Mabou Mines Residency

Deadline: June 5, 2009

Applications are now being accepted for Mabou Mines/Suite, a laboratory for artists (individuals or groups) to experiment with performance ideas. To be eligible, artists must have a history of making work. Artists are appointed to investigate a particular idea or ideas. New work, or new aspects of work, must originate in the Suite and will be shown at the end of the Residency, at whatever level the artist feels will most benefit to the work. Audiences are invited at no charge.

I’ve been thinking about machines: machines that perform and people who perform with machines.  These are some visual references that I’ve found interesting in considering this subject matter.

Premiering as an evening-length work in 2010, IRIS began in 2007 as an experiment, a project with a commitment to keep searching until something is discovered. IRIS is being developed through work in progress showings, residencies and equipment borrowed from Digital Performance Institute.
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photos: JAHMANI PERRY

I just got a e-mail today about this art compition Zeitgeist '09. I'm not sure whom it's interesting too.  Myself as a non-comercial artist with no intent to try and sell my art I don't see paying to enter a compition to get my work shown.  And I can't fine any history on this compition so I don't know it's pedegry, or things I'd like to know like, how many submisions vs pieces selected.

However through this I did just find out about perpetual art machine which is free to submit to, and seems like a pretty cool DIY arts organization / art piece / video archive.  Anyway I'm much more excited about that.  It has a visible pedegry and a manifesto from which you can pick what you like. (or anyway I did, I like "Although she is sometimes called "Video Frankenstein"  [PAM] IS very sexy AND SO MUCH MORE !!" )

bigartgroup asks Performance is _______

http://twitpic.com/5cn2q

And will share your answer with, ... well someone somewhere.

http://tagr.tv/2008/ruth-sergel-alchemy-of-light

A video of Resident  Ruth Sergel presenting some background on her work.

This idea came out of a discussion Shlomit and I were having last Friday evening about whether I was making a performance or an installation.  She pointed out that I really needed to consider the performance from the audience’s perspective, so I considered flipping the whole thing around — facing the audience through a sheet of glass rather than standing with my back to them.  During the performance, I could scratch at the back of a sheet of glass covered with black paint. The drawing tool would continue to generate some sort of audio.  This performance concerns perception and revelation. As I scratch away paint to reveal the audience and the space which I cannot see at the beginning of the performance.  If I trace the outlines I see, I will also be rendering a mirror of the audience and simultaneously revealing my image through the scratch marks.

I created this mockup so I could see what it looked like at full size from the audience perspective.

On Monday evening, Wendy Richmond visited to see what I’ve been working on.  One thing she questioned, both in watching me, and in using the mechanism herself, was whether I was bothered by the way the ropes constrained me to a section of the board.  I hadn’t been terribly bothered by it, but at the same time, was already been working out a way to get past it with the infrared-detection scheme.  The question still remains – what place do ropes have in this work?  If they do belong in this work, is the tension of the constraint also part of the work or something I need to remove?

Later in the week, though, I sketched one possible solution to the roop loop constraint.

By replacing the rope loops with a simple system of counterweights, I would be able to move the drawing tool freely across the entire drawing surface.

On Saturday, I put together a prototype, by cutting the rope loops and adding water-filled soda bottles as counterweights.

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