Date: Saturday, September 28th, 2013
Time: 1pm – 8pm
Location: registration for this FREE event is required to receive the location
The day is almost here! Work together to prepare for a potentially massive auto-related disaster during the drill for Traffic Disruption Village. In 2010, China experienced a 9 day, 100 km long traffic jam that turned the road into “a collection of rooms”: a temporary village born of disaster. Traffic Disruption Village will serve as a drill for New Yorkers to prepare for a similar potential disaster phenomenon before it occurs.
There are three ways to participate in Traffic Disruption Village:
1. With a car. Retrofit your car to serve some function for the village’s ongoing well-being and support. Be prepared to serve yourself and others. Parking provided.
2. With a bicycle. Take advantage of your smaller, human-powered vehicle to assist those stuck in traffic. Bring mobile resources or serve as a messenger between the village and the outside world.
3. With only yourself (and possibly other people): bring a resource to share with the village.
Traffic Disruption Village will take place in a top-secret location from 1pm – 8pm on September 28th. To receive the location information, please sign up using the registration form.
Traffic Disruption Village by artist Chloë Bass is a project for the Flux Factory exhibition, Untitled (As Of Yet). This project and the exhibition are supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Flux Factory is looking for sharp volunteers and interns who relish the thought of plugging into a creative community. We produce dozens of exhibitions per year, run an international residency program, and present free events that serve cultural producers and the general public of NYC.
While volunteers and interns can participate in all aspects of our non-profit organization, these specific areas are in need of support:
With so many things to brag about, Flux needs a media savvy crew to help get the word out. We’re looking for tech gurus, social media savants, graphic design experts, and masters of the web to teach us new ways to shout it from the rooftops. Volunteers will be asked to document and market Flux projects, and help develop the Flux voice via social media, email announcements, and our website.
Can you offer amazing insight into fundraising by throwing awesome parties and/or writing sincere grant applications? Responsibilities for development volunteers focus on researching potential donors and sponsors; working on the occasional party; assisting with grant writing; and dreaming up previously untested and totally original ways to raise money.
Do you feel most satisfied when juggling multiple projects with a million different moving parts at once? We could use help with planning our public programs, including research; exhibition installation; assisting artists with making new work; and helping to organize events. We are also looking for volunteers who are interested in working with our residency staff to develop programs that attract new applicants, help our current residents, and keep our alumni connected to Flux.
Volunteers have access to many of the benefits that our residents and staff enjoy: use of our woodshop, silk screen studio, library, rooftop garden, and other communal spaces and equipment; entrée to an extensive international network of cultural producers; the ability to influence Flux Factory programming and the future of the organization; and you’ll always be publicly credited for creative contributions.
September 12th, 8pm+
FREE!, but please bring something delicious to share
Flux Thursday, our monthly potluck dinner and art salon, is back! Please join us for dinner, which starts at 8pm in the kitchen, and then around 9:30pm we’ll head to the gallery for artist presentations and performances.
This month’s Flux Thursday is an extension of the group exhibition, Untitled (As of Yet), which explores disruption to routine as a fruitful phenomena. Untitled (As of Yet) co-curators Sally Szwed and Christina Vassallo will provide an introduction to the exhibition. Christopher Ulivo will perform a shadow puppet theater piece in which a fern tells his tale of surviving the yoke of the brutal dinosaurs. In Score for a Cyclone, Ander Mikalson and Alex Hayden will invite the audience to blindly enter a creative action in which they collectively perform a musical score from a famous Hollywood film. Douglas Paulson & Christopher Robbins will conclude their day-long adventure, Meet Halfway Again, in the Flux gallery with their crew of willing explorers.
Images courtesy Ander Mikalson, photographs by Gabriella Sturchio.
Untitled (As of Yet) is supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Date: Thursday, September 12th, noon
Location: TBD
Christopher Robbins & Douglas Paulson are gathering people to meet them halfway, literally, on high noon, September 12th.
With an atlas and a ruler, Christopher & Douglas will determine the halfway point between participants. They are beginning with a team of 5 and each participant’s location will alter the meeting point. Other adventurers may inquire about meeting them halfway by emailing MeetHalfwayAgain@gmail.com, but have to specify what they can contribute to the expedition.
After the high noon rendezvous on September 12th, the adventurers will report back to Flux Factory during Flux Thursday, either in person, or via Skype or phone if they are still halfway-adventuring.
Meet Halfway Again is a project for the upcoming Flux Factory exhibition, Untitled (As Of Yet), which will open on September 6, 2013. This project and the exhibition, Untitled (As of Yet) are supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Date: September 6th, 2013
Time: 6pm – on, during the opening reception for Untitled (As of Yet).
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, LIC
You’ve gotten yourself into this art opening, but how are you going to get yourself out? The Long Walks Goodbye provides a framework by which to decisively exit: with someone you don’t know. Call 917-300-9521 to make an appointment to walk out the door, over the 59th street bridge, and into Manhattan before saying goodbye to your randomly assigned partner.
The Long Walks Goodbye, by Dillon de Give, is an experience-based artwork that uses walking as its medium. It is the fourth and final installment in Just the 2 of Us, a series of seasonal dual-stranger walks done in conjunction with Flux Factory and The Walk Exchange, for the exhibition Untitled (As of Yet).
This series is supported by National Endowment for the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Opening reception: Friday, September 6th, 6pm – on Exhibition hours: weekends in September, 1pm to 6pm, and during the week by appointment (contact christina@fluxfactory.org)
September 6th, 6pm – on: Dillon de Give provides an exit strategy for the Untitled (As of Yet) opening reception in The Long Walks Goodbye. September 8th, 1pm – 6pm: Chloë Bass will host her second open design charrette for Traffic Disruption Village in the Flux Gallery. September 12th, noon: Douglas Paulson & Christopher Robbins will lead an adventure to an undetermined location (as of yet) in Meet Halfway Again. September 12th, 8pm: A special edition of Flux Thursday, with presentations and performances by Untitled (As of Yet) artists Ander Mikalson and Alex Hayden, Christopher Ulivo, and Douglas Paulson & Christopher Robbins. September 28th, time TBD: The drill for Traffic Disruption Village, by Chloë Bass, takes place in a Queens parking lot.
Consider the massive power outage throughout the northeastern United States in 2003, which prompted thousands of New Yorkers to walk home from work. At any given moment, individuals who may have passed each other every day without real interaction were sharing a new experience of the city together. With the usual metropolitan bustle subdued, conversations sparked, and missed connections had more than a moment to catch. Years later and across the Atlantic, a volcano erupted after 120 years of inactivity, leaving hundreds of flights canceled and even more travelers stranded. How many babies were born as accidental citizens of countries that were not supposed to be theirs?
Untitled (As of Yet) takes its point of departure from events that first appear to be disruptive, even catastrophic, but eventually open the door to new thoughts, practices, and opportunities. Many of the artists in this exhibition examine the responses to unfamiliar circumstances and the breakdown of routine, while others deliberately incorporate these disruptions as mediating parameters or catalysts for inspiration.
Michelle Levante’s video work, Three Coping Mechanisms for Dealing with Fatal Car Crashes utilizes graphic imagery from the educational driving safety film “Signal 30,” featuring mangled accident victims. Levante counteracts the images of distress with the sounds of an orgasm, a preacher’s sermon, and a zen meditation, which later segue into the film’s audio of actual victims dying.
Realistic Fictions is an observation of artificial intelligence and survival priorities within “The Sims” video game. Disaster strikes during Angela Washko’s in-game performance, leaving the economically thriving family she has created in peril. By relinquishing control of her avatars’ actions and documenting their responses to grief, their artificial intelligence is forced to prioritize personal responsibilities in the wake of tragedy.
Christopher Ulivo’s shadow puppet play, Silent Witness Speaks, is a memoir told from the perspective of a fern who caused the K-T extinction 65 million years ago. During a special one-night performance on Thursday, September 12th, the fern will share his tale of living under the yoke of the brutal dinosaurs and how he caused their eventual decimation for his audience, a young knave.
In Score for a Cyclone, Ander Mikalson and Alex Hayden invite us to crank a wind machine, spin a bicycle wheel, yell into a bucket and throw things on the floor. Audience members become makers in this collective performance, utilizing abstracted musical notation and homemade instruments to form an unlikely orchestra. The absurd symphony is juxtaposed against a moment of revelation and recognition when it is revealed to be the soundtrack to an iconic Hollywood film.
Douglas Paulson & Christopher Robbins invite audience members to meet them halfway at high noon for a secret adventure, during Meet Halfway Again. The meeting spot, determined by triangulating the locations of each participant, is a geographic parameter that functions as social intervention. The collaborative exploration will conclude when they discuss their journey at Flux Factory on September 12th.
In fall 2012 following Hurricane Sandy, all subway, bus, and commuter rail service in New York City was temporarily suspended. During the superstorm, Louise Barry discovered how her relationship to the city had been shaped by the MTA and her reliance on the transit system. This experience made her acutely aware of the limits to her self-sufficiency and knowledge. Her video, What I’ve Learned, documents Barry’s experience of learning to ride a bike as an adult and her interactions with her teachers, as she abandons a familiar structure in search of a more flexible form of transportation.
Inspired by the functional temporary village that formed during China’s 100km long traffic jam in 2010, Chloë Bass asks us to consider what we would need to survive under the conditions of a mass stalled auto disaster. In an open design charrette for Traffic Disruption Village, participants worked on transforming automobiles into a resource for survival in dire gridlock, culminating in an orchestrated temporary traffic jam in Long Island City on September 28th and a toolkit for future traffic jams.
In Dillon de Give’s series of seasonal walks, Just the 2 of Us, strangers were randomly paired together to explore public space on foot. Over the course of a year, participants enacted dating cliches, came face to face with rival interests, and guided each other through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each walk presented an opportunity for cumulative misunderstanding, but instead revealed the impact of cumulative discovery.
Jan Mun’sPropagate creates a system for invasive plant species found around Flux Factory, questioning what caused the exile of these forgotten plants and the evolution of their social stature and role in the present ecosystem. The plant specimens were collected during walks around the neighborhood, adapted from natural methods of seed dispersal (wind, water, animals, gravity, and force).
Cristian Chironi’sNothing is the physical manifestation of an entirely lost digital self. Two broken hard drives containing the artist’s personal and artistic data from 1998 to the present are connected to a computer that will inevitably fail in its data recovery process. The month-long memory scanning process is made visible as a meditation on permanence and the implications of failed technology.
Ryan Estep creates scenarios for slippage that play off the inherent tension of handling an object of perceived value. In Untitled he painstakingly silkscreens a set of four canvases using a mixture of sterilized dirt and Lidocaine, and then tasks himself with stretching the canvas onto frames. The local anesthetic takes effect while handling the material, causing total numbness, and resulting in a self-imposed loss of control.
Heather Kapplow’s contribution to Untitled (As of Yet) is a responsive publication that captures intentional and unintentional signals transmitted by the works in the exhibition and traps them within heavily processed fibers taken from trees and matrices of pixels taken from FAT32 formatted hard drives. Click here to view Untitled (As of Yet), the exhibition reader.
Untitled (As of Yet) is supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. If you’d like to help support this project, please go to our Donate page.
Flux Factory makes the impossible happen every day. Help us continue to get the job done through a matching gift campaign that will double your donation.
Our Trustees have generously offered to match all gifts that are contributed between today and October 5th, up to $5,000. This incredible group of individuals each has their own story about why they feel compelled to share their time and resources with this special place.
There’s no place like Flux. The physical building is representative of the organization itself, with so many different pathways interwoven into a fascinating composition of community and art that is ever-changing.
–Hilary Bertisch, Board Member since 2012.
Its collectivity is as rare as its signature way to utilize minimal resources for maximum outcome. Flux is like this extraordinary seed you find amidst the similar. Now imagine how it would shine if we nourished it!
–Doreen Jakob, Board Member since 2009.
Participate in the Flux Double Up matching gift campaign by making secure contributions in any amount through Paypal, or by sending checks, payable to Flux Factory Inc., to:
39-31 29th St, Long Island City, NY 11101-3707
By contributing to the transformative programs that are underway at Flux Factory, you’ll help over 300 artists participate in non-traditional residencies, curated exhibitions, and events that will reach a growing audience through 2013 and into 2014. Your tax-deductible donation will ensure another year of free programming that expands beyond the conventional gallery setting, advances our artist residency program, and develops a vibrant international community of artists, organizations, and audience members who believe in the power of collaboration.
Recently we paired school-aged kids with artists and urban designers to build a city just for cats; invited experts in the art, tech, and political communities to duke it out over hot button issues; founded a temporary Flux consulate overseas; and executed a reverse heist in the Museum of the Moving Image. We’re looking forward to presenting another exciting year of Flux Factory programs that expand the notion of what art can do.
We’ll send you a mystery token of our appreciation in return, for donations of $25 or more.
Email christina@fluxfactory.org if you have any questions.
Installation opening and zine release: Saturday, August 10th, 7pm.
Additional gallery hours: Sunday August 11th, by appointment (call 201.306.3473 to schedule).
UPDATE:The artist will be hosting a second open design charrette on September 8th, from 1pm – 6pm in the Flux gallery. Take a look at the project brief here.
Date: Saturday, August 3rd, 3pm – 6pm
Location: Flux Factory, 39-31 29th Street, Long Island City, NY
Traffic Disruption Village asks us to consider what we would need to survive under the conditions of a mass stalled auto disaster. In 2010, China experienced a 9 day, 100 km long traffic jam that turned the road into “a collection of rooms”: a temporary village born of disaster. Traffic Disruption Village will serve as a drill for New Yorkers to prepare for a similar potential disaster phenomenon before it occurs.
In the event of a sustained jam, drivers and passengers will need to work together to create a vivid and user-friendly web of resources for living in gridlock. This open design charrette invites automobile users to envision what their cars could become in order to sustain livability during the disaster. The charrette will include two hours of drawing/planning in response to a succinct program brief, followed by one hour of presentation. Selected projects will be produced for the staging of Traffic Disruption Village on September 28th, 2013.
Traffic Disruption Village by artist Chloë Bass is a project for the upcoming Flux Factory exhibition, Untitled (As Of Yet), which will open on September 6, 2013. Send questions about the project or the charrette to info@chloebass.com, with the subject line “Traffic Disruption Village.”
This project and the exhibition, Untitled (As of Yet) are supported, in part, by National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Date: Saturday, August 24th, 2013
Time: noon – 9pm
The most famous publishing house in Cologne, Germany presents art zines and artist books. The TBOOKS COLOGNE Pop Up Shop at Flux Factory will feature new publications + new drawings by Flux Artists-in-Residence Philip Emde and (Tim).
Dance and beer till the cow comes home, with tunes by Nina Kravitz + other famous boiler room residents.
