Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (212) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1372

2nd Downtown walk around – Tuesday July 29th, 08 For Conflux festival sites – Raphaele, Maria-Joao, Edita, GH, James.

18) 88 Pine St. -- Wall Street Plaza. Minimal Sculpture with mirrored stainless disk. some trees, most distinguishing feature is a slope back wall/ fountain made from granite bricks. Looks like a firing squad wall or a giant pissoire. possible performance of men facing wall with water bottles to fake pissing. Or a mock firing squad. James says it's a great place for a midget wedding. 
View Larger Map

19) 180 Maiden Lane. The Times Square of Uzbekistan. Geodesic design ala Bucky Fuller. Has a stage with a piano and a video display screen. Julliard Students come every Tuesday during lunch to give concerts. Guard didn't want us taking pictures.

View Larger Map

20) 175 Water St. , Edita says that granite is toxic. AIG Plaza with Granite columns. Notice the terrorist attack barricades of granite cylinders.

View Larger Map

Around the corner on a scaffold is a sculpture a "green project" that involves grass growing up the legs of the scaffold being fed by rainwater.

21) 180 Water Street. really just the sidewalk but has a good view of the Square rigger masts.
View Larger Map

22) 200 Water Street -- This is the Old/New (from the 1960's) New York Cocoa Exchange building. I think NYU uses it as dorms now. It has a digital clock that doesn't work and some colorful metal chairs and some pop art style sculpture that resembles giant wooden soldiers. I like this as a location for Alphaville/Plazaville. "Time has stopped. We are at the end of time."
View Larger Map

23) 100 Water Street. This has a small plaza that homeless live in. It has a NY Sports club gym who jogging machine windows face the street. There is a potential for me to go in and run on the machines while someone shoots video from the outside. This can be another scene from Plazaville. "rats on a treadmill."

View Larger Map

Actually the NYSports Club is 160 Water St. We totally missed this plaza! It is however really boring!

Addendum -- 2 Gold Street. Has a corten steel sculpture that spells the word "two" Also has and eating dining, Plaza and does have the private/public sign. James says the one piece stainless steel tables & benches are prison design style.

24) 100 Williams St. Exit for the organic foods Turkish Market. Heart of bland corporate skyscrapers.
View Larger Map

25) 59 Maiden Lane. Dining plaza and indoor Turkish organic market.

View Larger Map

26) 10 Liberty street. Has a triangular park and an outdoor policeman's booth. Also has a water fountain that is crumbling and cracked. Raphaele thinks the water pipes froze and burst in the winter. The giant steel sculpture is vaguely cubist. Raphaele likes it, James says it looks like a giant exploding Lobster.

View Larger Map

27) 60 Wall st. Doesn't rate.

28) 55 Broad St is totally creepy. It has steel ramps that block cars from coming down the street with black SUV's and homeland security police dressed in black unmarked fatigues. George Bush's Fascist Amerika . The photo here is old and doesn't show the ramps and barricade.

View Larger Map

29) 40 Broad. Nothing to see. 30) 52 Broadway -- boring

31) 1 Wall Street. Another ho hum plaza.

View Larger Map

32) 55 Broadway has a weird sort of planter plaza with escalators. James says the first outdoor escalators downtown.  
View Larger Map

33) 45 Broadway. Has an atrium. The most interesting thing on lower Broadway is that on the sidewalk they have the names and dates of all the ticker tape parades. 34) 17 Battery Place - essentially a traffic island. Also an approach to the Battery tunnel. Up the street is the DMV which is where everyone goes to get their ID's.

View Larger Map

35) 90 Washington Street. Nothing to see.

40) 33 Maiden Lane -- On the left of the photo is 33 Maiden on the right is the Federal Reserve. Raphael had no trouble photographing the building. This is the same place I was hassled by a security guard and told I needed to come with them. As you can see it looks like they haven't heard of google maps yet.

View Larger Map

Comments (2) | Add as favourites (214) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1530

Downtown walkaround jul.15, 08 Raphaele James & gh followed the privately owned public space map http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/priv/mndist1.shtml and surveyed 19 locations-  We came out of the # 3 subway at location 27. (60 Wall street) http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/priv/60wall.shtml that is an enclosed arcade with weird garden lattice work, columns, and fake rock terrain murals. James says that this is a homeless spot after the stores close. There is public WIFI  which means that we could potentially stream live video from this location. It seems that we could request that we close the space for a special event if we are a non-profit.  James says this is agood place to interview homeless guys.  We then proceeded to follow the map by the numbers. The map was compiled by the author -- The classifications attributed to each space are taken directly from Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience, by Jerold S. Kayden, The New York City Department of City Planning, and the Municipal Art Society of New York, published by John Wiley & Sons, 2000. Raphaele suggested we get the book but it is quite expensive -$75.00 does anyone want to go to the library and read it or take it out to read? That would help the process along. Location 1. (17 state street) - http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/priv/17state.shtml - has two signs one is about Herman Melville. There is an archaeological exhibit/ museum. This is a good spot for a psycho-geographical sign. GH was inspired and thought that his word piece would fit there because of the Herman Melville connection.  This brings up the notion that Daniel was talking about a different tact which would be to expose/critique the spaces use.  Since there are over 44 privately owned public spaces we can propose different approaches for the spaces.  The kicker is that around the corner is the home/museum of Ann Seton  (mother Seton) who is America's first saint!

2. (1 Battery Park Plaza) no sign - This plaza faces Battery Park and Castle Clinton which is a circular fort built in 1807 to defend New York from the British in anticipation of the war of 1812.

3. ( 1 state street plaza) no sign   4. (1 New York Plaza)  Big Plaza no sign - check this out -- http://www.printsoldandrare.com/wallstreet/index.html 5. ( 125 Broad Street)  no sign view of harbor & Brooklyn. This space has has a diagonal sloped back wall enclosure that makes it semi-private and cuts out a lot of sound. Could be good for a performance or a video shoot especially with the harbor as a back drop.

Broad St. During the Panic

Location 6. (4 New York Plaza) no sign  (note many of these spaces are rather sterile banal corporate plazas and arcade set backs.  G.H. says it reminds him of the Godard Film Alphaville. James then countered Plazaville. 7. (85 Broad Street)  Arcade no sign however there was a sign on the front of the building that said if the public wished to follow the Old Stone Street path through the center of the building they could ask at the security desk.  This is a very interesting sort of old New York geography tour. Around the side of the building were glass vitrines in  the ground that revealed the ruins of foundations from the original buildings in New York. This could be a spot for a surreal tour fantasy story about old New York.

Also 85 Broad street hooks into Old Stone Street that's being used as a closed off street with tables for all the bars & restaurants that line it.

8. (7 Hanover Plaza) This reminded G.H. of the S curves boardwalk on the beaches of Rio De Janeiro.  The plaza also has an incredible chocolatier that's a psycho-geographical map image right there!

9. (55 Water Street) has a sign near the entrance, is an elevated Plaza that has great views of the Brooklyn Bridge, WIFI, Landscape planting and escalators. The escalators are perfect for an escalator performance piece.  James & Raphaele suggest that we hold our next Artists Meeting there. The Plaza at 9pm. There are heavy-duty  security guards, because there is a Federal Building and they are afraid terrorists will come and plant bombs. You aren't allowed to take photos of the buildings. When Raphaele took out her camera the guards freaked.  Did I say they had a light sculpture?

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/where-do-you-find-peace-in-new-york/ 10.  11 Hanover Sq.

(77 Water Street) Plexiglas sculpture & biplane on roof,  The biplane on the roof sculpture was designed by some guy named Rudolph de Harak and executed by the sculptor William Tarr in 1969 (thanks Jack Ryan). Apparently it's a full-size model of a WW1 Sopwith Camel, complete with runway. It was put there to amuse inhabitants of surrounding scyscrapers, notably the WTC.

11.   (77 Water Street)

12. (32 Old Slip Park) big sign Fountain, Police Museum 13. (111 Wall street) - plaza  -- GH has idea to do a remake of Alphaville and shoot in all these plazas. Integrate interviews in the shoot.   See original --  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2648727779153972387 14. (95 wall street)  - overhang plaza location 15.  (75 Wall Street) total dud! 16. (110 Wall Street) Plaza Benches Fountain Trees, Sign that says Manahatta Park   This is a 9/11 memorial -- http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/a-911-memorial-fountain-on-wall-street-under-glass/

Comments (1) | Add as favourites (222) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1634

Proposal to Conflux Festival Sept. 11-14th
By Artists Meeting

Title: Public Exhibition Space

We propose to do a series of perfomance/ interventions in a number of privately owned public spaces in lower Manhattan. The spaces are defined by a map created by the NYC dept. of City Planning available at --  http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/priv/mndist1.shtml

 

We will use the existing map and superimpose own on psychogeographic map locating the places and times when our interventions will occur. Each project will engage specific micro-communities from downtown such as;

office temps, homeless, immigrants, DMV clients, 9/11 tourists, Stone 
Street restaurant patrons etc..
Here's the suggestions for interventions at the public/ private spaces.

 

1. Tape up benches with barricade tape that says "closed to the public"
2. Go to each space with a group & a video camera and start critiquing the architecture or simply start laughing at the space and encourage passersby to join in the laughter.
3. make additional benches to put downtown for people to sit.
4. do special actions for the office temps such as;

a. office temp yoga
b. capitalism de-programming session
c. office temp lunch time hook-up
d. temp T.A.Z.
e. interview temps and podcast the videos

5. Make  pillow cushions for public benches that have reproductions of the commemorative plaques for each of the public/ private spaces. These would be used to make people (especially homeless) feel more comfortable.
 
We propose to make the psychogeographical map, documentation of the project, such as video pocasts and still photos available on the Artists Meeting website
http://artistsmeeting.org

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (249) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1714

Proposal for:
beta VERSION -
Biennal exhibition ART AND NEW MEDIA - Geneva, CH

From: Artists Meeting (http://artistsmeeting.org)  

Introduction

Artists Meeting is a nascent artists group that has been meeting for over a year. We have been finding ways to collaborate with each other through an open dialogue and discussion about art and group praxis. MORE INFO ...

Participating Artists include Leesa Abahuni, Nicole Abahuni, James Andrews, Daniel Blochwitz, Chris Borkowski, Eliza Fernbach, G.H. Hovagimyan, Thomas Hutchison, Lara Star Martini, Nsumi Group, [PAM], Joao Salema, Raphaele Shirley, Jason Wee, Lee Wells, Edita Zulic.

We presented our first public collaborative video installation at the Art Under the Bridge Festival in Brooklyn, New York in September 2007.  We projected two 30 foot by 40 foot videos onto the south side of the Manhattan Bridge Anchorage from the loading dock just off the corner of Front and Adams.
 
The video projections were a mash up of short video clips and text documentation archived through emails as well as the group discussions online.

The content of the video is a mixture of documentation of meetings, a bocce ball game in which the artists play ball and talk about collaborating, self portraits of the artists, as well as abstract videos, motion studies, still photos, text, slides of various group proposals and a text crawl of emails.

Several people wearing miniature clip on amplifiers to create a "Mobile Surrounding Sound" performance carry the audio portion of the installation. The live loudspeaker personnel interact with the viewers as they watch.
 

The result is an energetic display of sound and image can be seen in the tradition of Guy Debord's, The Society of the Spectacle.

Proposal

We propose to do a live audio / video performance using the custom designed software we created for our performance last September. We propose to do two large video projections. One will be the video created by the group.  The other will be a live video improvisation projection.
 We will enlarge the project so that visitors to the BETA festival can use their cell phones to instantly upload text, images and video that will be incorporated into the live video projections via a custom infrared or bluetooth network.  The intention is to create an instant participation by the audience in the project.

(note: we can repeat this performance over a number of nights)
Estimated length - 2-3 hours 

 

Technical Aspects

We propose to supply 2 Macintosh powerbook laptops and 6 mini battery powered audio amplifiers to be used for the performance.  This performance can be indoors or outdoors.

We ask the festival to supply a table to set up computers and projectors. We ask the festival to supply one or two data projectors 10,000 lumins or better.
A high speed Internet connection either wifi or hardwired.

Set up time 3-4 hours. Break down time - 1 hour. 

If projected outdoors we ask for adequate power supply and a tent or some protection from rain or bad weather.

Personnel and artists fees and expense

Round trip airfare from New York to Geneva for three people
Room & Board or a per diem expense for three people

Artist's fees for presentation -  $1,500 USD





Contact:
G.H. Hovagimyan
11 Harrison Street
New York, NY 10013
ghh(AT)thing.net
+1-212-219-1149
+1-646-496-7048

G.H. Hovagimyan is an experimental artist working in a variety of forms. He was one of the first artists in New York to start working with the Internet and new media in the early nineties. His work ranges from hypertext works to digital performance art, installations and HD video.
 
Recent awards include 2003 fellowship from Experimental Television Center, 2002 Artists Fellowship from Franklin Furnace, 2002 pilot artist in residence program from Eyebeam, NYC. 


2007
Dumbo Arts Festival,  Brooklyn, NY
Video Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY
CIRCA 07, San Juan, PR
1800 Frames take 3 Pioneer Theater, NYC
1800 Frames, CWOW, Newark, NJ
Frieze Art Fair, London, UK
2006
Art Basel Miami, Miami, FL
IFAC @ Scope Miami, Miami, FL
Computer Fine Arts Collection by Doron Golan, [DAM] Berlin

Pixel Pops, C2C Gallery, Prague, CZ
Video-Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY
Cinema-Scope- Scope Hamptons, NY
Digit Festival - NY
Scanners - New York Video Film Festival, Lincoln Center, New York
2005
Burlesques Contemporains- Jeu De Paume, Paris, FR
Senef -Seoul Net & Film Festival, Seoul, S. Korea
2004
Theater & Crossover Festival Groningen, NL
Rant/ Rant Back/ Back Rant, (internet video performance)
 STEIM institute Amsterdam, NL
2003
Open Source 3, La Gaite du Lyrique, Paris, FR
Split Festival, Film & New Media, Split, Croatia
2002
Beta-Launch, Eyebeam, NYC 
2001
Interferences, 2nd International Festival of Urban Multimedia Arts, Belfort, FR
1999
Sound Artists of North America, Musée Art Contemporain, Lyon, FR
1997
 Port-MIT, List Visual Arts Center, Mass. Inst. Tech., Boston, MA



 

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (224) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1529

Here's the interview with the curator - http://confluxfestival.org/conflux2008/christina-interviewed-by-digimag/

Here's the call - http://confluxfestival.org/conflux2008/submissions/

Submissions

Please read the guidelines below and when you’re ready, submit your proposal here.

Please note that there is a $5 fee to apply to participate in Conflux. This nominal fee helps cover some of our administrative costs. Payment does not guarantee participation in Conflux, and the fee is non-refundable.

TIMELINE

May 01: Call for Proposals OPENS
May 31: Call for Proposals CLOSES
end of June: Accepted proposals announced
September 11 - 14: Conflux 2008

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
EVENT TYPES
Participants in Conflux share an interest in psychogeography. Projects range from interpretations of the classical approach developed by the Situationists to emerging artistic, conceptual, and technology-based practices.

At Conflux, participants, along with attendees and the public, put these investigations into action on the city streets. The city becomes a playground, a laboratory and a space for the development of new networks and communities.
Here are examples of events we feature:

    * exploratory drifts/dérives on foot or by bike, subway, bus or other transport
    * walks with experimental mapping or navigation techniques
    * social/environmental/urban research and fieldwork
    * workshops and classes
    * temporary outdoor installations/interventions
    * interactive performance projects
    * street games
    * mobile-tech/locative media projects
    * micro-radio, podcasting, vlogging and other broadcast proposals
    * alternative use/re-use of public space
    * projects proposing alternative/experimental/DIY cultures, economies, communities, and artistic initiatives
    * lectures, multimedia presentations and panel discussions
    * short film/video works
    * live audio/video projects and musical performances for night events

For examples of past Conflux events, visit our archived 2007 site. Please note that we’re not accepting proposals for traditional visual art exhibitions of paintings, photography, sculpture, etc. at this time.

SELECTION CRITERIA
Relevance: How does the event relate to psychogeography?
Does its theme address issues central to classic psychogeography and/or propose new methods? Does the event take a unique approach to exploring, understanding, celebrating or changing the city?

Participant Experience: How do Conflux attendees experience the event? Is the public experience well-thought-through? Does the event encourage dialogue between the diverse communities of New York City?

Feasibility: Is the event’s scope reasonable? Does the event have its own funding? Can the artists travel to Conflux with their own funds?

LOCATIONS
Only events that take place in the New York City area are eligible. They may be outdoors or in a venue you provide. Conflux headquarters will be located in lower Manhattan, at venues to be announced. The HQ will feature a lounge area for visitors and space for event maps and flyers. There will be wi-fi at the HQ. We’ll focus heavily on events that are in downtown Manhattan, but we anticipate events happening in all five boroughs.

HEAD’S UP [PERMITS & PRODUCTION INFO]
Please keep in mind that you’ll be responsbile for doing the research and securing any necessary venues, permits, assistants, equipment, materials and so on in the production of your event. We’d love to help plan each event, but we have a small staff and our resources are limited. We’ll have several volunteers at Conflux HQ throughout the festival to help everyone. Some things to consider:

    * New York Civil Liberties Union [Know Your Rights]
    * Obtaining a Park Permit
    * NYPD Anti-Graffiti Initiative
    * For project materials/equipment, check out Freecycle and Wastematch.

FUNDING
Conflux cannot provide funding, but we may be able to assist in other ways, such as providing a letter of support, assistance with securing permits, the help of our volunteers, as well as discounts at hostels, local restaurants and other businesses. We’ll post this information as it becomes available.

CONTACT US
If you have questions about the submission process, contact u

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (227) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 1772