FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
psy.geo.CONFLUX 2004
New York City, May 13 -- 16, 2004
Location and hours:
PARTICIPANT INC, 95 Rivington St. New York, NY 10002
Thursday May 13, 12 -- 9pm with an opening reception from 7 -- 9pm
Friday May 14 -- Sunday, May 16, 10am -- 7pm
[for evening events see schedule at www.psygeocon.org]
Contacts:
GLOWLAB: Christina Ray [ray -at- glowlab.com], David Mandl [dmandl -at- panix.com]
www.glowlab.com, www.psygeocon.org
PARTICIPANT INC.: Lia Gangitano, tel: 212.254.4334.
Brooklyn, NY -- Glowlab is pleased to announce Psy.Geo.Conflux 2004, the second in an annual series dedicated to current artistic and social investigations in psychogeography [the study of the effects of the geographic environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals]. Part festival and part conference, it brings together visual and sound artists, writers, urban adventurers and the public to explore the physical and psychological landscape of the city. Events will take place throughout NYC, with a headquarters located at PARTICIPANT INC, 95 Rivington St. between Orchard and Ludlow. The Conflux headquarters will serve as a place for participants and visitors to meet, pick up maps and schedules, and attend lectures. All events will be free and open to the public.
Psy.Geo.Conflux 2004 will feature a full program of events from Thursday through Sunday, including experimental walks with altered maps and navigational aids; high-tech drifts through the city using wearable computing devices; a human-scale chess game to take place in Times Square; a walking presentation of an urban documentary project commissioned by the New Museum of Contemporary Art; a series of temporary installations, lectures, audio and video works and more.
A complete schedule, event details, links to participants, and contact information will be available in mid-March at http://www.psygeocon.org. To sign up for the (low-volume) mailing list for schedule updates and other news about Psy.Geo.Conflux 2004, please visit: http://lists.interactivist.net/mailman/listinfo/psygeoconflux. Psy.Geo.Conflux 2004 is produced by Brooklyn-based arts lab Glowlab, in collaboration with Participant Inc. Sponsored in part by Artists Space Independent Project Grant.
Partial list of events:
WiFiKu :: Julian Bleecker: A drift through New York City neighborhoods to discover the names people give to their WiFi nodes and to construct haiku using these found SSID names.
Footprint Mapping :: Noriyuki Fujimura: An attempt to create a digital map of streets and public spaces by gathering "footprints" of participants in the project; a DIY-style digital mapping system consisting of a cheap pedometer, digital compass, microprocessor, webcam and laptop computer, set on a custom-made backpack for participants to wear.
Funerals for a Moment :: Kanarinka: Brings together collaborators across space and time to commemorate the passing of inconsequential moments at particular locations in New York City. The event will culminate in a collaborative performance of simultaneous funerals across New York City.
Nomadic Talk Show :: J. Gabriel Lloyd and Jason Kambitsis: Crushed velvet, scotch in one hand, blue and black tuxedos, big ties, and good timeslike a 1970s Dean Martin Roast on the city streets. The guests of the show are people who live or work in the neighborhood.
The New York Snap Exchange :: Andrea Moed: A round-robin, massively multiplayer street photography derby; a game in which everyone commissions art, everyone's an artist, and together we create an emergent visual index of the city.
Human Scale Chess Game :: Sharilyn Neidhardt: A cellphone-directed chess game played in real time, with humans acting as the pieces and the street grid of southside Williamsburg as the chess board.
Ways Through : Mapping Without Maps. A workshop :: Karen O'Rourke: Workshop participants will design audiovisual "path-building blocks" which can be reused by others. In the cityscape we will compose "tableaux vivants" and stage very short video skits or sketches based on our own experiences and those of others.
New Copen York Hagen :: Malene Rrdam and Anna Mara Bogadttir: A walk through Copenhagen as seen superimposed on a map of New York, with Danish souvenirs installed at various New York tourist attractions.
Yankee Game Walk :: Lee Walton: Participants will experience an unpredictable drift through the streets of Manhattan, guided by a live radio broadcast of a New York Yankees baseball game.
Street Art Walking Tour :: The Wooster Collective: A new version of last year's popular event, this walking tour of lower Manhattan street art will begin at the Conflux headquarters and end at a bar on the Lower East Side/SoHo.
One Block Radius Walking Tour/Presentation :: Glowlab (Christina Ray and Dave Mandl): A walking tour and presentation of the Lower East Side block within which the new New Museum of Contemporary Art will be built. Carried out between January and May 2004, One Block Radius zooms into this tiny area and gathers the amount of information one would normally find in a guidebook for an entire city. This feature-rich urban record will include personal perspectives from diverse sources such as city workers, children, street performers, and architectural historians. Employing a variety of tools and media such as blogs, video documentation, field recordings, and interviews, Glowlab will create a multi-layered portrait of the block as it has never been seen before (and will never be seen again). Commissioned by the New Museum of Contemporary Art; website: www.oneblockradius.org.
Additional events include lectures by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Zack Winestine and Michelle Kasprzak; transmission arts/audio projects by free103point9; and a Conflux party produced by Opsound and VJ Miixxy. For further information, please contact Glowlab founder Christina Ray (ray [at] glowlab.com) or Dave Mandl (dmandl [at] panix.com).
Additional information:
New York Times and Village Voice articles on the 2003 Conflux:
http://www.glowlab.com/psygeocon/pgc_press.html
About Glowlab:
Glowlab is a Brooklyn-based arts lab dedicated to the production, documentation and presentation of multi-media work in psychogeography and public-space arts. We produce events and lectures, organize collaborative projects and exhibitions, and maintain an online lab at www.glowlab.com. Psychogeography is an open and highly experimental discipline concerned with the ways in which the geographic environment affects emotions and behavior. Approaches to psychogeography vary, and include artistic, political, philosophical and scientific work in fields ranging from archaeology and cartography to programming, performance and street art. Glowlab aims to bring together these diverse perspectives and engage in dialogue on the methods and practice of psychogeography. We are particularly interested in the idea of public space as an artistic medium, and in May 2003 produced the first annual Psy.Geo.Conflux, a four-day festival and conference in New York dedicated to current artistic and social investigations in psychogeography. Glowlab was founded in 2002 as a project of Brooklyn artist Christina Ray, and is maintained by a small group of collaborators and volunteers.
About PARTICIPANT INC:
PARTICIPANT INC is an educational corporation and not-for-profit art space dedicated to the presentation of artists' work in a flexible, experimental format. The mission of Participant Inc. builds upon alternative space methodologies, particularly a commitment to interdisciplinary, intergenerational exhibition-making, and an insistence upon placing together, in one space, work from various mediums -- encouraging the coexistence of visual, media, literary, and performing arts.
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