Art(ists) On the Verge 5 Fellows

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Northern Lights.mn announces the recipients of the 5th round of Art(ists) on the Verge commissions (AOV5). AOV5 is an intensive, mentor-based fellowship program for 5 Minnesota-based, emerging artists or artist groups working experimentally at the intersection of art, technology, and digital culture with a focus on network-based practices that are interactive and/or participatory.

Artists: Katie Hargrave, Alison Hiltner, Aaron Marx, Peter Sowinski, Emily Stover

Congratulations from the jury: Steve Dietz, Artistic Director, Northern Lights.mn; Rudolf Frieling, Curator Media Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Ben Heywood, Executive Director, The Soap Factory; Piotr Szyhalski, Professor Media Arts, Minneapolis College of Art and Design; Yesomi Umolu, Curatorial Fellow, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center.

AOV5 artists will exhibit their work at the Soap Factory, March 2014.

Art(ists) On the Verge is generously supported by the Jerome Foundation.

Northern Spark Preview

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Art All Night. Community All Year.

Saint Paul, Minn. – March 12, 2013 – Northern Spark announced today the partners that will be participating in the free, dusk-to-dawn, nuit blanche, which will ignite Saint Paul’s Lowertown in an explosion of urban art. The festival will be held on Saturday (into Sunday morning), June 8, 2013 from 9:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. with the main hub at Union Depot, hosting nearly 25 projects. Performances, visual arts, projected images, interactive media, and participatory events will bring together a multitude of artists who create art projects in partnership with numerous arts organizations at multiple venues. The public is invited to join this all-night adventure to see the city in a new light.

Volunteers are also needed for a range of interactive tasks. Click here for more information.

“With the reopening of the historic Union Depot, the continuing expansion and development of Lowertown businesses and the ballpark construction underway, the Lowertown district, known for its vibrant arts culture, is only becoming more lively. This unique festival is a wonderful way to showcase our arts community in a distinctive way,” stated Mayor Chris Coleman.

This year the festival expects nearly 72 projects in collaboration with 47 cultural organizations and sponsors.

A snapshot of projects include:

  • A site-specific roving performance at Union Depot by artist Patrick Ganert blending history with fictional narratives from 1917 through today.
  • A live installation by Monica Haller that sonically links the Upper Mississippi with the Louisiana bayous.
  • St. Paul’s Big Table Studio and Printland Press team up with Minneapolis letterpress shop Lunalux to help visitors create travel-themed, handmade prints.
  • The Schubert Club invites visitors to play a harpsichord and a fortepiano while overlooking the river from Union Depot’s windows.
  • All-night crafty interventions on 4th St. related to art work at Minnesota Museum of American Art’s Project Space by Liz Miller, Andréa Stanislav and Randy Walker.
  • The Center for Hmong Art and Talent bring its Fresh Traditions Fashion show to an unconventional runway at Union Depot.
  • Art Shanty Projects will transform an out-of-the-way parking lot near the river into a site of artistic intervention and exploration.
  • Works Progress, who brought the Mississippi Megalops to Northern Spark in 2011, returns with a sunrise river cruise aboard the Jonathan Padelford.

Additional partners involved include:

air sweet air • Hack Factory • innova Recordings • Landmark Center • Minneapolis College of Art and Design • Minnesota Children’s Museum • Minnesota Historical Society • Mizna • Minnesota Sacred Harp Singing Convention • mnartists.org • Minnesota Museum of American Art Individual artists and artist groups involved include:

Chris Larson, John Keston, Piotr Szyhalski, Monica Haller, Ben Moren and Daniel Dean, Jennifer Newsome Carruthers and Tom Carruthers, Roger Nieboer/lesser mortals, Paul Herwig, Christopher Field and Sarah West, Angela Olson and Gilberto Vazquez Valle

The festival is pleased to be working with Twin Cities Public Television (tpt) as our media sponsor this year.

About Northern Lights.mn

Northern Lights.mn presents innovative art in the public sphere, both physical and virtual, focusing on artists creatively using technology, both old and new, to foster new relations between audience and artwork and more broadly between citizenry and their built environment.

Open Call for Projects: Northern Spark 2013

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This is an open call for up to 10 projects in any medium for Northern Spark, June 8, 2013.

Application deadline

Midnight, CST, March 4, 2013

Budget

This year, rather than a one-size-fits-all honorarium, we are putting a ceiling on proposed project budgets: $2,500. Not all projects will require this, and we will be consciously selecting a range of project budgets from $500 to $2,500.

  • $2,500 – 2 commissions
  • $1,500 – 2 commissions
  • $500 – 6 commissions

More Information

Here.

Finalists for Creative City Challenge announced

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(MINNEAPOLIS) — Jan. 30, 2013 — Five finalists have been chosen for the final phase of the Creative City Challenge at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Nominees were selected through public voting which took place on the Minneapolis Convention Center Facebook site. Finalists and their corresponding projects include:

Futures North, LakeForms: a digitally fabricated pavilion that emerges from the Convention Center plaza. Inside the pavilion, learn about the lakes’ ecology and summer uses in an immersive sensory environment, consisting of real-time audio and visual information collected from “smart buoys” installed in the city’s lakes.

INVIVIA in collaboration with Urbain/d/rc, MIMMI: a visiting organism that collects and reflects the aggregate mood of Minneapolis, changing in color, shape, and climatic behavior depending on residents’ emotions. Everyone can enjoy MIMMI’s company and both watch and participate in her changing behavior while enjoying the city and connecting with new places and people!

JeFe Design Collective, MPLS rope densCITY: emphasizing Minneapolis’ eco-focused, healthy culture, “MPLS Rope densCity” looks to discarded rock climbing rope as a material. By anchoring, hanging, wrapping, and allowing people to swing from this discarded material, a temporary portal is created between the Minneapolis Convention Center and the city; a portal that engages site, people, and material in interactivity.

Krause + Sowinski, You Are Here: a combination of urban wayfinding with creative placemaking. The meta-map and the giant red arrow form the center of a vital diagram of downtown Minneapolis, connecting the Convention Center plaza to the best parts of the city. “You Are Here” strengthens the downtown pedestrian experience, making Minneapolis an even better place to explore.

Locus Architecture, RIPPLE: public space as sculpture activated by weather for enticing people to enjoy experiences in their city. Assembled from 20 foot steel fronds capped with LED lights, “RIPPLEʼs” urban room provides the venue for serendipitous meetings between residents and artists, visitors and aspiring gymnasts.

The goals of the Creative City Challenge are to draw residents of the city to the Minneapolis Convention Center as a central meeting space for the surrounding area as well as to provide a compelling gathering site for the Minneapolis Convention Center’s thousands of visitors spring through fall. Achieving these objectives will encourage further exploration of downtown and other areas around the city.

The purpose of the competition is to create and install a temporary, interactive, site-specific, eco-focused “portal” to the City of Minneapolis on the Plaza of the Minneapolis Convention Center beginning summer 2013. The final contenders are asked to develop a complete proposal for the project which will be juried in a public presentation Feb. 27 at 5:30 p.m. in University of Minnesota’s Rapson Hall. The presentation is a free event with reception to follow in the HGA Gallery. Tickets and reservations are not required to attend the event.

The jury will make a final selection based on how well the developer includes each element of the evaluation criteria including, Artistic Excellence, Temporary, Interactive, Site-Specific, Eco-focused, Portal and Creative Placemaking. National jurists, Mona El Khafif, associate professor of architecture and head of the URBANlab at California College of the Arts and Daily Tous Les Jours design studio will participate in the selection process.

The winning entry will be announced shortly after the public event and will receive a $50,000 all-inclusive fee to design, create, install and uninstall the project. The development will be installed in the MCC Plaza in early summer and will inhabit the space for the duration of the summer.

Minneapolis city partners for the Creative City Challenge include the office of Mayor R.T. Rybak, Minneapolis City Council and the city coordinator’s office. Additional information can be found online at www.minneapolis.org/art-in-the-plaza. The goals of the Creative City Challenge are driven by the new direction of the Minneapolis Convention Center and the City’s efforts to celebrate the creative assets of Minneapolis, aim to draw attention to the City’s natural assets and attract new talent to the area.

New research done by the City’s Arts, Culture and Creative Economy program regarding jobs and employment in the creative sector shows that Minneapolis has over four times the national average of architects and designers. While this is a cause for celebration, the data also demonstrates that jobs for architecture and designers have decreased by nearly 20% in the last ten years and nearly 10% in the last three years.

Fellowship Opportunity: Art(ists) On the Verge 5

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Northern Lights.mn announces a call for a fifth round of Art(ists) on the Verge commissions (AOV5), which will take place from April 2013 – March 2014.

AOV is an intensive, mentor-based fellowship program for 5 Minnesota-based, emerging artists or artist groups working experimentally at the intersection of art, technology, and digital culture with a focus on network-based practices that are interactive and/or participatory. AOV is generously supported by the Jerome Foundation. Links to past AOV programs and fellows’ work can be found here.

Deadline

Monday, February 11, 2013. Submission form here.

More information here.

Art(ists) On the Verge 4 Fellows

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Northern Lights.mn announces the recipients of the fourth round of Art(ists) on the Verge commissions (AOV4). AOV4 is an intensive, mentor-based fellowship program for 5 Minnesota-based, emerging artists or artist groups working experimentally at the intersection of art, technology, and digital culture with a focus on network-based practices that are interactive and/or participatory.

Artists: Christopher Houltberg, Sarah Julson, Mad King Thomas, Asia Ward, and Anthony Warnick

Congratulations from the jury: Steve Dietz, Artistic Director, Northern Lights.mn; Ben Heywood, Executive Director, The Soap Factory; Ana Serrano, Chief Digital Officer, Canadian Film Centre; and AOV4 Co-Director, Piotr Szyhalski.

Thanks to artist mentors: Melinda Childs, Jeff Crouse, Alexa Horochowski, Matt Olson, Sarah Peters, and Marcus Young,

AOV4 artists will exhibit their work at the Soap Factory, May 4-26, 2013.

Art(ists) On the Verge is generously supported by the Jerome Foundation.

Creative City Challenge at the Minneapolis Convention Center

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The Minneapolis Convention Center (MCC), Meet Minneapolis Convention & Visitors Association, and the City of Minneapolis announce a new, $50,000 “Creative City Challenge” to create and install a temporary, interactive, site-specific, eco-focused “portal” to the City of Minneapolis on the Plaza of the Minneapolis Convention Center beginning summer 2013.  This challenge is intended to encourage exciting proposals and thoughtful discussion about how to make our downtown more vital, dynamic, livable, walkable and environmentally friendly. Moe information.

Donate to Play

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Want to check out David Byrne’s Playing the Building installation at Aria at the Jeune Lune? A $50 donation to Northern Lights.mn on Give to the Max Day (you can schedule it now, btw), scores you a free ticket, thanks to our friends at First & First.

Your Support

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Northern Lights.mn takes art to the streets.

Northern Spark is one of our best known programs. It is a multidisciplinary Minnesota festival–a free, dusk to dawn participatory public art event throughout Minneapolis* from the Greenway to the Mississippi. In 2012, 40,000 people experienced 118 works by over 200 artists in more than 28 venues in collaboration with 52 cultural partners.

In 2013, we’ll be returning to Saint Paul! Your contribution makes this metrowide community event possible.

Northern Lights.mn supports emerging artists.

Art(ists) On the Verge is an intensive, mentor-based fellowship program for 5 Minnesota-based, emerging artists or artist groups working experimentally at the intersection of art, technology, and digital culture with a focus on network-based practices that are interactive and/or participatory. Now in its fourth year, AOV is generously supported by the Jerome Foundation.

Northern Lights.mn supports artists who rock our world.

Northern Lights has commissioned, co-commissioned and co-presented many extraordinary artists, including Futurefarmers, Mona El-Khafif, Sharon Hayes, ligorano + reese, Wing Young Huie, David Goldes, Monica Haller, Andrea Stanislav, Jim Campbell, Chris Larson, Mark Shepard, Marisa Jahn, Shih Chieh Huang, Zach Lieberman, Angelo Vermeulen, The Living, SOFTlab, Daily Tous Les Jours, Piotr Szyhalski, and many others. If you have experienced the Giant Sing Along at the Minnesota State Fair, you have seen Northern Lights.mn at work.

Northern Lights.mn supports new ideas.

This spring, Northern Lights presented in collaboration with the Walker Art Center, our 2nd biannual symposium: Discourse and Discord: Architecture of Agonism from the Kitchen Table to the City Street. “In an era of cultural conservatives and the liberal elite, Occupiers and Tea Partiers, civil uprisings and government crackdowns, perhaps the one point of agreement today is there’s no shortage of disagreement. But if that’s true, then why isn’t there more debate—not online flame wars, not the televised jockeying of political candidates, but live, in-person dialogue?”

Northern Lights.mn supports collaboration.

The very first Northern Lights initiated and produced was the UnConvention, a multi-partner, multi-venue program about the intersection of participatory politics and participatory media during the 2008 Republication National Convention. We have worked with dozens of organizations locally and nationally. Our goal is the best way to support innovative artists, spark important ideas, and build supportive audiences. As often as not this is best done in collaboration.

We are dedicated to the least amount of infrastructure that is necessary to support the most innovative artists with the greatest impact. This means more bang for your buck.

Your support makes Northern Lights.mn possible.

Thank you.

Steve Dietz
President and Artistic Director

Northern Lights.mn Give to the Max

For a $50 donation, receive a free ticket to David Byrne's "Playing" the Piano at Aria, in collaboration with First & First.

Give to the Max Day – Thursday

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Just when you thought it was safe to watch TV and open your email now that the U.S. elections are over, many of us will recieve multiple pitches for donations to our favorite Minnesota non-profit for Give to the Max Day, Thursday, November 15.

Including from Northern Lights.mn.

We have had an extraordinary year, and we are looking forward to another year of exciting projects. Over the next few days, I’d like to highlight Northern Light’s commitment to artists, audiences, ideas, and collaboration.

We are three years old and trying to do this with the least infrastructure possible, so that your support will go the furthest possible.

Support Northern Lights.mn this Thursday on Give to the Max Day.

Playing the Building

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Playing the Building at Aria, Nov. 5 - Dec. 4. Photo: Jake Armour

I first saw David Byrne’s Playing the Building at Battery Maritime Building in New York City in 2008. It was after hours, and I was the only person there besides the attendant. It was a magical moment, and the building, under renovation before reopening as the summer ferry terminal to Governor’s Island, seemed to sigh and wheeze and pound its history as I prodded the organ keys. In my mind’s eye, it was late afternoon, and the light was slanting through the grimed windows like a Francis Frith cathedral.

The thing about Playing the Building, however, is that it is intentionally a secular experience. It is not about star power. In the technical rider for the project, it states several times words to the effect: DAVID BYRNE WILL NOT PLAY PLAYING THE BUILDING. Do not ask. This is not a not a blue M&M’s clause. It is out of respect for the intent of the project, which is all about exploration and play, not awe. By exploring the re-programmed keys of the organ, you are drawn to explore the recesses of the building. Where did that sound come from? What made that sound? Why does it sound that way? By hacking the organ, you are encouraged to think about how to hack the building. This building. Any building. Any thing.

I saw Beatrix*Jar at the recent opening of Playing the Building at Aria, the old Jeune Lune theater, and I wanted to ask them what they thought about the relationship of circuit bending to playing around with buildings, but we didn’t get the chance. Maybe we would have discussed Gordon Matta-Clark’s building cuts. Usman Haque’s Evoke, “a massive animated projection that lights up the facade of York Minster in response to the public, who use their own voices to “evoke” colourful light patterns that emerge at the building’s foundations and soar up towards the sky, giving the surface a magical feeling as it melts with colour” might have come up. What’s interesting about Playing the Building is the way it deconstructs the organ and building, stripping them both of harmony and ornament. It’s not really about making music. It’s more about making. And listening. The organ is an amplifier for the solitude of an empty building.

 Theater de la Jeune Lune was a fabled theater company. Playing the building, their building, one can’t help but hear Cyrano in the wings or Juliet on the balcony or perhaps urgent late night whisperings pouring over the books in a back room. It’s a magnificent building. Playing the Building does it full justice and First&First is to be congratulated for bringing this exciting event to the Twin Cities and bringing excitement back to the building of Theater de la Jeune Lune.

 

Travels in Associative Reality

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I look at this nearly every day.

I arrived at The Soap Factory’s $99 Sale late in 2011. Most of the work had already been claimed, but it didn’t matter to me. What I had eyes for, only, was Landscape Simulation : Fargo / Former PetSmart, Westgate Shoping Center, Macon, GA, 2011. At least that’s what is written on the back of the drawing. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time.

I wouldn’t say that it “spoke to me,” but there was something deeply satisfying and nourishing looking at it.

I feel like I squint whenever I look at the drawing. There’s something indistinct about it, but it’s also like scanning the horizon in a Western. Like you’re wearing that battered, square leather cowboy hat that Clint Eastwood wears in The Good The Bad and the Ugly, shading his eyes as he holds  binoculars up to them like a submarine captain, elbows akimbo. Maybe I’m misremembering the binoculars. Does he even use binoculars or just wear that poncho and chomp on a cheroot? And where did the submarine come from? But it’s like that.

I scan this drawing nearly every day, but I’m a lake person, not a plains person. What do I know? What is the attraction? How could something so desolate be “nourishing?” Especially with no water, no weather to eye.

According to its title, the structure is a PetSmart at a Westgate Shopping Center in Macon, GA. Isn’t Eleanor Savage from Macon? When I had my second 50th birthday party, it was about 95 degrees and sweltering. Everyone was sweating like, well, like a pig. I’ve gone to the State Fair for tons of years, but I don’t actually know how or even if pigs sweat. I’ll have to ask the 4H girls about that next year. I still remember that Eleanor said it was just getting comfortable. Like back home. That’s about the extent of my knowledge of Macon. In 2010, I commissioned Chris Baker’s offscript for Santana Row shopping center in San Jose as part of the 01SJ Biennial. I remember it was across from a Westgate shopping center. We would have done it there, if they had sponsored us. We asked them first. I also curated Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s Big Box (2007) for FeedForward at LABoral. Big Box is all about the “former” part. Nature takes over. Like New York City in I Am Legend.

I attended a great conversation by artist Pamela Valfer and critic Christina Schmid tonight. It was thoughtful and open, and even though there was a lot of talk about Baudrillard, it was everything a public conversation should be but often is not.  Thank you! Christina and Pamela. Nevertheless, by the end, I still hadn’t figured out exactly why me and the PetSmart in Fargo  had hit it off so well.  When I got home, I looked at Valfer’s website, and it turns out she had “renamed” the work on my wall: Landscape Simulation: Fargo (movie)/Vacant Pet Smart, Macon, GA. Not only had the Pet Smart (PetSmart?) changed from “former” to “vacant” but turns out the landscape is from the movie Fargo.

This was necessary, the copying from movies part, Valfer averred during the conversation, because until a recent residency in rural Ireland, she had never really been in nature. While I cannot claim the same, it is impossible to deny that it is nearly impossible to look at nature, especially representations of nature, without a kind of virtual overlay and infinite reflection of representation upon representation. I suppose you could say, a la Baudrillard, welcome to the hyperreal, but Christina said something else that was interesting. She mentioned that in some study, people who looked at representations of nature did not have the same visceral, emotional reaction as people who looked at nature. I’m paraphrasing her paraphrase here, but the point she wanted to make is that the body knows. In some sense you cannot lie to the body and there is a difference between representation and the real.

Pamela Valfer, Landscape Simulation: Fargo (movie)/Vacant Pet Smart, Macon, GA 2011 Graphite on paper 8" x 10"

While I do believe this in my bones – nature is different than its representation – the nourishment of Valfer’s bleak Fargo landscape with its vacant Pet Smart may just be its embedded, rich, complex, seductive, vital history of unnatural associations.

 

 

ReGeneration – Exhibition Installation in Progress

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Exhibition installation in progress
Futurefarmers, Ethnobotanical Station
Futurefarmers, Ethnobotanical Station
View from the floor
Lighting tests
View from mezzanine of Common Weathers by The Living and SOFTlab
View from mezanine of Common Weathers by The Living and SOFTlab
Ben Garthus talking to NYSCI "Explainers" about Biomodd [NYC4]
Zach Lieberman installing Face by Face
Zach Lieberman installing Face by Face
Shih Chieh Huang, 99plus
Shih Chieh Huang
Shih Chieh Huang, 99plus
View from mezzanine of Common Weathers by The Living and SOFTlab
View from mezzanine of Common Weathers by The Living and SOFTlab
Amanda Parkes and Michael Cosaboom with Nick Yulmnan's New York Immigration Son
Nick Yulman, New York Immigration Song
Nick Yulman, New York Immigration Song
Nick Yulman, New York Immigration Song
Nick Yulman, New York Immigration Song
Biomodd [NYC4]
Biomodd [NYC4]
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, A Geography of Being : Una Geografia de Ser
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, A Geography of Being : Una Geografia de Ser
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, A Geography of Being : Una Geografia de Ser
Scott Kildall with Michael Cosaboom and Amanda Parkes
Scott Kiildall, 2049
Scott Kildall, 2049
Scott Kildall, 2049
Carl Skelton, Tomorrow 2.0

ReGeneration opens tonight at the New York Hall of Science! Almost there. It’s looking great.

Biomodd, Biomodd [NYC4]; Futurefarmers, Ethnobotanical Station; Shih Chieh Huang, 99plus; Marisa Jahn and Stephanie Rothenberg, World’s Fair 2.0; Scott Kildall, 2049; Zach Lieberman, Face By Face;  Carl Skelton, Tomorrow 2.0; The Living and SOFTlab, Common Weathers; Nick Yulman, New York Immigration Song; Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga, A Geography of Being : Una Geographia de Ser

Project Director: Eric Siegel
Project Manager: Michael Cosaboom
Curator: Steve Dietz
Assistant Curator: Amanda Parkes

Presented at the New York Hall of Science by the New York Hall of Science and Northern Lights.mn

Support from The Rockefeller Foundation NYC Cultural Innovation Fund, The Lambent Foundation, and The MetLife Foundation

ReGen install – end of week 1

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Night shot of NYSCI with the Biomodd window garden in full development and the first LED grow light installed. Photo: Angelo Verneulen
Ultrasonic humidifier as 'caretaking robot' in the window garden. Controlled by the game running on Biomodd's network. Photo: Angelo Vermeulen
Looking toward Scott Kildall, 2049. Photo: Michael Cosaboom
Looking toward Futurefarmers, Ethnobotanical New York. Photo: Michael Cosaboom
Looking toward Shih Chieh Huang, 99plus (at top). Photo: Michael Cosaboom
The Living and SOFTlab, Common Weathers
Carl Skelton, Tomorrow 2.0. Photo: Amanda Parkes

World’s Fair 2.0

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World’s Fair 2.0
Lead Artists: Marisa Jahn and Stephanie Rothenberg
Produced by REV-
Support from Mozilla Hive Learning Network NYC, Robert Bowne Foundation, MOUSE, New York Hall of Science

World’s Fair 2.0 is an interactive scavenger hunt that bridges Queens’ history past and present with the question: how did the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs shape the region’s geography and its collectively imagined future? What are the continuities between utopian visions from the past and today’s vision for Queens’ future?

For their installation for ReGeneration at the New York Hall of Science, Jahn and Rothenberg created a  augmented reality tour accessible through cellphone and Ipads that invites visitors to envision these questions.

In addition, Jahn and Rothenberg facilitated a workshop with 14 teens who created their own interactive, mobile scavenger hunt where zombies thwart players in their time-traveling quest to explore the history of the future.

Through its installation and new media tours, World’s Fair 2.0 stages interventions into the past and future, regenerating conceptual tools to interact with the present.

ReGeneration is presented by the New York Hall of Science and Northern Lights.mn