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Landscapes of Quarantine group show @ Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York

Administrator — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:20:29 +0000

Landscapes of Quarantine
Mar 10 2010 – Apr 17 2010
Opening reception: Tuesday, March 9, 7pm

Group exhibition exploring the spaces of quarantine, from Level 4 biocontainment labs to underground nuclear waste repositories.

Curated by: Future Plural
Geoff Manaugh, BLDGBLOG
Nicola Twilley, Edible Geography

Designed by:
Glen Cummings, MTWTF

Landscapes of Quarantine features new works by a multi-disciplinary group of eighteen artists, designers, and architects, each of whom was inspired by one or more of the physical, biological, ethical, architectural, social, political, temporal, and even astronomical dimensions of quarantine.

At its most basic, quarantine is a strategy of separation and containmentâ€”the creation of a hygienic boundary between two or more things, for the purpose of protecting one from exposure to the other. It is a spatial response to suspicion, threat, and uncertainty. From Chernobylâ€™s Zone of Exclusion and the artificial quarantine islands of the New York archipelago to camp beds set up to house HIV-positive Haitian refugees detained at GuantÃ¡namo and the modified Airstream trailer from within which Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins once waved at President Nixon, the landscapes of quarantine are various, mutable, and often unexpected.

Typically, quarantine is thought of in the context of disease control. It is used to isolate people who have been exposed to a contagious virus or bacteria and, as a result, may (or may not) be carrying the infection themselves. But quarantine does not apply only to people and animals. Its boundaries can be set up for as long as needed, creating spatial separation between clean and dirty, safe and dangerous, healthy and sick, foreign and nativeâ€”however those labels are defined.

As a result, the practice of quarantine extends far beyond questions of epidemic control and pest-containment strategies to touch on issues of urban planning, geopolitics, international trade, ethics, immigration, and more. And although the practice dates back at least to the arrival of the Black Death in medieval Venice, if not to Christâ€™s 40 days in the desert, quarantine has re-emerged as an issue of urgency and importance in todayâ€™s era of globalization, antibiotic resistance, emerging diseases, pandemic flu, and bio-terrorism.

Landscapes of Quarantine began with an eight-week independent design studio directed by Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley of Future Plural. Each Tuesday evening, from October to December 2009, a multi-disciplinary group of studio participants met to discuss the spatial implications of quarantine and develop their own creative response: the resulting work forms the core of the Landscapes of Quarantine exhibition.

Works on display:

Pages 179 â€“ 187, Joe Alterio

Q-CITY: An Investigation, Front Studio | Yen Ha & Michi Yanagishita

MAP 002 QUARANTINE, David Garcia Studio

Did We Build The Frontier To Keep It Closed?, Scott Geiger

Field Notes from Quarantine, Katie Holten

Hotel III, Camp II, Lab IV, Cell V, Mimi Lien

Cordon Sanitaire, Kevin Slavin

Context/Shift, Brian Slocum

Containing Uncertainty, Smudge Studio | Jamie Kruse & Elizabeth Ellsworth

NYCQ, Amanda Spielman & Jordan Spielman

Quick, Richard Mosse

Thermal Scanner and Body Temperature Alert System, Daniel Perlin

Precious Isolation: A Pair of Invasive Species, Thomas Pollman

Boston/newyork. performance/presentation

Administrator — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:53:48 +0000

bad subject heading for a even more curt blog entry, but my aplogies for lack of detail…

this weekend I will be performing live video with dj/Rupture’s band NETTLE at Brandeis, in BOSTON, MASS.

Nettle will be joined by Grey Filastine, as well as others, in a series of workshops and events at Brandeis

Organized by the one and only Wayne and Wax.

For some moments sometimes it looks a little like this. But without the flash.

Photo: Marco Microbi > www.photophunk.de

On Monday, March 23rd, I will be back in New York, presenting 3 new works at Pecha Kucha New York.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

PKNY 6 – MONDAY MARCH 23RD, 2009

At Le Poisson Rouge

Doors 6:30 – Speakers 8:30

$5 in advance $10 at the door

Live music by the Sam Barsh Band

Followed by DJ Jon Santos of Common Space

Brought to you by PKNY in partnership with Performa

In Case you haven’t attended before, Pecha Kucha is a format where presenters are have 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide.

So each presenter gets 6 mintues to talk about his/her work, ideas and projects.Pecha Kucha originated in Japan, and is held regularly in 13 cities around the world.

I have presented once before, in Mexico City, and it was a lot of fun and a great way to learn and see.

Ok, hope to see you all there and everywhere.

365 days out

Administrator — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:01:38 +0000

So I have been living out of a suitcase or 2 for 1 year.

It has been quite an accumulation of new experiences that would no doubt take more than a day or 2 to tell.

So instead of doing that, I am going to try to let pictures do much of the talking. I can only begin to begin to say thank you to the people and places that have been so generous with their time, spaces, ideas and feelings.

This year has been really transformative: A linear map would beÂ 6 months in Mexico City (with 2 weekend trips to New York for Alex and Jessica’s wedding), to 1 week in Italy, 1 week in France, 5 days in Germany,Â 1 more week in Italy, then 2 weeks on the west coast of the US, back to Mexico for 2 weeks, then to New York for 2 1/2 months subletting while shooting and mixing the upcoming Listening Lab (more on that in a bit), to 2 1/2 months in Rio, SÃ£o Paulo and Belo Horizonte Brazil. But it has not felt linear, probably due to constant flow of friends visiting, chance encounters and the small overlapping worlds within which I seem to travel.

All in all, it has been an amazing time, and I feel lucky to have been able to have had such a wonderful year of travel. As this is a blog, I can only hope that the few readers I do have are aware of how thankful I am that we were able to spend time together over this last year. It has been a lot of hellos and goodbyes (for now). In a strange way, it seems like a year of new beginnings…

Below are some photo sets selected from the many now on my flickr

House as Speaking organ

djing

It has been a wonderful year, and as I finish writing this from Rio de Janeiro, I am both happy and a bit nostalgic. Happy to have met so many wonderful people, and sad that I must leave this amazing city. But, as always (it has been 16 years back and forth!), I will return…Meanwhile, it is back to BKLYN at least for now.

politik$ and potentials

Administrator — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:43:13 +0000

Rembrandt Peale
George Washington c.a. 1854

de Young museum, from my phone

Ray Beldner
E Plurbus Unum (after Rembrandt Peale George Washington c.a. 1854)

de Yong museum, from my phone

This afternoon I took a trip to the Herzog and DeMeuron
designed de Yong museum. The kind lady at the admissions informed me that if I waited 15 minutes, I could avoid the $10 charge.

She suggested I visit the tower, a kind of squared-off cork screw. I was instantly reminded of recent models I have seen while working out of Fernando Romero’s LAR. In particular, the twisted tower seems to evoke Romero’s design for Carlos Slim’s sumaya museum.

So I took her advice, took the elevator with strangers, and was given a beautiful panorama to appreciate a remarkable city.

I had time to reflect as I waited to see the permanent exhibit. I thought about the beauty of nature, about the possibilities that cities offer to negotiate spaces at different times, on different scales. And mostly, I thought about the people that were in the tower, in that museum.

They weren’t there to make money. They didn’t care about red states or blue states. They were there to be open to new experiences, to listen, as it were, to the works. That struck me, perhaps because outside of New York, the art scene seems slightly less capitalized.

The space and building evoked a sense of turning, perhaps turning on its head, or turning and twisting to see or look in new directions. Or, as happened to me, to turn and look at the people that surround me in the United States of America.

As I looked at George Washington made of dollar bills, I had to ask, is this work a tribute to the power and potential of this system? Or is it a stern warning: that if we do not begin to separate the extreme flow of large corporate private interest in structures and frameworks, we will be left with nothing but crushing “freedom towers” fed by silverstieinian and SOM greed, powered by nationalist sentiments like Palin’s, celebrated in Speerian fashion.

o Morro film series in Stuttgart Germany

Administrator — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:55:43 +0000

Wednesday August 20 I will be introducing and leading a discussion at the film series

O Morro: Problems in Representation of the Favela

This film series started at the storefront for art and architecture and anthology films, and has been transported to the Kuenstlerhaus Stuttgart

as part of their social diagrams series, curated by Axel Wieder
I am very excited to talk with the attendees, and look forward to challenges from some of the artists here like

CristÃ³bal Lehyt
The program remains the same as was in the Storefront for Art and Architecture, but a new essay, to follow in a post, has been produced and will be coming out in Arch + later this month.

I will reproduce the text here in English once it has come out.

Sonic.Focus 2 Performances Thursday and Friday

Administrator — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 01:02:21 +0000

I will be performing twice at the sonic.focus 2 conference this thursday and friday in Providence RI.

The first night I will permiere a piece called “Between the Notes 2″, and will be followed by a performance on modified turntable by Thomas Brinkmann.

Friday afternoon will be a panel featuring Thomas Brinkmann, Scott Pagano, Beth Coleman and myself moderated by Tony Cokes from Brown University at the RISD museum.

Friday night will be DJ sets by

DJ N-RON

dj/rupture

thomas brinkmann

with cinema mix by Scott Pagano

Complete details are here

if you have friends in the area, or are looking for a good time, this should be a really unique combination of sonic experiences. Ok, more soon!

sonic.focus.2

Administrator — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:44:33 +0000

This weekend, I will be in Providence, RI at Brown and RISD for the sonic.focus.2 lecture and performances series.

This year’s lineup is split over 2 months. This Saturday October 20th is Jan Jelinek and

Hanno Leichtmann (aka Static). Should be great, and the venue has moved to RISD in a nice space with some real subs.

Last year’s lineup is still online with video from Philip Sherburne, Tony Conrad, David Shea and many others.

Dance Faster 2, following Dan Graham and Beatriz Colomina, October 13, Storefront for Art and Architecture, NYC

Administrator — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:53:42 +0000

On Saturday, October 13, I will be performing the second piece as part of Dance Faster series, entitled Dance Faster 2 , immediately following Dan Graham and Beatriz Colominaâ€™s performance at the the Storefront for Art and Architectureâ€™s Performance Z-A series .

Dance Faster 2 is a public dance party for wireless headphones, turntables and a microphone. Headphones and dance steps will be provided.

The performances will be this Saturday, October 13, starting at 7 pm in the ring dome pavilion on Lafayette and Kenmare in Manhattan, New York.

Special thanks to those who participated in Dance Faster 1.

Photos from the series can be found here . Photos below from Dance Faster 1 are courtesy of the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

This Thursday, Performance Z-A at Storefront for Art and Architecture, NYC, then off to Austin Texas!

Administrator — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:01:47 +0000

A SPECIAL EVENT TO CELEBRATE STOREFRONT’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY

21 SEPTEMBER – 16 OCTOBER: PERFORMANCE Z-A
Sept 27
Daniel Perlin (AKA DJ N-Ron) is an artist working across media creating sound, video, objects
and installations. For Performance Z-A he will present Dance Faster, a live mix from inside the Ring
Dome that the audience will be able to listen to through wireless headsets from anywhere inside
Petrosino Park and the surrounding area.

++++++++

Then, on Saturday September 29, I will be doing live video work with dj/rupture and giving a talk at the Austin Museum of Digital Art

This should be a great show, with d-fuse and many others in the lineup…I am also looking forward to the artist’s talks at the museum earlier in the day…

brasil vs. brazil

Administrator — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 15:03:52 +0000

In 2003, after 5 years of trying to reconcile the contradictions that are always at play as an ex-patriot in Rio de Janeiro, I decided to embrace them. I returned to New York, ready to try a new life, a kind of ex-patriot in my own country. Edward Said fantasizes a bit about this in Representations of the Intellectual, lifting the position of the public intellectual to the Romanticized state of the exile. I was always a skeptic of this position, favoring Rousseau’s concept that knowledge is just pain (though it is common knowledge that he did like to get spanked on the ass by strangers, so perhaps his relationship to pain differs from a more traditional notion, or we could say knowledge is a pain in the ass–get it?!). But perhaps Said’s position, of the intellectual as exile, even in his or her own nation-state, has some truth-value if we consider the condition of the practicing thinker in the United States of America right now.

First, short of Chomsky (here debating Foucault), we are left with a scant few so-called public intellectuals from which to choose. Some of my colleagues and friends have decided to look to popular forms of representation, from Hip-Hop’s heroes to some hopeful hopelessness in the form of television, like John Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Foreign intellectuals, such as Habermas, with his explicitly eurocentric viewpoint (a positionality for which he receives endless criticism from everyone from Judith Butler to Peter Sloterdijk), has, nonetheless, occupied a critical force in legal and ethical studies for many years. Still, for a national product, we are talking about US intellectuals here, from its own respective borders, so I guess he’s out. Who do we have now? Oprah? Keith Olberman? Obama? Hmm….Perhaps we have a real problem of leadership in the intellectual community. Or perhaps the stage has changed or been removed. Does anyone care about exiled intellectuals in the US?

Brazil has a a unique tradition of exiling intellectuals, if only to then be able to appreciate them. Caetano Veloso, of course, never fails to remind us of his brief imprisonment and forced exile to England (where he produced one of his greatest records, A little more blue. I have always looked to Brazil as the “country of the future”, as it has been popularly known. Perhaps we should start doing this, or have we already?

The intellectual as exile, from Benjamin to Veloso to Mandela to perhaps even Herman Hesse and so many countless others, seems to be a condition of the State that is as inescapable as the prison walls of Guantanamo. But Brasil seems to have a particular twist to its intellectuals as exiles. As many of my friends have told me, and as I have seen as well, the Brasilian is not appreciated by Brasil until it is first appreciated by Brazil.

We can see this both in music (from Bossa Nova to Gilberto Gil, who also had a stint in London, to Jorge Ben and Chico Science and NaÃ§Ã£o Zumbi, to Sepultura etc.) as well as the visual arts. The incredibly prolific Helio Oticica got his first real New York show for many years posthumously at the New Museum–yet it was a show about Helio Oticica’s time in New York. Perhaps his best show to date, aside from Whitechapel in 1969, was from Rotterdam’s Witte de Withe Center and the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis. This catalogue continues to be one of the best publications available on the artist. Does Brasil need Brazil?

This question has arisen time and time again, and we are given a glimpse into some of this contradiction in the very thorough documentary on Carmen Miranda “Bannanas is My Business“. Miranda’s story, first loved as national heroine, then hated for “selling out,” as it were, the Brasilian image, seems really difficult for many to grasp from abroad. But her work came at a time when nationalism within Brasil was wedded to the strong state apparatus and a concentrated export economy of national cultural production.

Since 1994, when Fernando Enrique Cardoso “opened his legs” by dollarizing the economy and stimulating foreign ‘investment’, Brasil has moved quickly to establish itself as a very real player within the international game of consumer economies.
Many of its stifiling import taxes on technology and foreign goods have been reduced, and a newfound relationship with the “exterior,” as it is known, began.

But, perhaps predictably, the relics of the past fetishizations of the North continue to haunt as a specter. 389 years of colonization are hard to shake off (Brasil was the last country in the western hemisphere to end slavery, as well a late-comer to national revolution). As an example, for City of Gods to carry its critical social and cinematographic relevance, its success in international festivals and markets was essential. Is it power that is sought, from or for foreign investment and money? Is it the media justification? Or is it that for so long, Brasil has required the seal of approval from abroad, that it continues to validate itself first through the its imaginary eyes of others?

Now this may come off as harsh, but I can only illustrate countless examples. Diplo playing baile funk in Brazil, but does he even know the lyrics of the tracks he plays? Yes, DJ Marlboro was a hit already before he toured internationally, but are any of these artists that Marlboro and Diplo play ever really getting paid? What about Tom ZÃ©, who, despite his disdain for the US and in particular the US government, required David Byrne as a champion before he was able to quit his day job writing jingles?
Yet someone like Bebel Gilberto, who largely made her entire career abroad, is scorned, despite her very high production vaules.

This generalization of national music production has its exceptions, and as the state of the music industry begins to dissipate and micro-economize, the newer generation of music makers has led the way towards a new language of production.
BNegÃ£o and Instituto
Sincerely Hot and Kassin+2
Sabotage (R.I.P), Xis, Racionais MC’s, M.V. Bill, R.D.C and even D2

I guess I have two hopes. From my position right now, I can try do something so that one day Brazil will value Brasil. But some people feel that first Brasil has to value Brasil. Of course, I have to wonder, where do the borders lie?

Chapa Coco by Xis–

Trafico na Favela by R.D.C.