Art Group

iLAND – Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance

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River to Creek: A Roving Natural History is a participatory research project and art action that will draw attention to the geographic and ecological connections across the industrial landscape of North Brooklyn, from the wild empty lots at the end of Newtown Creek in Bushwick to the East River at the edge of Greenpoint. It is a collaboration between marine scientist/dancer Carolyn Hall, ecologist/visual artist Kathleen McCarthy and Clarinda Mac Low and Paul Benney, members of TRYST, a New York-based performance and art group.

In New York City we tend to look at each environment as separate in space-a park is separate from a river is separate from a built structure, a river stops at the riverbank, and each neighborhood is an isolated phenomenon, when all these environments are actually highly interdependent. The collaborative team will highlight the connections between the different environments and illuminate the geographic continuity lying under our built structures and transportation networks. We will study the natural history of the current environment over the course of 15 weeks, compare it to historical records, and present our findings. Our research will bring in the public as research partners, asking citizens to become scientists and artists and observe their environment using scientific, somatic and sensory methods-science research and movement research. We will have several public events during the research process:

  • July 17: Walk through the wilds of North Brooklyn, with an informal talk by a specialist in plants and botany.
  • Aug. 21: Paddle and boat ride up the Newtown Creek and around the East River and informal talk by a specialist in marine life.
  • Sept. 11: Bike ride through the environment with informal talk by a specialist TBA

For the presentation of our data, professional performers and scientists and general public will create events that will reflect what we’ve learned over the months of research-a dance on site, both performed and participatory; a kayak convoy that is both experiential (for the kayakers) and performative (for the invited audience on shore); a sound collage transmitted by radio along the route, a film of movement research in secret sites. Events will take place on the weekend of Oct 2 & 3.

Project Collaborators
We are a group of artist-scientists who are choosing to exercise both sides of our professional lives simultaneously. Carolyn Hall is a marine scientist who just received her MS in Marine Science from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, New York in December 2009. Her thesis dealt with marine historical ecology. Hall is also an accomplished dancer who has been recognized internationally for her work with several cutting-edge choreographers. Kathleen McCarthy is an ecologist who recently received her MS in Ecology and Evolution from Rutgers University, with a focus on freshwater ecosystems and the urban environment. Her thesis looked at amphibian life in storm water basins. She is also an award-winning visual artist who created work in public spaces for many years. TRYST is a collaborative group of artists who specialize in creating public interactions to create an unexpected set of circumstances. The two main TRYST collaborators on this project are Clarinda Mac Low and Paul Benney. In addition to her art practice Mac Low has been a researcher and science writer, mostly in HIV and medicine, for many years.

ME’DI.ATE Announces Soundwave Festival ((4)) GREEN SOUND

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Bay Area’s Most Innovative Festival Explores Environmental Performances and Works From June 6 to August 13 2010.

San Francisco USA (April 8, 2010) – ME’DI.ATE Art Group is excited to announce the return of the acclaimed Soundwave Festival this summer for its fourth season, entitled GREEN SOUND, exploring the natural world and environmental issues. Arguably the largest collection of artists and performances the Bay Area’s avant-sound scene has ever seen, Soundwave ((4)) GREEN SOUND will feature over 75 participating artists and musicians, in over 35 inspired performances, exhibits and talks, in 18 events over the span of 2 ½ months.

Full festival details at www.projectsoundwave.com. Infoline: 415.320.6685

The astonishing season will feature events in the most stunning environments around the Bay Area including Battery Townsley in the Marin Headlands, the de Young Museum, Civic Center Plaza, Yerba Buena Gardens, Sunday Streets in the Mission, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church and a month-long residency at The Lab where ME’DI.ATE turns the gallery into an artist-imagined forest. The most eclectic array of artists will perform including Bay Area luminaries like sound artist Jim Haynes, improviser Cheryl Leonard, singer Odessa Chen, electroacoustic band BarnOwl, chamber ensemble REDSHIFT with composer Mason Bates, avant-jazz band The Drift, as well as, national and international artists such as Texas artist Alyce Santoro, Chicago artist Brett Ian Balogh, Japanese sound artist Takahiro Kawaguchi, Norwegian artist Elin Øyen Vister, French composer Géraud Bec, amongst others.

“These innovative artists will investigate environmental compositions, solar and wind-powered performances, interactive eco-systems, climate change and pollution, natural- and human-powered performances, sustainable productions, reinvention and recycling, real and imagined environments and creatures, endangered species, water, plantlife/animal life, and other artist imaginations,” says Alan So, ME’DI.ATE Director and Artistic Director of the Soundwave Festival. “Soundwave promises to astound audiences with the locations, productions, and artist ingenuity, while challenging people to refocus attention on the beauty and destruction of our world, its needs for survival and implications to our community.”

Soundwave ((4)) GREEN SOUND begins June 6th at the historic WWII site Battery Townsley in the Marin Headlands. ME’DI.ATE is collaborating with the National Park Service for two events at the Battery. Artists will perform without electrical power using only the extreme natural resonance of the structure to amplify sound in this stunning environment. Audiences are encouraged to ‘buspool’ to the remote site leaving from The Lab gallery in San Francisco. “The battery today represents many things to many people – from national defense to the preservation of these former Army lands as a National Recreation Area,” says John Martini, Historical Consultant of Battery Townsley. “The historians and volunteers of Battery Townsley are excited to have artists explore the historic structure in new ways, and make it accessible to a new and diverse audience.”

From the resonances of bunkers, GREEN SOUND takes you to the resonances inside the majestic St. Mark’s Lutheran Church on June 12th featuring over a dozen vocalists and musicians. June continues with special free events in San Francisco at Yerba Buena Gardens June 13th featuring the Bay Area Sound Ecology, a sonic art installation/performance at Civic Center Plaza June 17th and a bicycle-powered music stage at the city’s Sunday Streets in the Mission District June 20th in collaboration with Rock the Bike.

July’s events start on July 2nd with special performances featuring experimental cello/violin duo Myrmyr at the spectacular de Young Museum, the first of two events here. “The de Young is very pleased to be collaborating with ME’DI.ATE Art Group for their Soundwave Festival ((4)) GREEN SOUND on this site-specific concert inspired by James Turrell’s “Three Gems,” says Renee Baldocchi, de Young’s Public Programs Director. “This experimental project is part of Cultural Encounters, which encourages artists to respond to the de Young’s collections and building.”

July 9th opens ME’DI.ATE Art Group’s most ambitious project ever. ME’DI.ATE will present a month-long exhibition entitled “The Illuminated Forest” at The Lab, San Francisco’s premier experimental art space. ME’DI.ATE Art Group is creating an artist-imagined natural world inside the gallery walls with environmental artist works and an immersive multi-media interactive exhibit and performance installation by Agnes Szelag, Jorge Bachmann, Ben Bracken, Alan So, Suzanne Husky, Jessica Resmond, Sam Easterson, Vaughn Bell, Alyce Santoro, and Reenie Charrière. Every Friday and Saturday night during the exhibition run, the Forest will host experiential performances inside the installation by some of the most compelling artists and musicians. “The Lab eagerly anticipates ME’DI.ATE’s residency here for Soundwave,” says Eilish Cullen, Executive Director of The Lab. “Our mission is to support the experimental and the daring, and ME’DI.ATE’s work continues to push those boundaries of presentation and performance.” The exhibition closes August 7th.

August 1st sees the second event at the gorgeous site of Battery Townsley and the festival concludes with a special GREEN SOUND ‘Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young’ on August 13th.

Full Calendar of Events with list of participating artists availablehere. Extended descriptions are available at the festival website:www.projectsoundwave.com. Press Images available atwww.projectsoundwave.com/press. Ticketed events will be at affordable rates between $10 and $15 available online starting May 3rd at www.projectsoundwave.com/buy-tickets/. RSVP to free events atrsvp@me-di-ate.net

Soundwave Festival ((4)): GREEN SOUND gratefully acknowledges support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, Black Rock Arts Foundation, Japan Foundation, SF Bay Area Chapter of the American Composers Forum, Bill Graham Memorial Foundation, Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Meet the Composer MetLife Creative Connections, The M-Line, The Lab, the de Young Museum, National Park Service, Rock the Bike, Yerba Buena Art and Events, and many individual donors and volunteers.

About the Soundwave Festival
ME’DI.ATE’s Soundwave Festival is San Francisco’s premier experiential arts festival held every two years over the span of two months over the summer. Bringing together sound purveyors from across the sonic spectrum (from sound art to experimental to classical to popular music), Soundwave presents experiential performances and activities that challenge the way audiences see and hear sound and music. Each season investigates a new idea through sound that incites diverse artists and musicians to create work that explores the season’s theme in new and innovative directions. Led by Artistic Director Alan So, Soundwave has completed three incredible seasons: 2004’s Free Sound, 2006’s Surround Sound and 2008’s Move Sound. Soundwave has established itself as one of the most anticipated events in the San Francisco Bay Area avant-sound scene and a growing reputation in the global sound and art communities. Among its accolades, Soundwave won Best ’07 Award and called a ‘Future Classic’ by San Francisco Magazine, ‘Inspired’ by 7×7, ‘Unique and participatory’ by SF Chronicle, ‘Magical and deeply personal’ by SF Weekly, featured on numerous local and international radio programs including the BBC (UK), CBC (Canada), NPR (New York), KPFA (Berkeley), KUSF (San Francisco), as well as an in-depth feature on the PBS-KQED television program SPARK* with an accompanying experimental music Educator’s Guide.www.projectsoundwave.com

About ME’DI.ATE Art Group
ME’DI.ATE is a volunteer-driven, San Francisco-based non-profit arts group. Founded in 1998, our mission is to develop innovative exhibitions, products and live events that challenge perspectives and inspire new and unique experiences within ourselves and the world around us; present diverse artists, mediums and places to exchange ideas and collaborate; connect new and diverse audiences to experimental arts and visions; and provide an innovative forum and an essential voice for progressive ideas to be seen, heard and explored critically, imaginatively and without limitation. ME’DI.ATE showcases emerging and established local artists, as well as national and international artists, to bring innovative ideas and perspectives to Bay Area audiences. For more information about us, please visit our websitewww.me-di-ate.net.

ME’DI.ATE Art Group – ME’DI.ATE Announces Soundwave Festival ((4)) GREEN SOUND.

AREA #9: Peripheral Vision + ART WORK: – A Discussion with Nicolas Lampert & Dan S. Wang on “Activist Art in the Era of Economic Crisis”

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Date: March 30, 2010 – 19:00

Artist/writers Nicolas Lampert & Dan S. Wang, collaborators on the indie publications AREA #9: Peripheral Vision and Art Work, invite you to a presentation and discussion on the state of activist art practice in this era of economic crisis and how to enlarge the collaboration between activists and artists.

Art Work is a free, nationally distributed paper produced by the art group Temporary Services. The group had hoped to spark a national conversation about the state of labor, creative exchange, and strategies for survival, from the perspective of artists and cultural workers struggling in the precarious economy. It has taken off, with events in Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids, Iowa City, Chicago, Houston, Bloomington-Normal, New York, and now Madison.

AREA is a semi-annual publication by and for activist artists, researchers, and educators produced in Chicago. In AREA #9: Peripheral Vision focuses on those spaces and regions, populations and ideas frequently considered marginal in relation to the major urban centers, but which those centers depend upon for sustenance, self-definition and “sense of place” whether it be Madison, Milwaukee, or Chicago.

Nioclas Lampert is an artist, writer, activist, and a member of the Just Seeds graphic arts collective. The collective was awarded the Grand Prize at the 28th Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana in 2009. His individual work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), MassMoCA (North Adams, Mass.), and the Priebe Gallery of UW-Oshkosh. He teaches printmaking and socially-engaged art strategies at UW-Milwaukee. Nicolas interviewed the Wisconsin artist Susan Simensky Bietila for AREA #9. He contributed an article titled “Organize! What the Artists’ Union of the 1930s Can Teach Us Today” for Art Work.

Hired Gun

Agitprop by Nicolas Lampert

Dan S. Wang is a printer, writer, and activist. He was a co-founder of the experimental cultural space Mess Hall. His cultural criticism and writings on political art have been widely published and he’s lectured at the Contemporary Museum (Baltimore), the Kansas City Art Institute, and the Depot (Vienna). He lives in Madison and teaches printmaking at Columbia College Chicago. He was the co-editor of AREA #9 and wrote an analytical article about Just Seeds for Art Work.

So stop in for some creative talk, collaborative schemes, and a free paper!

Rainbow Cooperative

Reposted from Art Work : Archive : Event: Rainbow Cooperative, Madison, WI, March 30.

Big Orange Recycled Rabbits

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The Big Rabbits are made from recycled plastic bottles. After the installation is finished, the prolific and cutting-edge art studio destroys the installation and recycles it into a new animal and another project.

The Big Rabbits recycled art Installation from Cracking Art Group in Italy has been turning heads across Europe. The recycled orange rabbits have been on display in Portofino, Milan, Prague, Paris, Brussels and San Remo.

“The rabbit is the symbol of reproduction and proliferation. A positive message in this time of confusion,” explains Renzo Nucara from the Cracking Art Group. “We made a “Big Rabbit” because, in accordance with our work, the animal becomes the witness of the change of nature and her balance.”

via Big Orange Recycled Rabbits.