returns  “‘no parking zones’ — mostly those associated fire hydrant placement — to low growth mosses and grasses.”

Natalie Jeremijenko, NoPark

“These micro engineered green spaces prevent storm water run off, use foliage to stabilize the soil, and to provide a durable low maintenance surface cover. These microparks continue to provide emergency parking space for fire trucks and exasperated Fresh-direct delivery persons. But the other 99.9% of the time they now do something more. For all the same rationales that apply to green roofs, greening the no-standing zones is a good thing. Practically, noPARKS capture more water than green roofs (not being limited to carrying capacity of the 2”, 4” or 6” of soil that roofs require). These no parking/standing zones are often situated where water collects, capturing the oily runoff from the road before it runs into the river. noPARKs recharge and replenish soil moisture on the block important to trees — even yards away — to help them dilute the gallons of uric acid poured on city trees plots each day by friendly neighborhood dogs. Less water puddling decreases pedestrian slipping hazards. Lastly, the noPark reduces the number of standing water pools that are left for days, which are the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. In this way, the noPark may reduce the need for widespread fumigation to combat West Nile virus in New York City.”

via xClinic

Hey G20! from Geoff Barnes on Vimeo.

On September 24-25, 2009 the G-20 Summit will take place in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, where G-20 leaders, representing 80% of the world’s trade and two-thirds of the world population, will determine policies affecting our economic and financial futures.

To foster engagement despite the insularity of these talks, Osman Khan, an artist, and Elliance, are collaborating to develop heyG20 as a forum that will allow concerned citizen’s of the world to voice their thoughts and opinions to the Leaders of the G20 Summit. The project is an interactive installation that will take place during the G-20 Summit in the windows of Elliance’s offices located directly across the river from the Pittsburgh Convention Center.

Interested participants may tweet their message to @heyG20 (http://twitter.com/heyG20), whereby your messages will be transformed to a multicolored morse code light show, illuminating not only the night sky but also the concerns of the world’s citizens.

So tweet away…

via Hey G20

Johannes Gees, hellomrpresident, 2002.

Hey G20 does not appear to have quite the visual punch of Johannes Gees’ remarkable hellomrpresident projection onto the mountains outside Davos during the exclusive World Economic Forum in 2002, but it will be interesting to see how/whether the ubiquity of social media like Twitter bump up participation in and the impact of the project.

See also These projects are smokin’! for an earlier post about Germaine Koh’s Prayers and Ali Momeni and Robin Mandel’s Smoke and Hot Air, both of which translate messages – in these cases, datamined rather than Tweeted – into Morse code.

In Strange Culture, filmmaker Lynn Hershman-Leeson tackles the bizarre case of Steve Kurtz, an associate professor of art at SUNY/Buffalo and founding member of the award-winning art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble, whose interactive projects include the examination of biotechnology and the issues surrounding it. Kurtz’s life suffered an upheaval of Kafkaesque proportions following the unexpected death of his wife, Hope, of heart failure in May 2004.

via Alternative Film Guide

CAE Defense Fund donated to Center for Constitutional Rights & New York Civil Liberties Union

Buffalo, NY—After a widely watched four-year legal battle, the CAE Defense Fund was officially dissolved last week, with its remainder of unexpended funds donated in two substantial gifts to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the New York affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).

The CAE Defense Fund was originally created as a mechanism to raise funds for legal bills incurred by Dr. Steven Kurtz and Dr. Robert Ferrell in what its members argued was a politically motivated attack by the Department of Justice—one which threatened the constitutional and fundamental rights not only of the two defendants, but also of everyone, due to legal precedents that would have been set by an unfavorable outcome.

In response, thousands of people worldwide organized demonstrations and raised money for the two men’s legal defense through fundraisers and a variety of other grassroots efforts.

The fund was also heavily supported by internationally renowned artists including Sol Lewitt, Richard Serra, Hans Haacke, Cindy Sherman, Carl Andre, Mike Kelley, Kiki Smith, Sam Durant, Mark Dion, Jeremy Deller, and many others, who donated work to an auction at Paula Cooper Gallery in April 2005. Other artists such as Chuck Close, Walid Raad, and Ed Ruscha made substantial direct cash contributions.  In all, the Fund raised approximately $350,000.

Drs. Kurtz and Ferrell were indicted for mail and wire fraud in June of 2004. Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the maximum sentence for those charges was increased from five years to twenty years in jail. After an arduous four-year-long struggle, in April of 2008 the indictment against Kurtz was finally dismissed by Federal Judge Richard J. Arcara as “insufficient on its face”—meaning that even if the actions alleged in the indictment (which the judge must accept as “fact”) were true, they would not constitute a crime. Ferrell pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in October 2007 after recurring bouts of cancer and three strokes suffered during the course of the case prevented him from continuing the struggle.

When the case was dismissed instead of going to trial, approximately $108,930 remained in the fund.

“Had the case gone to a jury trial, that amount wouldn’t have been enough to cover Steve’s legal bills through the trial, let alone appeals in the event of a guilty verdict” explained Edmund Cardoni, Executive Director of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo NY, and the Fund’s fiscal administrator. “When the case was finally thrown out, we were thrilled, but we were presented with a new problem. The committee was very conscious of our ethical responsibility to make sure this money would be used in a way that honored the original intent of the many people who gave money to the fund, and the artists who donated art works to the fundraising auction.”

In keeping with that purpose—to defend our fundamental constitutional rights—the CAE Defense Fund and Trial Fund committees, in consultation with artists, curators, and others centrally involved in the fundraising efforts, voted to disburse the remaining funds by awarding 80 percent ($87,150) to the CCR, and 20 percent ($21,780) to the NYCLU.

CAE Defense Fund coordinator Lucia Sommer said, “We are extremely happy that the case is over, and that the remaining funds can be passed on to organizations that have such a distinguished record of defending not only the U.S. Constitution, but also the human rights and dignity of all people.”

Added Kurtz, “I always promised everyone who donated their time, labor and hard-earned money to our defense that this struggle would do more than demonstrate to the Justice Department that the art, science, academic and activist communities would not be intimidated by its authoritarian tactics. We knew the legal precedent set by the case was critical to preventing what happened to Bob and me from happening to others, and it’s incredibly rewarding to know that these funds can now be used to defend others who do not have the kind of support we had.”

Representatives of both organizations expressed gratitude for the donations.

“The NYCLU is very pleased to receive this generous contribution from the CAE Legal Defense Fund to continue our work in restoring, defending, and upholding our constitutional and fundamental rights, including artistic and academic freedoms,” said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, congratulated the CAE Defense Fund “and its many dedicated and principled supporters for your extraordinary victory—a victory for our country and the Constitution as much as it is for the individuals.” He further stated that, “The CCR is honored to use the tremendous support of the Fund’s donors to continue the fight against repression of dissent and illegal detentions—work which, unfortunately, is still sorely needed.”

For more information about the case, please visit: http://caedefensefund.org

Krzysztof Wodiczko, (Projection on South Africa House, Trafalgar Square, London), 1985

Krzysztof Wodiczko is one of the primary inspirations for any public projection art. This is some of what he said about his famed intervention in South Africa, which lasted a mere 2 hours – for almost 25 years now.

“We must stop this ideological ritual,’ interrupt this journey-in-fiction, arrest the somnambulistic movement, restore public focus, a concentration of the building and its architecture. What is implicit about the building must be exposed as explicit; the myth must be visually concretized and unmasked. The absent-mided, hypnotic relation with architecture must be challenged by a conscious and critic public discourse taking place in front of the building.

“Public visualization of this myth can unmask the myth, recognize it ‘physically,’ force it to the surface, and hold it visible, so that the people on the street can observe and celebrate its final formal capitulation.

“This must happen at the very place of myth, on the site of its production, on its body–the building.”

More via the International Center of Photgraphy’s Fans in a Flashbulb.