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 containment—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 Chernobyl’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 Guantánamo 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 native—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 Christ’s 40 days in the desert, quarantine has re-emerged as an issue of urgency and importance in today’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 – 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

N-RON: The M-C-M1 Mixtape

TRACK LISTING:
1. Joseph Beuys-Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee/Larry Miller-Accord (Selections From The 2nd and 4th Movement)
2. N-RON-darksteps/Grimelock-Justice
3. N-RON-Rap da felicidade (cidinho e doca) stepmix
4. Flying Lizards-Money (That’s What I Want) (N-RON intermix)
5. Cota GV-Biling/Vandergraff-NDE/Jon Hopkins-Vessel
6. Celso Pina-Cumbia Sobre El Rio Interludio/Sonido Desconocido-VW Cumbia
7. Regadda-Instrumental/William Burroughs-Cut Up 19
8. El General-La culebrita/Chico Science & Nação Zumbi-Baião Ambiental (Instrumental)
9. Bodran 1/Blues thing/Assassin step pon them (acca)/Malica-Girl Hot
10. Molequ manhoso & bonde do rodo-danca do rodo
11. MC Colibri-CPI
12 Afroditas-pasconcito (N-RON rico mix)
13. N-RON-la calle es todo
14. Diplo-Ward21 Bay of Figs/Pase Rock-The Motherfucking Rave is Over
15. Tego Calderon-Trangalanga/Alex Under-El Ganado Ovizo Blanco
16. Mangueira DJ-Não Gostou/KRNL PANIC-PLAYBOY’S BLEND – PANIC REFIX BAILE FUNK RMX/Automatic refix
17. Comrade Fulozinha-Obá (N-RON Remix)

Update: Thanks Spannered! You  can also stream the mix it at Spannered.org

I often find that if I stop for a second and listen to the world that surrounds me (including all the digital and sensory media overloads), it all blends into a strange kind of peaceful mix. Perhaps that is what maximalism or the new complexity is. But all this is to say that I’d like to make a call for a new type of peace in 2010.

When I look out into the world through my often mediated gaze, I see senseless wars for national and transnational greed, unspeakable human atrocities committed across the globe against the very earth itself, not to mention it’s inhabitants, a chronically collapsing economic system always already infused with it’s own failure, enslavement of individuals akin to indentured servitude from New York to New Delhi and everywhere in between, and a general disregard for the idea and practice of human rights.

But I also see in this hyperactive Pandora’s box an undying commitment (maybe this is, in a way, what Adorno saw as well in his essay on commitment in Minima Moralia) to realize a peaceful world. And in this belief, there still remains a struggle, a radically human struggle, to go beyond the constraints of nation-state and ideological-state to listen to the melange of sounds and find a way through dialogue and discourse. And so in 2010 I send wishes for new listening experiences and new opportunities for dialogue . From the extremes of humanity’s socio economic possibilities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, anything seems possible, even peace for a change.

And for the very few people who do look at this blog, I wish you a peaceful and safe new year.

Click here to view the embedded video.

P.S.1 announces Saturday Sessions, a new program of emerging performance art that will take place on the second Saturday of each month. Designed to introduce new performance artists to New York audiences, the events will range from music to site-specific actions.

The December and January Saturday Sessions are presented in conjunction with open studios and discussions with participants in Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront. Organized by The Museum of Modern Art in cooperation with P.S.1, Rising Currents will include a residency for teams of architects and designers at P.S.1 this fall and an exhibition at MoMA next spring. The residency at P.S.1 is part of Free Space, a new project with artists and nonprofit arts institutions in which P.S.1 provides collaborative use of its gallery space for events, rehearsals, and other live presentations.

An artist and sound designer who often collaborates with architects, Daniel Perlin performs Re: construction, an attempt to simultaneously build a model house and create an audio composition based on the sounds of its construction. Referencing both Robert Morris’ Box with the Sound of its Own Making (1961) and the sampling work of Matthew Herbert, Perlin makes full use of hammers, screw drivers, and other tools for their physical and sonic capabilities.

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Ave at the intersection of 46th Ave
Long Island City, NY 11101
(718) 784-2084

facebook event listing: http://tinyurl.com/3tmkk4

Tonight at Pure Fire we have the very special appearance of Joro Boro.

Being of eastern european descent, I am a particular fan of his work, though, given his popularity, I am sure that identity politics and heredity has little to do with his rather amazing sound—-a bringing-together of north africa, london, zagreb, lower east side bulgarian bar and everything inbetween….
So come to Pure Fire at APT tonight, November 17, 2009 for the everything. Balkan bass, cumbia mash, baile funk techno, dubstep Kuduro, and everything else hybrid that always already was.

———

After that, come with me or head out on your own to lay on a lawn and watch the amazing Leonid meteor shower

This Friday the 13th (!!) at 730 pm I’ll be performing as DJ N-RON as part of the excellent conference Internet as Playground and Factory

at the New School for social research. Amazing speakers and panels, not to be missed.

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Saturday the 14th  I’ll be presenting as Daniel Perlin and on a panel at a conference called Shockwave Riders.

Here, I’ll discuss new ways of listening and controlling bodies through sound in urban space.

a complete description is below

“…cultural delta can be loosely described as the rate of change imposed
upon culture/society by the speed and depth of new technology.”
-from an online exegesis of Charles Stross’ novel Accelerando

Contemporary models of systems and cities rely increasingly on ‘multi-agent based’ modeling tools and theories, using digital techniques to analyze real world situations and propose design solutions. At the same time, radical and unanticipated forms of public space, communication, and subjectivity are emerging in the technologically mediated spaces of today’s cities.

It can be argued that an information and economic revolution is taking place due to these theoretical and practical changes, through the emergence of crowd-sourced collective intelligence, global swarm urbanisms, new disruptive economics ['wikinomics'] and ultimately the formation of a global political ‘multitude’- with commensurate revolutions catalyzed by these changes cascading across all cultural and political domains.

This symposium marks a continuation of the School of Design Strategies’ work to map out the ways in which emerging forms of social media, global information exchange and new models of pedagogy meet, and it brings together thought leaders from architecture and urban design, the business world, new media entrepreneurs, and media / culture theorists, to discuss and dispute the consequences of technological change in the next decade and outline strategies for developing a design and design-education models that can meet the challenges ahead.

Participants
• Ed Keller, Parsons SoDS, organizer and moderator
• Ben Bratton, UCSD & the Culture Industry
• Jamer Hunt, Parsons SoDS, Chair of Urban and TransDisciplinary Design
• Katherine Von Jan, KvJ & Co
• Mark Leiter, Nielsen, President of Professional Services
• Geoff Manaugh- BLDGBLOG and Contributing Editor WIRED UK
• Warren Neidich, TU Delft
• Daniel Perlin, Artist, Writer and Sound Designer
• Roland Snooks, Columbia GSAPP, UPenn and Kokkugia
• Cameron Tonkinwise, Parsons SoDS, Chair of Business Design and Sustainability
• Kazys Varnelis, Columbia GSAPP Network Architecture Lab and AUDC

Time & Location:
12 Noon – 7 PM
School of Fashion, Parsons The New School for Design
560 Seventh Avenue, NY NY 10018

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Finally, I am pleased to announce that I will be teaching next Spring at NYU’s ITP program. The course is entitled Sound and The City: Sound and Urban Interventions and should be an interesting one for exploring sound and public works.

OK!

PURE FIRE AT APT WITH SPECIAL GUESTS POIRIER, ZUZUKA PODEROSA AND CX KiDTRONiK

TUESDAY OCTOBER 20, 2009
APT
419 WEST 13TH ST. NY, NY
10 PM

NO COVER

CHECK OUT

POIRIER
http://www.poiriersound.com/

CX KIDTRONIC
http://www.myspace.com/cxkidtronik

ZUZUKA PODEROSA
http://www.myspace.com/zuzukapoderosa

PURE FIRE
http://www.myspace.com/purefirenyc

SEE YOU THERE,
THE PURE FIRE DJS
REAGANOMICS, CRITERION, $MALL ¢HANGE, PETER GUNN, N-RON HUBBARD

The piece is a large platform based installation, with 9 simultaneous projections and sounds that emit from below. The images appear on  hand-held screens the spectator carries as he or she wanders from video zone to video zone. The work is very large, in a very large space (1500 sq meters), and the videos are spread over the floor  throughout the platform, allowing the spectator to effectively capture the images with their hands. The sense is, perhaps, of listening to nature while questioning the ephemeral character of the media and the precarious nature of the lives of the species being featured in the work.

At night, I go to see music…saturday I was led around as if on a derive or a dream by the photographer matthew niederhauser to some of the best music I have heard from a band in a long time. Call me a fanboy, but I found new inspiration for feeling in the bauhaus-blonderedhead-deadkennedys-Hebei province-twist sounds of rebuilding the rights of statues.

here’s an NPR blog about them as well.
Maybe it was the cheap chinese beer and the exuberance of a diverse crowd of expats, drifters, punks and beijing scenesters that really fired me up, but even the day after, their sound still rings true. I am not sure, but maybe it is because there is so much to rebel against here—in preparation of the October 1st 60th anniversary of Mao, the internet and the streets have becaome a cat and mouse game, as facebook, twitter and youtube are all offline, not to mention street closings and soldiers goose-stepping about in rehearsals for the upcoming parades—or maybe it is just good music from crisscrossing paths. It felt a little Jarmusch night-on-earth (and yes, I realize that is rather 90’s, but that is also the feeling here, sort of Berlin post and pre-peristroyka), but I can’t negate the sound and energy was amazing, filled with hopeful hopelessness. And that sums up some of what I feel here so far…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yesterday, a good friend and director Katharine asked me about Tarkovsky. I immediately thought of Stalker, my favorite film of his.

When I was in school, all I wanted to do was make sound like Stalker. So many memorable sequences–from the train tracks in the zone, to the dream sequences, to the house and the trembling “train” or abilities of the young child at the end–have pervaded my thoughts each time I begin work on sound for film. But the Stalker taught me so much more than just to design and mix with a goal of “sculpting in time”, the title of his aptly named autobiography.

Tarkovsky taught me about persistence. Little is known of the difficulties of producing poetry, whether in motion or on paper. What is known is that it is frequently looked upon as an art of choice: choice of words, choice of phrasing, choice of styles, imagery etc.. In a sense, poetry is the process of editing. It is a profound use of negative space. Getting rid of the “wrong choice”, opting for what is best or best for right now.

I have never felt that I am a poet. But I do think that sound-editing and design, when done well, is approaches to poetry’s original impulses, the aural nerves that overwhelm the mind so tightly aligned with the desires for language and communication.

And it is this persistence, to communicate, that makes Chris Marker’s documentary on Tarkovsky so One Day in The Life of Andrei Arsenovich so compelling. Told from Tarkovsky’s deathbed, in part, where he lay with cancer, we see the varying struggles Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky went through to have a visions realized. The struggle to make choices. And the desire to make good work.

One often sited sequence, from his last film, The Sacrifice (it’s name appropriate for this discussion), shows the director in his most critical form. That of a believer. A fighter.

It is the moment of failure. Or at least the appearance of failure. The dolly and tracking shots for a complex final sequence in which a house on the tundra burns to the ground, fails. One camera , and then the second, are unable to get the shot. The house lay in ruins.

Tarkovsky had to rebuild a house to get the sequence. And he did so (though largely framework) after making his choice. And Marker’s film illustrates not only the beauty of the process of doing this work, but the strength and struggle to decide to go on, despite failure. The strength not only to believe in an idea, but to rely on colleagues and comrades to realize this vision. Film, as opposed to some other forms of art making, is almost always collective. And it is its collective perseverance that I continue to find so driving, even after all this time.

ITS AN ALL CAPS SUMMER BBQ BASH AT THE PERLIN STUDIOS ROOFDECK
BIRTHDAYS OF DANIEL PERLIN, ANDY GILLIS AND OTHERS WILL BE CELEBRATED IN FULL, WITH ALL CAPS STYLE

THE PARTY WILL BE ON THE  ROOF REPLETE WITH A GAS GRILL, GARDEN, AND THE VIEW OF THE BAHIA DE GUANABARA

DJS N-RON, UPROOT ANDY AND MANY OTHERS WILL BE PLAYING MUSIC CREATED FOR DANCE

BBQ STARTS 6 PM
PARTY GOES UNTIL 2 OR SO.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO BRING BEER/LIQUOR AND GUESTS

PLEASE RSVP TO
INFO@PERLINSTUDIOS.COM

THANKS AND SEE YOU SOON!

ANDY AND DANIEL’S ALL CAPS BBQ BIRTHDAY BASH
THURSDAY JULY 16, 6PM-2AM
ROOFDECK OF
170 TILLARY # 204, BROOKLYN, NY 11201
MAP:

http://tinyurl.com/ktx4p3

A, C, F JAY ST. BOROUGH HALL