Amazing to see how people are taking Google’s image capturing technology and adapting it for their own art. Top, Aaron Hobson’s photo-stitched images taken from remote Google street views are both beautiful and haunting. Below, Jenny Odell uses Google satellite photos to create collages of related objects. There is something so satisfying about seeing objects grouped together. The photo above shows a collection of salt ponds.
Beautiful post at Ill Seen, Ill Said about the impulses and reactions created by paintings vs. photographs. We see many images online that make us bookmark, pin and file them away. Sometimes though, they are nothing more than beautiful junk mail, causing us to lust after items outside of our means – leaving us thinking our spaces, objects and lives are a little less wonderful because we do not live inside those lovely pictures.
However if you consider a painting of an interior instead of the staged photo you, “respond more abstractly to form, composition, colour, light, mood.” That is so true. It would be interesting to try and help people de-lust after their pinned images by changing the photos into a new form.
Artist Lee Mingwei recently installed his latest participatory artwork, ‘The Moving Garden’, at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Located in the museum’s lobby, the piece includes a 45 ft. long table filled with roses. The purpose of the piece is simple, and yet really powerful. Mingwei asks that if you take a rose, you fulfill two missions. One is to take a detour on the way to your next destination and the second is to give the rose to a stranger along the way. I love projects that get visitors interacting, but also extend beyond the gallery walls. Incorporating projects into the public realm is exciting and I see it is as a vastly untapped method for cultural institutions to reach new audiences and have an impact on their communities. Lee Mingwei is new to me and browsing through the amazing projects on his website is inspirational – take some time to explore his work.
You can follow participants’ stories of giving and receiving through Twitter at #mygardengift.
The Work Office, located in NYC, was a temporary art project, “disguised as an employment agency.” Organized by Katarina Jerinic and Naomi Miller, the project was inspired by the 1930’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) which employed thousands of people during the Depression. Jerinic and Miller translated the idea of “making work” by setting up an art gallery/work center to hire local artists to complete certain tasks.
Challenges such as ‘giving a concert for your houseplant’ or ‘recording an oral history’ were issued weekly to utilize the artists’ skills while offering them a small wage. For each completed task, artists were given a paycheck in line with Depression era salaries. At the end of each week, the Work Office hosted Payday parties that served to issue checks and share the artwork produced by each challenge.
This is the best kind of community art project, one that spins and spreads to encompass a web of participants. The project started in 2009 and ran again in 2010. I hope they get funding to continue their work this year as well.
Artist Credits
Top Image: Sarah Nicole Phillips: Curbside Object Status Tag, Challenge: Document a Need for Repairs
Bottom image: Lori Nelson: Souvenirs of a Recession, Challenge: Record and Oral History
I recently saw a headline about an upcoming project with the amazing 3-D printing machines called Makerbots. I got really excited about the story, then realized I completely misunderstood it after reading the actual article. The real story is that Makerbot is hosting an artist-in-residence to use the machines and make useful/beautiful/awesome things. That’s cool.
I had thought the Makerbot was the artist-in-residence and I was already imagining all the incredible opportunities for people (as in everybody) to learn about 3-D printing and design. After all, it may not be too long into the future before every home has a Makerbot to fulfill its household design needs. Why can’t a tool have a residency and let visitors become the artists/designers and activators? I would love for a museum, school, gallery or any public space to host Makerbot for a residency and let people interact and create with it. OK, there’s the idea, what institution wants to collaborate to host it?
Last weekend Poesy & Praxis took part in the Denver Art Museum’s monthly Untitled program. This after hours event has been going on for several years, so visitors typically have been to one before, or at least have heard about it from friends. They know that Untitled is a place to do things, make things and share things, which is a nice starting point when you want people to participate. For me it was an interesting look into how larger museums grapple with visitor participation among many departments, interests and goals. At the DCM I basically did whatever I liked; working with DAM provided some really useful insight into the more common issues museums face when planning participatory programming. And it was a lot of fun, thanks Lindsey!
The theme for this month’s Untitled was Pledge; relating to artists’ creative commitments and manifestos, with a dose of dust bunnies too. Some of the activities we planned were really ambitious, (like the crowd created Untitled campaign), while others were successful because of their simplicity. One such event was the pledge name tag. Conceived as a way for strangers to interact and to encourage conversation, the name tags were the first thing people saw when they came in the door. Many of them were pre-printed with prompts such as “I pledge to…talk to a stanger while standing in front of a painting.” We also had blank ones available for the folks who wanted to come up with their own promise to fulfill. Visitors could also choose to have their photo taken with their pledge, which was then projected on to one of DAM’s huge white walls (top photo, right).
The projection idea worked great; I heard several people talking about their pledges, or wanting to make one, after seeing the photos flick by. Showcasing the participants seemed to be a form of positive peer pressure that got others involved. If I did it again though, I wouldn’t let people write their own pledge. Not because “playing more guitar” isn’t a worthy ambition, but the point was to get people connecting in the space and to the space. If the tags only offered three or four pledges to choose from, people still could have selected what they felt comfortable with, but it would have created more common goals. Then maybe those conversations in front of the paintings could have happened, (and maybe they did).
The more ambitious activity was to have the crowd brainstorm, design and plan the first Untitled of 2012. We decided that for the first hour of the evening, visitors could post their ideas for an Untitled theme up on a wall (middle photo, right). Once the hour was up, a DAM staff member (the Untitled coordinator) came by and selected the three themes she thought had the most potential. At that point things switched gears and the area became a campaign headquarters, where visitors could pledge their allegiance to one of the three themes by writing letters of support (with ideas on activities and artwork related to the theme), making buttons, signing petitions or whatever else they could dream up. There was a lot going on.
The key to this area was staffing. It would have been useful to have a little more help here, not only to catch the confused newcomer, but also to draw more people in. From my experience, some people need that personal invitation (or explanation), but feel perfectly comfortble once they are in. The people we did catch got really involved and had fun. People appreciated being given a job that had a tangible result (creating the programming for a future Untitled). The highlight of the night was a group of four teenagers, who not only embraced the idea of the Untitled campaign, they took it to the streets (or in this case the galleries). One of them was the mastermind behind one of the theme suggestions, “Anonymous,” and he/she (sorry I don’t know which person it was!) took ownership to get the idea selected. The group made hats, posters and badges, then went into the galleries, talking to people about the theme and having them sign their campaign petition. How awesome is that? I came across them in the contemporary art gallery and it almost brought a little tear to my eye. They had already collected over 50 signatures and were chatting away with some nearby adults. The fact they had self-motivated to continue their campaign and used it as a way to interact with strangers was exactly what the museum had hoped for. Who knows what their experience would have been like if Untitled hadn’t been happening, but I think it’s safe to say this was a visit they would remember.
On Friday Poesy & Praxis will help at the first Untitled event of the year at the Denver Art Museum. One activity we are really looking forward to is ‘Pledge Allegiance: Campaign Headquarters’. DAM is opening up the creative process for the first Untitled of next year, creating a 100% crowd curated event. From 6-7, visitors will be able to pitch their ideas for a theme on a giant post-it wall. DAM staff will select their top 3 choices and from there things switch into campaign mode.
Participants can join one of the three groups battling it out with letter writing campaigns, button making, poster waving and petitions. Each camp will offer suggestions for activities to go with the theme, along with related art works from the collections. At the end of the night only one campaign will prevail…
This is a busy week at Poesy & Praxis, as we prepare for two events this weekend. We are so excited to be helping with the first Untitled event of the year at the Denver Art Museum. Untitled is a monthly after hours happening at DAM that includes inventive and offbeat programming that, “feels less like a field trip and more like a night out.”
This month’s theme is Pledge, with an eye towards allegiance, stick-to-itiveness, and a dose of dust bunnies. Poesy & Praxis helped design some of the participatory programming that will take place throughout the evening. As a sneak preview, we are going to profile one of the activities each day this week and will report back next week with some of highlights and lessons learned.
First up is Megan Quicke’s ‘Choose Your Own Creatifesto Workshop’. Megan is local Denverite who came up with the idea of having a Power Year, where she quit her job and spent 365 days devoted to her creative pursuits. Lots of great things have materialized from that year, including a book in the works, coffee adventures and more.
For Untitled, Megan will be leading small groups of 1-4 people on specialized tours of the collections; helping participants to find inspiration (and motivation) using the museum as a resource. She has all sorts of activities designed to help her temporary disciples find their path, we’ll let you know what happens!
I love this project from Lisa Anne Auerbach and the Aspen Art Museum. During the 2008 presidential campaign Auerbach created a collection of sweaters with slogans from historical bids for office. The pieces were on display in shops around town, but also at the museum, where they were available for check out. Visitors could borrow the campaign sweater of their choice and wear it about town for a few hours.
I just came across this project while preparing for an upcoming presentation for Denver museums. Director Chris Milk decided to create a special tribute to Johnny Cash when making a video for the song “There Ain’t No Grave.” Milk launched a website that allows users to select a frame from the video and create a drawing of the scene. The user submitted images are linked together to create a complete film. As of October, the website collected over 250,000 submissions (it launched in March) and it is still collecting contributions. Just watch the video above, so beautiful.
