Tickets for Margaret Coleman’s August 28 tour, Demonstrations of Aptitude, are very sold out!

Flux Factory is part of LUMEN, an international video art and projection festival in Staten Island!   Visit Atlantic Salt on Saturday, June 26 and see video art by Fluxers Man Bartlett, Jaime Iglehart, Elizabeth Larison, and Kate Shaw.

“LUMEN is a cutting-edge video art and projection festival featuring site-specific video installations, 3D-video technology, sound-based performances, and art interventions by artists around the globe. Featuring work by emerging Staten Island artists, as well as established video, new media, projection, and animation artists from New York City and beyond, LUMEN will highlight a diversity of artists at the forefront of their media in an industrial landscape on Staten Island’s waterfront.”

Presented by the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island.

When Flux Factory is involved, however, there’s nothing geeky about grade school. – The Q Note

Flux Factory is calling all artists, urban explorers, rogue historians, tour guides, academics, and anyone interested to pitch tours for Going Places (Doing Stuff) III, a social practice oriented show taking place this summer.

Going Places (Doing Stuff) — you get on a bus, you don’t know where you’re going, and then something happens. Flux Factory invites artists to lead a bus-full of people on an adventure around the greater New York (or even Tri-State area) carte blanche. The content of the tours is entirely up to you, though the itinerary is kept secret from participants. Tours can range from a single afternoon to three days, and will take place from late June through August.

Each touree is given only the following information: artist, title, duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when someone signs up for a tour, they know what to bring and how long they will be gone, but they will have no idea where they are actually going or what they will experience. All tours will be first-come first-serve.

There is always mystery in traveling, even if you know where you are headed. Going Places (Doing Stuff) is all about this mystery, asking the general public to give themselves over to our artists. The excitement of simply stepping on a bus to who-knows-where becomes a metaphor and catalyst for the leap of faith inherent to aesthetic experience in general.

For info on past tours, please visit:

For press on past tours, please visit:

http://www.nypress.com/article-20170-gut-instinct-holy-moses.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTH-UsiiOQo

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/arts/11wspare.html?ex=1373515200&en=5ddc117d0609ba4c&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/09/lost-in-hudson-river-vol-74-bannermans.html

Proposals should include:

-A brief letter explaining your motivation for taking part in this show. (300 words Maximum. Please title your document in this format: LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_LETTER.DOC or .RTF)

-An itinerary, time line, and budget for the tour

-Resumé or bio (Maximum 2 pages. Titled LAST NAME_FIRST NAME_BIO.DOC or .RTF)

The deadline is Monday, April 26th, 2010.

The call for proposals is closed!

Opening Reception: Friday, April 2nd, 6-9pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays and Sundays, 12-3pm and by appointment, through April 11th

Flux Factory presents Systema Mundi, an exhibition of drawings, installation and pyrography by artist-in-residence Man Bartlett.

The works in this show include a “circle drawing” in which thousands of small circles are tightly clustered, and form a rectangle. From a distance it appears as a solid mass, but closer inspection reveals a chaotic yet ordered composition. A pyrography piece consists of small burned dots that appear to create or mimic the pattern of the grain of the wood beneath them. In opposition to these maximalist tendencies lies a minimalist earth and water installation, sourced from in and around the Flux Factory building.

This juxtaposition of means is of critical interest to the artist, whose work often deals with the union of paradoxes from within a wide spectrum of art history and human experience.

A multi-disciplinary artist known for minimalist installations and duration performances, Bartlett most recently created a 24-hour group performance event for the show #class at Winkleman Gallery. His work has been written about on Hyperallergic, James Wagner, theartblog, and Art Fag City. He received a BA in Theatre from Emerson College in 2003, and is the son of artist Bo Bartlett. This is his first solo show in New York.

We’ve commissioned 15 limited edition box sets of prints, sculptures, drawings, and paintings by a stellar selection of wonderful artists.   Our boxes are handmade and contain works by Brandstifter, Bread & Butter Collective, Andrea Dezsö, Kerry Downey, Heather Jones, Aya Kakeda, Miwa Koizumi, Simone Meltesen, Nick Normal, Ward Shelley, and Swoon.  The collection is curated by Flux Factory’s artistic director, Jean Barberis.  Priced at $1500 per box, it’s probably the best deal ever.

Sky Is Not Heaven
Recycled tin, 6 x 6”
Stefan Brandstifter was born 1968 in Bad Kreuznach, Rhineland-Palatine, Germany. The Head of Mainzer Kunstverein Walpodenstraße, Stefan is an interdisciplinary artist and networker, transforming his visual and performance art, sound and music as well as lyrics by means of social interaction to intermedia.

Untitled
Silkscreen on paper, 11 x 9.5”
The Bread and Butter Collective is a small collectively owned and operated silkscreening studio based at Flux Factory, dedicated to earning their daily bread while creating a space to enjoy life’s butter: community, progressive change, and creative process.

View from the Roof
Silkscreen on paper, 11 x 15”
Andrea Dezsö, a visual artist and writer, creates deeply personal narratives across a broad range of media including drawing, artist’s books, cut paper, embroidery, sculpture, installation, animation, and large-scale murals.

History of 39-31 29th Street, LIC, NY
Silkscreen on paper, 30 x 12”
Aya Kakeda was born and raised in Tokyo Japan.  She now works and lives in Brooklyn, New York.  She likes cats, seals , and receiving postcards and she has ever changing weekly obsessions, now it’s Clavariaceae and star nosed mole.  She also elaborates lots of theories about lot of things. When she doesn’t indulge in her obsessions she paints and draws, creating her own whimsical narratives.

A Dozen Eggs Dropped on the Ground
Charcoal on paper, 14.5 x 16”
Heather Jones holds a BFA in Painting and Drawing. Previous projects include Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea at Deitch Projects and Sol Lewitt Retrospective at MASSMoCA.

Everybody Loves Conduit
Silkscreen on recycled insulation, 8.5 x 11”
Kerry Downey was born in sunny South Florida in 1979.  She graduated from Bard College in 2002 and is an MFA candidate at Hunter College making mixed media installations out of New York City detritus, book works, prints, and the like.  She has been member of nonprofit artist collective Flux Factory since 2003, where she curated the What the Book?, NOVEL, and worked on various other shows and projects.  Kerry is currently working as a freelance educator at MoMA.

Jellyfish
Recycled plastic, dimensions variable
Miwa Koizumi was born in Japan.  She studied at Ecole de Beaux Artes de Paris.  Her shows include Oct Making a Home: Japanese Contemporary Artists in New York at the Japan Society in New York City.  Koizumi has been collaborating with Flux Factory for three years.

Soft Flux
Sewn felt, 4 x 2.5 x 5”
Simone Meltesen’s work consists of series of portable soft sculpture objects photographed in different environments, as well as a series of embroideries and drawings of a group of young feral girls who live by the sea and constitute a self-sufficient society. Her choice of materials and techniques, particularly thread, cloth, and embroidery, was initially inspired by work made by women in the 1970s during the Feminist Art movement. Her small, portable sculptures made of soft materials, embodying domestic themes, challenge the traditionally monolithic nature of sculpture in the western world.

Hecho con Precision
Cardboard and staples, approximately 5 x 1 x 3”
Born-n-bred in St. Louis, Missouri, Nick Normal pursued his undergraduate degree overseas at Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design (London, UK) where he graduated with ‘honours’ in Fine Arts. With a firm approach to working with whatever he can get his hands and mind on, Nick enjoys making scale models, maquettes and installations and buying dollar-store items to integrate into his surroundings – that is, both his life and his work. He is also a lifelong biblioholic, which has recently turned into assembling an ‘expansive library’ of cardboard books. Nick is also building an archive of press releases, postcards, flyers, brochures, etc. related to art exhibitions – in progress now since November 2003, it is estimated at 11,000 individual items and spans a plethora of three-ring binders and milk-crates (an archive of archives).

Untitled
Silkscreen on vellum, 18 x 12”
Ward Shelley works as an artist in Brooklyn, New York. He specializes in large projects that freely mix sculpture and performance. Utilizing eclectic influences and a variety of media, Shelley’s installations defy classification. Over the last five years, Shelley has concentrated on bizarre functioning architectural pieces in which he lives and works during the exhibition monitored with live surveillance video equipment.  Shelley also works on a series of diagramatic paintings, timelines of art-related subjects such as the careers of artists working in de-materialized media and the history of art scenes.

Ward Shelley’s work is in a number of museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Art Museum, and The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Last year Shelley received a painting and Sculpture award from the Joan Mitchell foundation, and has been a fellow of the American Academy in Rome since 2006. He has received NYFA and NEA fellowships in sculpture and new media categories, a Bessie Award for installation art, as well as private foundation grants from the Jerome Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. He is represented by Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

Untitled
Silkscreen on paper, 11.5 x 8”
Swoon is a Brooklyn-based street artist who creates life-sized portraits of people she meets, using woodcut block prints and paper cutouts. Swoon’s galleries are city walls, often in the environments that inspired the prints. She is an international artist with major pieces in the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Flux Factory’s inaugural building-wide exhibition

on view every Saturday and Sunday 12 – 6 pm until March 21st.

Housebroken remains on view every Saturday and Sunday from 12 – 6 pm until March 21st.

Curated by Jean Barberis and Georgia Muenster

Participating artists: Carey Ascenzo; Ali Aschman; Man Bartlett; Ranjit Bhatnagar; David Bohl & David Kagan; Brandstifter; Adam Brent; Matt Bua; Paul Burn; Ian Burns; Lucille Calmel; Paula Castro; Cyprien Chabert; Gabriel Cohen & Megan Snowe; David Court & Carolyn Lambert; The Deterritorialized Church; Kerry Downey; Jason Eppink; Cassandra Ferland & Boyd Shropshire; Tracy Gilman, David Schleifer & Lauren Silberman; Nick Golebiewski & Marin Tockman; Eckart Graeve; Kathryn Hamilton; Amy Lynn Herman; Peter Hristoff; Thom Hutchison; Jaime Iglehart; Doreen Jakob; Anna Lise Jensen; Benjamin Johnson/BADSTUDIO & Hiroko Takeda; Darren Jones & Ryan Roa; Jack Kalish & Katie Westgate; Bernard Klevickas; George Kroenert; Sara Krugman; Elizabeth Larison & Jesse Novak; Fabienne Lasserre; Matt Levy; Michelle Levy; Amy Longenecker & Christopher Ulivo; Nelson Loskamp; Caroline Mak; Greg Martin; Lili Maya & James Rouvelle; Olive McKeon; Ian Montgomery; Martina Mrongovius; Georgia Muenster; Jo Q. Nelson; Nick Normal; Issa Nyaphaga; Adrian Owen; Molly Page; Clare Parry; Douglas Paulson; Damon Pelletier & Chess Venis; SKOTE; Brendan Ravenhill; Annie Reichert & Etosha Terryll; Rob Rhee; John Roach; Julius Schmeidel; Eugenia Semjonova; Igor Siddiqui; Terence Smith; Julia Solis; SP Weather Station; Jeff Stark; Josh Thorpe; Gabriela Vainsencher; Hein Verwer; Barbara Westermann; Meng-Hsuan Wu; Chin Chih Yang

It seems like just yesterday. In fact, it was the early ’90s. Grunge was au courant. A fresh-faced saxophonist from somewhere down South had just taken the White House. And you could still get large empty warehouse spaces in Williamsburg for next to nothing. We moved in without rooms or a toilet to piss in. Literally. We were pissing into a hole in the middle of the floor. I never did find out where that hole went. But it didn’t matter. Mystery was in the air. Only later did the art arrive. First mystery pissing, then art, I always say.

What did Flux Factory stand for back then? I don’t remember. But it stood, and that alone was an accomplishment. Stefany’s (Shuffy) mother visited us once in that first year. A few weeks later we received a large package in the mail. It was a box of fire alarms, extinguishers, and an escape ladder. The Braun Brothers built a music studio right in the middle of the space and recorded Negatones songs between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning on most weekdays. Once, for reasons long forgotten, the landlord tried to brain me with a crowbar. He missed, and later we had tea.

Then the French arrived. Jean and Seb blew in on a cloud one day and said, “Let’s have a show.” But of course! Jean had been living on a planet of happy bubbles. He brought a suitcase of those bubbles to Brooklyn. Days later, the bastards blew up the towers and we moved to Queens. Stay ahead of the curve, we thought, stick to the margins. We were starting to feel a sense of confidence. Not one of us knew what anyone else was doing but sometimes we’d look at each other in the glow of late-night tinkering on a just-about-to-open show and we’d nod in the way that says, “Freedom, goddammit, just a little bit of frickin’ freedom.” We nominated Shuffy queen of the new art ship and continued to make things up as we went along. Our philosophy was tape and the ability for tape to hold fabric tunnels together. Our mantra was “Good Enough!” Our ethics were to let everyone talk until sheer exhaustion made us love each other. Has anyone ever had a better idea?

Just as Shuffy and I were petering out the Gods sent us a savior out of Israel via Toronto. This messiah we called “Chen”. Chen picked up the pieces and started things anew. She blew some dust on Jean’s happy bubbles, tweaked the gonogonatros and extra-invigorated the wingdingers. Thank Heaven. It’s a new era. But a lot is the same, too. A spirit of mystery and hole pissing has maintained itself all along.

God knows there are more important things in the world, but I will always love Flux Factory especially. One thing art does, at least, is to make sure that the actual world doesn’t get too grumpy and set in its ways. At Flux, we always figured out new ways. Usually, they were worse than the previous ways, but they were ours. We built a world together over the years. It took a long list of crazies and their unemployed friends to do it. But we built a world together. I will not ever forget that. And the story continues.

Love to all,

Morgan Meis, original Founder

OPENING FEB 19th, 8pm till late (click for info)

Thank you to our amazing volunteers!

Lamia Akar, Nicole Caruso, Sheila Donovan-Moore, Eileen Emond, Moses Gates, Justin Grotelueschen, Melanie Hegge, Charlotte Herzig, Elizabeth Larison, Carly Leibman, Karen Lynn Miller, Ian Montgomery, James O’Meara, Sarah Overholt, Michael Owen, Terence Smith, Damon Peletier, Sammy Phuntsog, Margaret Rosario, Tucker Sabath, Shalin Scupham, Christina Vassallo, Kerra Vick, Elizabeth White, and Lucy Yang.

Housebroken remains on view every Saturday and Sunday from 12 – 6 pm until March 21st.

Housebroken is made possible with public funds fromNew York State Council on the Arts,New York City Department of Cultural Affairs,
and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

We are grateful for the support of Campari,
Build It Green!, and Materials for the Arts

Opening Reception Dec 3rd, 6-9pm

Exhibition runs Dec 3rd – 8th, 2009
Open Hours: Saturday 12-6pm or by appointment
To schedule a viewing please call 718 707 3362

Flux Factory is proud to present a collaborative exhibition by Paula Castro and Cyprien Chabert.  Castro, a renowned Argentinian artist and member of Flux Factory’s international residency program, and French artist Chabert will create an installation and present drawings of geological wonders and fabricated landscapes to be accompanied by a small library of handmade books.  The exhibition includes a selection of books from Nick Normal’s “Expansive Library,” an ongoing collection of facsimile knowledge.

“Euclidean Space”

Opening Reception Dec 17th, 6-9pm
Exhibition runs Dec 17th – 27th, 2009
Open Hours: Saturday 12-6pm or by appointment
To schedule a viewing please call 718 707 3362

Anna So Young Han is a Korean artist and a member of Flux Factory’s international residency program. Her work straddles the line between painting and sculpture, creating magnificent visual experiences that reference op art and hard-edge abstraction.

September 18th October 24, 2009

Opening Reception, Thursday, September 17 from 6-8 pm

Flux Factory and EFA Project Space are proud to present Arctic Book Club, on view from September 18 through October 24, at EFA Project Space in Manhattan.  Curated by Jean Barberis and Michelle Levy, this exhibition is the result of a several-month long process embarked on by a group of artists responding to Tété Michel Kpomassie’s book, “An African in Greenland,” an account of the author’s unique journey from his native Togo to Greenland.

On September 23rd at 6:30 pm, Arctic Bookclub welcomes Kpomassie to respond to the exhibition and reflect on his experiences since having left Greenland.

Artists:  Amber Cortes, Jenelle Covino, The Green and Bold Cooperative, Katerina Lanfranco, Fabienne Lasserre, Valerie Piraino, Greg Pond, Annie Reichert, Julian Rogers, Ranbir Sidhu, and Christopher Ulivo.

EFA Project Space
323 West 39th Street, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10018
(between 8th and 9th Avenues)

Gallery Hours: Wed. through Sat. 12-6 PM

T. 212-563-5855, F. 212-563-1875

www.efa1.org

Artic-Circle_Press_release

July 11th through September 5th, 2009

You get on a bus, you don’t know where you’re going, and then something happens!

This summer’s schedule:

Following the success of last summer’s acclaimed Going Places (Doing Stuff), Flux Factory will outdo itself and offer even more amazing artist-led tours to the general public. Think of it as “adventure as performance art.” The content of the tours is entirely up to the artist, and destinations are kept secret. Artists will have “carte blanche” to lead a bus-full of people on an odyssey around the greater New York/Tri-State area.

This year our tours will be on board a vegetable oil propelled school bus provided by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra.

Before each tour, we provide only the following information: the artists’ name, title of adventure, duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when people sign up for a tour, they know what to bring and how long they’ll be gone, but will have no idea where they’re going or what they’ll experience. Last year’s adventures included upstate swimming holes, a trip to a burning city known as “hell on earth,” a gastronomic tour through NYC, and a chase after an imaginary character.

There is always mystery in traveling, even if you know where you are headed. Going Places (Doing Stuff) is all about this mystery, asking members of the public to give themselves over to our artists. The excitement of simply stepping on a bus to who-knows-where becomes a metaphor and catalyst for the leap of faith inherent to aesthetic experience in general.

Things that may or may not occur:

-Partial or total immersion in various bodies of water
-Impromptu back-of-the-bus dance parties
-Mesmerizing encounters with astonishing and unexpected fleeting beauty that will vanish before you can grasp it, leaving you with indescribable feelings of Baudelairian melancholy and enlightenment
-Naps
-Miscellaneous imbibitions
-Roaring
-Life-affirming encounters with extraordinary individuals and their extraordinary pursuits
-Breaking of world records
-And much more!

All tours will be first-come, first-serve with a suggested donation.

Curated by Jean Barberis.

Participating Artists:
Yoni Brook and Liz Barry; Jason Eppink and Matt Green; Moses Gates; Siobhan Rigg and Carolyn Lambert; Douglas Paulson, Justin Rancourt and Chuck Yatsuk; Jeff Stark; and David Felix Sutcliffe.

Dates and contents of tours are subject to change.

For documentation of past tours please visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTH-UsiiOQo
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/arts/11wspare.html?ex=1373515200&en=5ddc117d0609ba4c&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/09/lost-in-hudson-river-vol-74-bannermans.html
http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-in-history-vol-70-all-boro-bonanza.htmlhttp://actiondirection.blogspot.com/2008/07/lost-in-history-vol-67-new-yorkers-go.html

For information about the Rude Mechanical Orchestra please refer to http://rudemechanicalorchestra.org/.

“Damn you, Flux Factory! Are you really that good? Can you truly tell the secret whims and desires, the wants, needs and must-haves of a bunch of New York City artists / adventurers / self-proclaimed geeks / cheese-bus aficionados / travelers / cheapskates / and those in the know?It seems that way €“ and 54 people can prove it.”
–Matt Levy, The L Magazine

This Project was made possible with the generous support from the following institutions:

Flux Factory is pleased to announce two projects in partnership with European collectives:

Water Girls, Water Boys at the Athens Biennial, Opening June 14

Two Flux Factory artists, Chen Tamir and Douglas Paulson, will collaborate with Urban Void, the Network of Nomadic Architecture, and Damon Rich & Jae Shin on Water Girls, Water Boys at the upcoming Athens Biennial. Together with the public, they will explore Athens’ coastal suburb of Phaliron at the mouth of the Kifissos River and the island of Psytalleia. These areas have fallen victim to ecological irresponsibility, and Flux Factory and company will be creating an open-source tour guide to the area.

Please see douglaspaulson.com, faliron-bay-athens.blogspot.com and kifissosguide.wordpress.com for more information.

Reverse Pedagogy at the Venice Biennial, June 1-7

Flux Factory is partnering with Reverse Pedagogy, an experimental, nomadic art school in session during the first ten days of the 53rd Venice Biennial, bringing with it an international cast of artists, curators, and writers. Taking off from its first installment at the Banff Centre (Canada), Reverse Pedagogy turns the city of Venice into its own site of art and knowledge production, communal living, play, and conversation. With air mattresses, tents, crash pads, and eleven canoes in tow, participants engage round-the-clock in activities within the residency and the Biennial itself.

Reverse Pedagogy will travel to New York in 2010 as part of Flux Factory’s newly established residency program.

For more information, please visit www.reversepedagogy.com.

NOW WITH DOWNLOADABLE MAP!

From May 16 to 23, 2009 the Kindness and Imagination Development Society (K.I.D.S.) will partner with Flux Factory to carry out a series of events and actions in parks, on quiet streets, on busy sidewalks, at workplaces, in private residences, in public libraries and museums, and anywhere else the K.I.D.S. can think of to play and work. The series will be characterized by an ethic of generosity, innovation, and open exchange.

The series of activities will be co-produced collaboratively by an open, changeable, and inclusive group of individuals, including you, we hope!

These events will take place throughout Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.
To learn more about the K.I.D.S. and for schedule updates please visit

kidsociety.wordpress.com

You can download a PDF of the map and activity book with the schedule for the week. Print out on two sides of a sheet and fold up into a book on your own. Just fold on the dotted lines and cut on the solid line (in the middle of the page), then fold it up into a book with the map poster concealed within!

SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES – MAY 16-23, 2009

Saturday, May 16
1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Union Square steps, 14th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.
Kickoff Gathering for the week of K.I.D.S. Work:
*Emt McEternalMojo leads us in a demonstration and sharing of his encyclopedic knowledge of all known handshake/highfive/hug based greeting variations. Bring your favorite greeting methods!
*Dress up party/imagination bee/costume swap. Bring costumes!
*Temporary fort/environment building exercises with cardboard boxes and fabric. Bring materials!
*Ice cream walk with kick-the-can ice-cream-makers and tin-can-telephones. Bring milk, ice, and empty coffee cans!
*Snacks galore, and much more.
*Get your activity book and guide to the week of K.I.D.S. Work.

Sunday, May 17
3:00 p.m.
Start at 615 West 113th Street, Manhattan.
*Songlines/What A Neighborhood: A singing, ice-cream-making walk around the neighborhood. As we pass sites associated with composers, we will sing snatches of their works. We will carry a banner that reads,
“What A Neighborhood!” (Elizabeth Adams and the Orfeo Duo leading. Contact: elizabethadams@musician.org)
Other days and locations for this project throughout week with improvised songs/music TBA.

Monday, May 18
7:00 €“ 10:00 a.m.
Herald Square, 34th Street and Broadway, Manhattan.
*Farty Party: a pep rally at the entrance of the subway station cheering on the commuters entering/exiting the train. Bring pompoms!

Tuesday, May 19
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
42nd Street at Lexington Avenue, Manhattan.
*Lunch Time Theater, or Text Me Theater will be an attempt to engage workers to perform their cell phone text messages and twitter updates on a make-shift theater stage that will imitate the soap box platform. Text Me Theater is a way to give office workers a chance to expose inner office conversation, offer the opportunity to exercise a workers’ right to speech, and also call attention to the performative nature of text message language. (Hong-An Truong, Huong Ngo leading.)

Wednesday, May 20
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
42nd Street at Lexington Avenue, Manhattan.
*Let’s Make Lunch! is a lunch time game with three goals: to engage workers in play; to reveal the difficulty of language and communication in relations of power; and to feed people who need a lunch. (Hong-An Truong, Huong Ngo leading.)

Thursday, May 21
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
Nostrand Avenue and Fulton Street, Brooklyn.
*Intermittent balloon parade. Something mysterious will drift down the street. Get a helium balloon and join it! (Diane Dwyer leading.)

Friday, May 22
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Near school at 28-01 41st Ave, Long Island City, Queens.
*Blowup Sale: People will have the opportunity to blow up special balloons with multiple holes, such that a group has to work together to blow up the balloon. In exchange for this special balloon reaching a set size, the participants will get to keep it. (Eva Jung leading.)

Saturday, May 23
1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Meet at the park by the East River, on Vernon Boulevard at 41st Ave., Queens.
Wrap-up Gathering of the K.I.D.S. Work Week
*Seedbomb/kite-building workshop. Build a bird-shaped kite and fly it over a nearby empty lot to drop seedbomb eggs that will grow into wildflowers. (Elizabeth Chaney leading.)
*Play with portable lawns and gardens and put mud and grass in your shoes (Emcee C.M. and Caroline Woolard leading).
*Get your feet washed afterwards (David Sutcliffe leading).
*Play music on fences with sticks.
*Spontaneously innovate card games while walking around the block.
*Rolling ball of people growing bigger like a snowball game (Jorge Rojas leading).
*Show and Tell of things that happened throughout the week, things made while at work, pictures printed by a someone special, somatic treasure map dolls, etc.
*If you have filled up your activity book through attending all the events, pick up your prize: a K.I.D. KIT to go.
*Raffle to win a K.I.D. for a day!

All Week

*Make Other Things While At Work: Make whatever you want or need while at your job this week, and bring it for Show and Tell on Saturday, May 23.

*Film From: Take your camera and load it with a roll of film (or use a disposable camera if it’s easier). Take pictures of whatever whenever wherever however. Take as much time as you need. You can forget about it and rediscover it, take a picture a day, go through a roll in two hours, whatever. When you finish the roll, unload your camera, take the roll, put it in an envelope and mail it to someone special. Friend, lover, neighbor, grandparent, pet fish, teacher, stranger, admirer. Before you send it off write a letter to the someone special about whatever, as open or as detailed or as mysterious or as perplexing as you want to be, and put it in the envelope with the roll of film. Mail it.
The someone special should develop the film.
The someone special will have your prepared photographs, a piece of you.
The someone special should do the same.
The someone should bring the pictures to the show and tell at the end of the week, on Saturday, May 23.

*The Electric K.I.D.S. performance exchange with Bulgaria: A pre-selected group of people will be performing actions based on (mis)interpreted instructions sent back and forth between Sofia and NYC.

*Somatic Treasure Maps Project: Caroline wants to hear about your aches and pains. Please tell her about every single event that ever affected your body with great detail. She will listen to everything you have to say about life’s passage and the marks it leaves behind. You are free to talk for ten minutes or two hours, without interruption. While you will be talking, she will be busy taking notes on a sheet of paper, recording your story with words and images. On Saturday, May 23rd you will be able to receive drawing for a doll, a 3-D map of your aches and pains. The doll will be yours to keep, your secret portrait, your somatic treasure map. (By Caroline Boileau. Ongoing at all K.I.D.S. locations)

*What are “Spiritual Problems”? Julia writes, “I don’t know, but I think I have some… If you’d like you can call me to speak about ’spiritual problems’ in whichever way occurs to you: as a topic, if you think you have some, other ways… I will be around to speak on Friday the 22nd and Saturday the 23rd in the evening from 6-10pm at (484) 432-1898. If you miss me or would rather, you could write me an email: juliakathrynrich@gmail.com. My name is Julia.”

The K.I.D.S. so far:

ELIZABETH ADAMS
JEAN BARBERIS
MICHAEL BERENS
AMANDA BOEKELHEIDE
CAROLINE BOILEAU
CHRISTINE CARUSO
ELIZABETH CHANEY
PEDRO DOS REIS
DIANE DWYER
TED EFREMOFF
SAM EKWURTZEL
CORDELIA ERICKSON DAVIES
KIM ESSEX
GREEM
TAKASHI HORISAKI
ASHLEY HOWARD
TIM HYDE
EVA JUNG
EVAN LAURENCE
ALAN LUPIANI
BRYAN MARKOVITZ
MARY IVY MARTINS
EMCEE C.M.
ANDREW MCMULLAN
BRENDAN MCMULLAN
EMMETT MCMULLAN
HUONG NGO
REBECCA PARKER
DOUGLAS PAULSON
JULIA RICH
DIANA RO
JORGE ROJAS
SHALIN SCUPHAM
ERIN MARIE SICKLER
DAVID SUTCLIFFE
CHEN TAMIR
JADE THACKER
CASSIE THORNTON
KYLE TRIPLETT
HONG-AN TRUONG
SARAH VALERI
JOHN WALKER
CHRISTINE WANG
NADIA WILLIAMS
CAROLINE WOOLARD

Flux Factory has invited ten artists to transform strangers’ homes into sites for interactive works. Domestic or historic locations throughout New York City will become arenas for exploring what it means to inhabit a space, to make it one’s own. In conjunction with openhousenewyork, Living Room locations range from private living rooms to historical sites throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.

Explore a wall of secrets, a room-cum-optical-device, and go rooftop camping, and other exciting projects!

Living Room is a continuation of Flux Factory’s interest in the urban experience, in New York history, and in the overlap between private and public space. As a live/work collective, we are fascinated by what it means to make a space one’s own. While satisfying our voyeur desires, this project is also an opportunity for the public to peek into private sites normally off limits.

Works will be on view throughout the 6th Annual OHNY Weekend on October 4 & 5, 2008 from 11:00 €“ 6:00 unless otherwise noted.

A free, 20 person shuttle will leave the Center for Architecture on Saturday and Sunday at 12pm to transport visitors to the sites.

openhousenewyork is a non-profit organization celebrating New York City’s architecture and design, culminating in America’s largest event of its kind, the annual OHNY Weekend.

Participating Artists: Emily Clark, Rodney Dickson, Kim Holleman, Prem Krishnamurthy, John Monteith, Jo Q. Nelson, Trong Gia Nguyen, Douglas Paulson, Tattfoo Tan, Lauren Wilcox

Curated by Chen Tamir

click images to view maps.
	Emily Clark Teacher’s Lounge at P35M–Manhattan High School 317 W. 52nd Street between 9th and 10th Aves, Hell’s Kitchen In the mind of every kid in school is a secret place sparking rumors and gossip. Clark has turned the abandoned teacher’s lounge at P35M into a functioning one, playing on the tropes of its assumed uses: relaxation, anger, frustration, gossip, lunchtime, union meetings, refrigerators, and (at one time) smoking.
	Rodney Dickson Romper Room Public Toilets, 2nd floor of the Crane Street Studios, 46-23 Crane Street, LIC, Queens Romper Room evokes a torture chamber, in which victims are held hostage, tortured, interrogated, and often brutally killed. This work alludes also to methods of interrogation currently used by the US government in the War on Terror. The title was taken from a popular children’s’ TV program in Northern Ireland during the 1970s, which terrorists adopted as a name for a room in which they tortured and executed victims during the worst days of conflict in Ireland.
	Prem Krishnamurthy Berlin/New York 772 Washington Ave, Apt #2, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn This projected slide installation concerns doppelganger cities, parallel interiors, and the unreliability of travel narrative.
	John Monteith Hide and Go Seek The Arsenal, 830 Fifth Ave/ E 64th St, New York (Entrance on Central Park) Sat €“ Sun, 2:45 pm Participants will play Hide and Go Seek as a way of exploring the Arsenal and experimenting in new social settings. To participate, please RSVP to John Monteith at john@johnmonteith.com
	Jo Q. Nelson Softbox 38-09 43rd Ave 3rd Floor, Sunnyside, Queens Softbox is a completely malleable space where rooms are on wheels and entire environments can be changed around. The flexibility of this live/work warehouse space is due to its role as a testing ground for sculptural and interior architecture projects by Nelson and visiting artists. Focused on hosting, Softbox is both a laboratory and a social space where interactive programming takes place including screenings and performances. This will be its inaugural open house.
	Trong Gia Nguyen “The DUMBO Debates” (formerly known as “A View to a Thrill”) Barrack Obama and John McCain spend a weekend together on a secret roof deck Garden of Eden in DUMBO.  They talk taboo politics, drink Bloody Marys, eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and leave all inhibitions behind.
	Douglas Paulson Urban Examination Initiative, Roofs Department Locations TBA Saturday night This project is an open invitation to engage the city and OHNY from the outside. You are invited to join a group that will travel through sites by day, and camp on a rooftop by night. Participants are invited to join or leave at anytime. For more information and to RSVP to this urban adventure please RSVP to doug@douglaspaulson.com
	Tattfoo Tan Open Secret 393 17th Street #2A, Brooklyn Open Secret is an intervention between the artist, Tattfoo Tan, a home owner, and the public. Open Secret investigates the junction between private and public by using invisible paint and black lights to reveal secrets in the privacy of a home.
	Lauren Wilcox An Instrument for Viewing the Contents of a Room 213 Montrose Apt 2 (2nd floor) Brooklyn, 11206 (Crossstreet Bushwick Ave.) Sat 11 am – 6 pm, Sun 11 – 4pm To paint perspective during the Renaissance artists used Alberti’s Grid, a device which projects a scene onto a flat screen. This installation is a version of that device, a box that captures a room’s elements, both actual and unseen, and translates them, inside, into objects both literal and abstract.
	Kim Holleman Trailer Park Foley Square Sat and Sun: 10-8pm This mobile living park, converted from a 14′ x 8′ x 7′ standard aluminum trailer, is an oasis surrounded by the bustling sights and sounds of the city.

Living Room is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts,
and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

June – August 2008

Going Places (Doing Stuff) Flux Factory invites New Yorkers to take a tour with artists who have become tour guides for the city. For six weeks, the general public can sign up for personally designed artist tours that range from a single afternoon to 3 days. The content of the tours are entirely up to the artists, though where you will be going is secret. Even to you!

Each tour has simply the following information: the artist, a title, a duration, and a list of needed supplies. In other words, when you sign up for a tour, you know what to bring and how long you will be gone, but you will have no idea where you are actually going or what you will experience.

There is always mystery in traveling, even if you know where you are headed. Going Places (Doing Stuff) is all about this mystery, asking the general public to give themselves over to our artists. The excitement of simply stepping on a bus to who-knows-where becomes a metaphor and catalyst for the leap of faith inherent to aesthetic experience in general.

All tours will meet at 38-38 43rd Street unless otherwise indicated.

TOUR DATES

PAST TOURS:

Saturday, June 14th

Action & Direction with Matt Levy

TOUR DURATION: Day trip
WEAR: Comfortable shoes, clothes you don’t mind getting a little bit dirty (some walking in muddy areas might be involved)
BRING: Plenty of water, bring some money for lunch, drinks and souvenirs

About the artist: Matt Levy is a born-and-bred Brooklynite (represent!), a licensed NYC tour guide, an ex-poet, current romantic, urban historian and spectacle enthusiast.  His blog, Action & Direction (the two major requirements for a fully adventurous life) is mostly about NYC cultural history and spectacle. He is also the event coordinator at the City Reliquary Museum in Brooklyn. His knowledge of New York City and his rambunctious personality make him the greatest guide you could wish for.

http://actiondirection.blogspot.com/

Sunday, June 29th

The Pennsyltucky Expedition with Douglas Paulson

TOUR DURATION: Day trip
WEAR: Comfortable shoes, clothes you don’t mind getting a little bit dirty
BRING: Some money for lunch, drinks and souvenirs
PROVIDED: Safety goggles, gloves, respirators and an MRA s’mores kit.

About the artist: In addition to his own work, Douglas Paulson joins Copenhagen’s Parfyme to become Parfyme Deluxe, and collaborates with Ward Shelley.  Based in Long Island City, Queens, he works in New York and Europe, and got his BFA from Tyler School of Art in 2003. Among other things, his work deals with urban exploration on land and water, and turning everyday experiences into extraordinary adventures.

http://www.douglaspaulson.com

Sunday, July 6th

I LIVE ON REICHERT AVENUE with Annie Reichert

TOUR DURATION: Day trip, roughly 7am to 7pm
WEAR: Comfortable shoes, sunblock, sunglasses, and a big shoulder bag
BRING: $10-$100 in small bills and a camera, booze whatever.
PROVIDED: morning coffee, water, and a big afternoon meal

About the artist: Annie Reichert is from Seattle, New Jersey, and Ohio. Annie enjoys photography, eavesdropping, gold paint, fake blood, hiding spots, good storytellers, and talking about building things. Professionally, she keeps busy but rarely profits from it: her pictures have been published in USA Today and US News & World Report for free! As an artist, she is interested in making oblique references to her childhood, hoping that no one will notice. Annie has a BA in Photography and Film Theory from Antioch College. These days she is working with photo, video, fabric, and food.

Saturday, July 12th

WANDERING RESTAURANT with Gary Wiseman

TOUR DURATION: Day trip, 10 am to 9pm
Wandering restaurant mostly caters to omnivores but vegetarians and vegans are welcome to attend.

About the artist: From March 2006 to January 2008, Gary Wiseman produced 30 interactive performances under the heading Tea Project in collaboration with Red 76, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Cooley Memorial Gallery at Reed College and hundreds of performers and participants. Wiseman is currently engaged in numerous smaller scale collaborations and ongoing projects such as Personal Favorite Places (an ongoing exploration of the world through the experience of strangers), Ephemeral Temple Ltd (Purveyors of high quality low overhead temporary sacred-space), Penny For Your Thoughts (with Amy Steel) and T-Folk: Granville and Reginald Sing the Sacred Songs For You which debuts at the upcoming Artcity festival in Calgary, Alberta.

Saturday, July 19th

WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT? with Flux Factory senior trio: Jean Barberis, Stefany Anne Golberg and Morgan Meis

TOUR DURATION: Day trip, 10am to 9pm

Precise instructions including dress code and what to bring will be send out with the RSVP.

August 16 and 17th – double tour!

THE SECRET LIFE OF FRANKLIN CRUMP with David Felix Sutcliffe

A secret two-day bus tour.  Click here for more info!

August 23rd

With Jeff Stark

SOLD OUT

---

GOING PLACES (DOING STUFF) is made possible with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Materials for the Arts.

the last show at 38-38 43rd Street

April 4, 2008 €“ April 27, 2008

Opening:
Fri, Apr 4th, 7pm
w/ performance by KapOw!

Closing:
Sat, Apr 26th, 8pm
w/ Make It Go, dance party!

click here or on whale to enter exhibit site..

w/ artists:
Morgan Meis, Shalin Scupham, Angie Kang, Sarah Glidden, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Mitch Dickson, Leonora Retsas, Lisa Dillin, James Rouvelle, Annie Reichert, Douglas Paulson, Coco Gordon,
Carl Ferrero, Carla Aspenberg, Anthony Rhoads, Andrea Dezso, Debra Marie Drexler, Eleanor Lovinsky, Junko Shimizu, Miwa Koizumi, Marie Losier, Brandan Doty, Rémi Marie, Carly Liebman,
Laurie Stone and Richard Toon, Ethan Weinstock, Amelia Geocos, Zoë Cohen, Anibal Catalan, Meg Duguid, Nick Yulman, Nicole Tucker, John Roach, Nick Normal, Bridget Parris, François Leloup-Collet, Carrie Fucile, Johannes DeYoung, Justin Braun, Jay Braun, Ranjit Bhatnagar, Mikey Barringer, Marion Arnaud, and others.

Soon, very soon, the Flux Factory space at 38-38 43rd Street will be demolished. In anticipation of this event, we are turning the entirety of Flux Factory into a giant installation of itself.

For the past six years, Flux Factory has developed its gallery and aesthetics laboratory at our space in Long Island City. We have had scores of shows and many hundreds of artists have graced these halls. Now it must all be destroyed. Our entire block will be razed by the pitiless bulldozers of the MTA. Everything Must Go. Alas, such is the fate of all terrestrial things. So, to mark the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, we’re inviting artists to transform all of Flux into one giant installation. An orgy of aesthetics that takes the whole building as its raw material. The stuff of Flux will be the subject for videos, sculptures, installations, and performances. There will be an ongoing garage sale featuring Flux ephemera you always wanted (or didn’t want) from Flux, a Best-Of Flux Thursday Salon performance, and other special surprises. There will be a live feed transmitting works by Flux Factory artists from around the globe, a Flux Factory lotto machine, a bedroom transformed into a golden shrine, an opera, and so very much more.

EVERYTHING MUST GO will not be Flux Factory’s last show ever. But it will be the last show we have at 38-38 43rd Street. Be a part of the little death!

EVERYTHING MUST GO is made possible with public funds from New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Materials for the Arts, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

a Flux Factory collaboration at ABC No Rio:

Prospect Park Peninsula, Brooklyn, NY

October 3rd €“ November 16th

Opening reception: Sunday, October 7th, 2007. 12pm-4pm

Click Here for a map of Prospect Park

Click here for directions to Prospect Park

About Anytime, Now. Somewhere, Here.

A couple of years ago, I found a diary written by a man named Henry sitting in a box on top of a stack of old books near Prospect Park. The diary contains thoughts and drawings for six structures meant to be built in and around Prospect Park. I’ve decided, in time, to build all six, using Henry’s drawings as a guide. Anytime, Now. Somewhere, Here: Peninsula, is the first. It contains a song written using diary entries and free copies of excerpts from Henry’s diary are made available to the public.

Click here to read excerpts from Henry’s Diary

This project is part of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreations 40th Anniversary of Art in the Parks

Stefany Anne Golberg was reared in a Science-fearing household in an overlarge house in Las Vegas, NV. She received a BA in Philosophy from Eugene Lang College at the New School for Social Research and has an MFA in Music/Sound from Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts, Bard College. Stefany is a founding member and Executive Director of the arts collective Flux Factory.

€”Excerpt from Henry’s journalI had a curious dream. I was in the park, alone, completely alone, at that moment between light and dark, and I felt in the dream, I felt that I was waiting for darkness to come but it didn’t€¦all around the park, I saw these strange constructions, by the carousel, on Sullivan Hill€¦In the dream I counted six in all€¦And when I awoke in the morning, with the dream as fresh in my mind as any waking thought I had ever had, I said to myself

I AM A CABINET

Special thanks to Clare Weiss, Arielle Dorlester, and the Public Art Program at NYC Parks & Recreation; Tupper Thomas, Jasmine Haynes, and the Prospect Park Alliance.

Anytime, Now. Somewhere, Here. would not have been possible without the generous support of the following:

Lou Ann Alsip, Gloria Fenster, Howard & Joan Golberg, Terrence Hardcastle, Elaine Meis, and Flux Factory, Inc.

The artists in Secret Clubhouse #2 received a key to the LMCC space at 125 Maiden Lane. They alone listened to the phone messages from Secret Clubhouse #1 but never went to that space. Listening to the messages, they created graphical representations of and responses to the descriptions they heard. The events at Secret Clubhouse #1 were thus translated through verbal descriptions to the artists at Secret Clubhouse #2 and now take on a second life on the walls of 125 Maiden Lane. Including works from: Sarah Glidden, Andrea Dezsö, Daupo, David Sandlin, Eun-Ha Paek, Lauren Berke, Fay Ryu

In Secret Clubhouse #1, a still-unrevealed location in a warehouse in Long Island City, artists have been working for six months. Each artist received a key to the space but had no idea what they would find. Each artist was given two weeks to produce work based on whatever was left behind by previous artists. None of the artists know each other, yet each has the same task: to solve the unfinished aesthetic ‘problems’ left behind and create new challenges for the next artists. As they work, they leave phone messages on an answering service explaining what the space looks like as they’ve found it, what they have changed, and why.

Special thanks to Radhika Subramaniam and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for their support of this project. And special thanks to The Believer Magazine, which will publish a story about the project in the coming year.

December 14, 2007 – January 2008

Opening, Friday Dec. 14th, 2007 – 7pm

CLICK HERE FOR NYNYNY INSTALLATION VIEW

Opening night performances by:
Miwa Koizumi: New York Flavors Ice Cream
Matt Levy: Action, Direction, Creation presents: Interactive activity

“Manhattan is an accumulation of possible disasters that never happen.”
–Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York (1978)

Curated by Jean Barberis, Melanie Cohn, and Chen Tamir. Original concept by Jean Barberis.

Panel Discussion: Sunday, January 6, 4pm

Closing reception: Saturday, January 12, 6pm. With Film Program curated by Marie Losier, 7pm-8pm

Gallery hours: Fridays €“ Sundays, 1-5pm. Closed Dec. 23rd and 30th.

Imagine Coney Island’s Dreamland, Steeplechase, and Luna Park reborn. Imagine a sea monster in the East River, a volcano erupting in Manhattan, Midtown in ruins. The contemporary brownstones of Cobble Hill buried beneath its original namesake hill, a big whale in the place of the Museum of Natural History, and The New York Crystal Palace returned to 42^nd Street.

In short, a New York City that is the forgotten past and the fantastic future all at once. A New York City where anything is possible.

New York, New York, New York is an interactive, multimedia installation. It is a continuation of Flux Factory’s interest in urban landscapes and takes inspiration from the Panorama, Robert Moses’ scale model of New York City in the Queens Museum of Art. Members of the Flux Factory art collective will work in collaboration with over 100 artists from all five boroughs and around the world to re-imagine the public and private spaces of New York.

Each artist will contribute a building, a landmark, a street, an avenue, a block, a park, a neighborhood, an expressway, a bridge, an island, an airport€”one or several elements of the urban environment. All of these individual works will be combined to produce a cohesive yet chaotic installation, a multimedia, scale-model of the city. Instead of being an exact replica to scale of the city of New York, this project offers a mental map, a replica of an imaginary New York. The goal of the show is to explore the architectural and conceptual elements of everyday space. It is an investigation into the collective unconscious of the cultural capital of the planet: The sum of all of New York’s potential exposed in a great experiment in psychogeography.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Boris Achour, Sandy Amerio, Carla Aspenberg, Leah Beeferman, Dominique Blais, Lise Brenner/Uli Lorimer/Katrina Simon, Adam Brent, Adam David Brown, Jason David Brown, Ben Bunch, Paul Burn, Ian Burns, Matthew Callinan, Anibal Catalan, Emmy Catedral/Valerie Opielski, Andrea Christens/ Takashi Horisaki, Emily Clark, Cluster8 (Parsons the New School for Design), Lewis Colburn, Daupo, Johannes De Young, Andrea Dezsö, Brandan Doty, Thomas Doyle, Kerry Downey/Alan Resnick, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Montpelier, Gregor Eldarb, Stephane Gilot, Tamara Gubernat, Ira Joel Haber, Aya Kakeda, Devrim Kadirbeyoglu, Israel Kandarian, Stephanie Koenig, Miwa Koizumi, Yunmee Kyong, Katerina Lanfranco, Maria Levitsky, Matt Levy, Ellen Lindner, Katja Loher, Marie Lorenz/Douglas Paulson, Molly Lowe, Marian Macken, Mapping it Out (Eugene Lang College/The New School for Liberal Arts), Evie McKenna, Mary-Anne McTrowe, Greg Martin, Simone Meltesen, Ian Montgomery, Kirsten Mosher, Martina Mrongovius, Joel Morrison/Hiroshi Shafer, Heidi Neilson, Jo Q. Nelson, Rashaad Newsome, Lothar Osterburg, Miguel Palma, Gail Pickett, Bridget Parris, Bruno Persat, Annie Reichert, Leonora Retsas, Renée Ridgway, Jaimie Robson/Kristal Stevenot, Karl Saliter, Jon Sasaki, Jean Shin, Mike Peter Smith, Soft City (Rose Bianchini, Sarah Couture McPhail, Yvonne Ng, Catherine Stinson, Jason van Horne), Claudia Sohrens, George Spencer, Joel Braden Stoehr, Etosha Terryll, Nick Tobier, Joseph Craig Tompkins, Momoyo Torimitsu,Christopher Ulivo, Gabriela Vainsencher, Jason Van Horne, Vydavy Sindikat/Anytime Development, Lee Walton, Barbara Westermann, Lauren Wilcox, and Ian Wojtowicz.

Parfyme Deluxe attempts to intimidate Flux Factory!!!! Click to watch!!!

But Fluxers are hard to scare!!!!

Parfyme Deluxe challenges Flux Factory to a true-blue capitalist competition. The dueling art-enterprises will divide Flux Factory, creating DeluxeFactory. The two factories will race to out-produce and out-sell the other. Each week will be a new product(s) assignment, demanding the entrepreneurs radically alter their factories and production methods. Each collective will hit the streets to deliver their innovations. Fantastic delivery trucks, espionage and sabotage will be just some of the tricks of the trade. Whoever sells the most wins.

DeluxeFactory is a collaboration between New York/Copenhagen-based collective Parfyme Deluxe and Flux Factory.

DeluxeFactory: Bring your checkbook

Production Line
Hosted by Flux Factory, we will return Flux Factory to its original state – a factory. On conveyer belts, with big machines, a lunch-break whistle and on a 8-5 schedule, each group will go to work: producing objects, trinkets, and curios. For three weeks, at the end of each week, right on schedule, rain or shine, we will load up our truck and peddle our wares throughout New York City.

A Three-Part Perfect Competition
As any production unit, we will be judged by the market and the costs of production. What market and what costs? – The rules and conditions will change for each new product: what is available for input, output, distribution and purpose. Constraints of all kinds will force each factory to apply new procedures and strategies to become successful. The fate of the products will be determined by consumers.

The Factory
The Flux Factory space will be divided: half for Flux, half for Deluxe. Neither outfit will be able to see the other, but above each factory will be a foreman’s catwalk, allowing spectators to walk over each factory, monitoring production, critiquing diligence. A few choice products will not be shipped out, but will go to two Factories’ showroom, where, despite the possibly grim working conditions of the Factories, the products will be displayed tastefully, bathed in futuristic lighting.

Competition
Each outfit will work to dominate the market, attempting to drive the other out of business – or just stay afloat. We see in this show a very meaningful way to expand the way artists work together, as individuals and as groups, by working in a competitive atmosphere while needing to collaborate. By putting pressure on each other and creating a sense of interdependence, well both explore the means by which each artist produces and creates objects and working methods.

For information about Parfyme Deluxe:
www.parfymedeluxe.com
www.parfyme.dk
www.douglaspaulson.com

*****DELUXEFACTORY WORK SCHEDULE*****

Note: Visitors can come to Flux Factory to watch the production process during the week by appointment.
Call 718-707-3362.

WEEK ONE: New Product
Teams create a mass-produced consumer good

Saturday, September 15, 7pm:
Opening Party

Sunday, September 16, 12-5pm: DeluxeFactory goes to the Conflux Block Party to sell their wares (http://confluxfestival.org/conflux2007)

WEEK TWO: Beach Brawl
Wrestling Franchises flex their really big muscles

Saturday, September 22, 1-5pm: Factories race to mass-produce co-branded cans of whoop-ass

Sunday, September 23, 1-5pm: Wrestlers duke it out at Coney Island while support crews sell memorabilia. Meet at the parachute jump at the end of the boardwalk.

WEEK THREE: Battle of the Boy Bands

Saturday, September 29, 1 -5pm: Boy Bands make videos, costumes, t-shirts, etc.

Sunday, September 30, 1-5pm: Boy Bands rehearse and make products

CLOSING PARTY: Friday, October 5, 8pm
Boy Bands battle it out! A winner is chosen!

DeluxeFactory is made possible with public funds from: The Danish Arts Council / DaNY Arts. New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts,
The Greenwall Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Flux Factory is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization

Welcome to the city of lofty courtyards, flying gardens, and earszikha!

Click to see DOCUMENTATION OF OUR WORK HERE IN BUDAPEST

This summer, Flux Factory partners with the Hungarian Cultural Center in New York and a group of Hungarian artists and architecture students from the Szent József Studió Kollégium to bring the Pavilion for the City of Budapest New York to the 2007 Sziget Festival in Budapest.

Taking its cue from two ride/exhibitions from the 1939 New York World’s Fair€”GM’s Futurama and the iconic Democracity€”the Budapest New York pavilion will be a mechanical ride that takes visitors around a scale model of the imaginary city of Budapest New York. The model will blend architectural elements from both cities to create a cityscape that is tantalizingly recognizable yet entirely unique.

The festival runs from August 8-15 and we will be in Budapest for 5 weeks building, so if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and drink some pálinka with us. And don’t forget to follow documentation of the project starting in July on the Hungarian Center website.

The project is also co-sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

Participating Artists:

Albatross
Flux Factory at Socrates Scultpure Park
May 6th – August 5th, 2007

July 1 – July 14: Exhibit at Flux Factory

an artistic collaboration between Flux Factory and an entire city.

Opening Party: Saturday, June 2,
4pm at the Paterson Museum, Paterson, NJ

Paterson participants

Jean Barberis, Mikey Barringer, Angela Beallor, Jason David Brown, Christine Conforti, Joseph Costa, Giacomo De Stefano, Alita Edgar, eteam, Neil Freeman, Dana Gramp, The Ivanhoe Artists Mosaic of Paterson, Suzanne Joelson, Branden Koch, Don Kommit, Joe Milutis, The Paterson Museum, Leonora Retsas, Joe Ruffilo, Shuli Sade, Ruth Stanford.

*Conceived and Organized by Stefany Anne Golberg and Morgan Meis*

EVENTS & TOURS DIRECTIONS TO PATERSON

TELL US YOUR MONUMENT IDEAS

I guess the Paterson area is where I had a lot of my contact with quarries and I think that is somewhat embedded in my psyche. As a kid I used to go and prowl around all those quarries. And of course, they figured strongly in Paterson. When I read the poems I was interested in that, especially this one part of Paterson where it showed all the strata levels under Paterson. Sorta proto-conceptual art, you might say. Later on I wrote an article for Artforum on Passaic which is a city on the Passaic River south of Paterson. In a way I think it reflects that whole area. Williams did have a sense of that kind of New Jersey landscape.
€“Robert Smithson

Paterson, New Jersey is a special place. Founded as the first planned industrial city by Alexander Hamilton and others, it played a major role in the development of the United States as an industrial powerhouse and economically independent nation. But Paterson has also worked its way into the cultural imagination of the United States. William Carlos Williams wrote an extended lyrical poem in five books, taking Paterson as his title and subject of inquiry. The important American artist Robert Smithson considered Paterson and the surrounding Passaic Valley to be a source of inspiration for his earth works. Indeed, Paterson and the American Imagination seem deeply connected.

Flux Factory explores this connection by organizing a unique art event and exhibit called Paterson. Working in collaboration with the Paterson Museum in Paterson’s historic mill district, Flux has assembled a team of artists, designers, architects, and urban planners who will develop plans for a proposed monument to Paterson. A space set aside for us within the Paterson Museum acts as a monument headquarters and is open to the public on a daily basis. Citizens of Paterson are encouraged to present their ideas, concerns, dreams, and desires to the team. There is also a schedule of open forums, tours, presentations, walks, and parties. For six weeks, members of the team, as well as the general public in Paterson and in the Tri-State area, will have the opportunity to experience Paterson in all its facets.

As in every Flux Factory project, the emphasis is on collaboration and a process that is open-ended by design. Everyone involved will address a central question: What is a monument’s role and how does the establishment of a monument affect a community?

At the end of this six-week period, an official proposal will be presented to the City of Paterson that reflects the experiences, thoughts, and ideas of the team. What happens with the proposal from then on will be the choice of the people of Paterson.

PROJECT GOALS

The goal of this project is to develop a plan, through a creative collaborative process, for a monument to Paterson that will be built in Paterson. It is quite possible that this project will culminate in the actual construction of a monument. But in a very real sense, the more important part of the project is the process itself. That is where the ideas and interests of Patersonians and outside artists will be tapped and explored. This is what is most exciting about the project and where it is genuinely unique. There are a lot of energies just beneath the surface of Paterson, both in terms of the hopes and dreams of its residents and in the latent historical memories of the place itself. The Paterson monument proposal will be a focusing point for those hopes and energies.

Sert, Leger, and Giedion wrote in the €˜Nine Points on Monumentality’:
Monuments are the expression of man’s highest cultural needs. They have to satisfy the eternal demand of the people for translation of their collective force into symbols. The most vital monuments are those which express the feeling and thinking of this collective force€”the people.

What is a monument? Is it an ode to bygone days? A celebration of the past or an expression of the future? We think that Paterson will create an artwork out of the process of thinking through these questions. Most fundamentally, this project carries forward an idea of collaboration that animates everything we do at Flux Factory. Flux Factory projects are always about bringing groups of people together in order to create an experience. In this case, the idea of collaboration is being pushed to a whole new level: a collaboration that involves an entire city. Indeed, more than an entire city, since a basic assumption of this project is that Paterson is a lens through which one can discover things about the American experience in general and potentially involve people from all over the world.

As William Carlos Williams once wrote:

Yet there is
no return: rolling up out of chaos,
a nine months’ wonder, the city
the man, an identity€”it can’t be
otherwise€”an
interpenetration, both ways.
€¦
divided as the dew,
floating mists, to be rained down and
regathered into a river that flows
and encircles:
shells and animalcules
generally and so to man,

to Paterson.
€˜Paterson‘ is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Queens Council on the Arts, as well as generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Greenwall Foundation, and Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Morgan and Stefany on patersononline.net (no, we didn’t intend to dress the same that day…)

March 9th- April 12th, 2007
Opening: Friday, March 9th, 7pm

Our story begins with Troy Hurtubise who was attacked by a grizzly bear in the Canadian Rockies. Troy survived and decided that he would one day return to the Rockies, this time fully prepared to win. Cut to director Peter Lynch, who created a documentary called Project Grizzly about Troy and his quest to create a grizzly-proof suit. It is one man’s obsession to defeat nature. In the film, Troy has his friends test his suit in various violent ways (ramming trucks, flying logs, etc.) and then heads to the heart of Grizzly country for an adventure that ends, unceremoniously, in failure.

Flux Factory has invited artists from around the world to create their own response to Troy’s body of work and life’s ambition. Artists were asked to take on the age-old theme of human-versus-nature, the conflicting desire to understand the natural and to commune with it, and the need to control its cruelest aspects. Just as Project Grizzly addresses one man’s obsession with invincibility it also gives voice to a dream that is at the heart of the human experience. Troy’s dream may be a little bit insane, but it is moving nonetheless.

Please join us in exploring, uncovering, and paying tribute to this extraordinary narrative.

ARTISTS
Kristoffer Ardena, Dominique Blais, Paul Burn, Johannes DeYoung, Lisa Dillin,
Chris Hackett & Eleanor Lovinsky, Aya Kakeda, Katerina Lanfranco, Fabienne Lasserre,
Marie Losier & Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria, Peter Lynch, Ian Montgomery,
Motomichi Nakamura, Frank Olive & Rudy Shepherd, Douglas Paulson, Bruno Persat, Hideki Takahashi, Hiroshi Shafer, Shawn Spencer.

Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays 12-4pm and by appointment.
please contact: jean at fluxfactory.org

READ ABOUT ‘GRIZZLY PROOF’ IN

SPECIAL EVENTS:

Friday, March 16th at 8pm, LIVE MUSIC
Chris Black from the Golden Arm Trio
Sex with an Angel

Sunday, March 18th at 2pm, DIORAMA DAY
* Katerina Lanfranco presents
“Myths of Nature in Art, Science, and Religion: From Dioramas to Dogmas”

*Aya Kakeda teaches a hands-on how-to diorama workshop
We provide all materials! FREE!

VIEW DOCUMENTATION OF THIS EVENT

Thursday, April 12 at 8pm, CLOSING
Bear-themed party
With special performance by artist Johannes DeYoung
*wear a costume and/or prepare to dance!
BYOBear

PAST
View Nick Normal’s pics of the opening

Special one-night screening of
“Project Grizzly” –the film that inspired the show!
Presented by director Peter Lynch with follow-up Q & A
New Center Cinema
4217 Queens Blvd.
Sunnyside, NY 11104
718-361-6869

Why Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International?

Well, it’s quite a monument. Of course, it isn’t a monument at all, having never been built. But it is a striking and impressive idea for a monument. The model for it alone is unforgettable in pictures and drawings. It is a bold piece of work. Lacking any definitive function, it is the testament to a need, a desire, a concept. Pushing the very boundaries of human technological capacity at the time, it could only have been built using the newest methods in metal engineering and construction. It is an optimistic monument. You cannot look at the monument without thinking of the future and of human possibility. It is solid and dynamic at the same time. It portrays movement with purpose. It is beautiful.

Why €˜conceived in the mood of ambivalence’?

It is all form and no content. It is the idea of human possibility without any articulation of what human possibility actually looks and feels like. With so much life, it is dead. It is an ideal monument in the good sense, but in the bad sense as well. There’s no debate in it, no place for the contested milieu of civil society. It can’t be amended or changed, it just is. It would have to exist outside the boundaries of day to day urban life; alone, infinite, empty.

What do we mean by €˜response’?

Our monument will be Tatlin’s monument plus all the mess of lived experience. It’s the €˜hands-on’ approach to utopia. It will change and transform during its lifetime according to the fights and discussions and ideas of the people who interact with it. And so, it will have a beginning and an end. It will be finite. To put it simply, our tower will be the kind of place you’d actually want to spend some time in. It will have a café. It will have a room for napping. And still, it will gesture to something beyond what we are now, to a better version of ourselves that we still hope to attain, whether or not we know how.

ARTISTS

Briony Barr is English and Australian but has called New York home for the past 6 years. The daughter of a painter and a picture-framer, a life in art was on always on the cards and indeed, she has made a lot of drawings and other things in her time. Recent work has ranged from plotting the movements of a waiter on the floor of a restaurant with tape to making time-lapse drawings of people moving through customs at the airport. Most recently she worked with fellow friend of Flux Martina Mrongovius to create a line structure, grown over several weeks on a fence in Queens. Briony’s work can be seen as part of the viewing program at The Drawing Center and in Pierogi 2000’s Flat Files. She is currently having a solo drawing show in Mexico City.

Mikey Barringer studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and at Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany. There he learned how to act, make films, and speak German. All three skills have turned out to be quite useful for life at Flux Factory, and you’d think it was somehow meant to be that way. This is his first show.

Ranjit Bhatnagar has been exhibiting sound sculpture and alternative musical instruments since 1995, such as the Silence Organ and the MIDI Ironing Board. Recently, Ranjit has taught students at Parsons School of Design to make their own instruments and play in a band, contributed robotic musical instruments to Flux Factory’s Fluxbox show, and to Artbots NYC at the Location One gallery in SOHO. A selection of his photos are currently on exhibit at the Atlantic Avenue subway station in Brooklyn.

Jason David Brown

Mikala Hyldig Dal was born 1979 in the medieval city of Aarhus, Denmark. She is now an inhabitant of the great city of Berlin, Germany, a student of the infamous University of Arts Berlin studying media art, experimental film, graphic-, photographic- & digital design. Mikala is concerned about the transformation of 3-d space into a 2-d realm and vice versa, an ongoing subject matter being architecture on tape. A recurrent strategy is the intertwining of analogue and digital media creating hybrid visual expressions, in general trying to accomplish radical abstractions of source material (/subject matter) in the recording process rather than in the post-production.

Daupo is the Neo-Primitivist Folk Collective of One, and is known to the mundane world as David Gassaway. R.T.T.M.T.T.T.I.C.I.T.M.O.A. is his umpteenth collaboration with Flux Factory, with which he has dressed funny, made watercolour paintings, auctioneered, cartographed, demolished, constructed, construed, and conceived. Left to his own devices he is a draughtsman more than anything else.

Marie-Eve Jetzer believes in the multitude of the I. After her Central Swiss Ministry of Culture and Education residency in New York is over, she is looking to settle down in the city of the great and the mighty at least on a semipermanent basis. After graduating from Glasgow School of Art a few years ago, she has been working as a multi-mixed media artist and very much enjoys the materialshuffling spaceshifting explorations of her mental realm. If anybody has a room to spare from the beginning of next year please let her know.

Born-n-bred in St. Louis, Missouri, Nick Normal pursued his undergraduate degree overseas at Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design (London, UK) where he graduated with ‘honours’ in Fine Arts (and unbelievably, he didn’t pick up an accent, although he does now drink his body weight in tea every week). With a firm approach to working with whatever he can get his hands and mind on, Nick enjoys making scale models, maquettes and installations and buying dollar-store items to integrate into his surroundings – that is, both his life and his work. He is also a lifelong biblioholic, which has recently turned into assembling an ‘expansive library’ of cardboard books. Nick is also building an archive of press releases, postcards, flyers, brochures, etc. related to art exhibitions – in progress now since November 2003, it is estimated at 3,000 individual items and spans a plethora of three- and four-ring binders.

Emma Stone Mackinnon believes in both collectives and solitude. Growing up in Brooklyn, she learned to love other people; getting her degree from Harvard, she learned some philosophy and political theory, and also managed to learn to love making installations with other people (especially others of the Reasonable People’s League). She learned to make ice cream in Boston, ice cream capital of North America, at Toscanini’s, where Daupo also once worked (he made the cakes). These days, when not at Flux Factory, Emma spends most of her time doing political media strategy at Fenton Communications.

Ian Montgomery was trained as a carpenter and furniture maker. His current work combines found materials with organic patterns and processes. Ian received his B.A. in Studio Arts at Bard College in 2003 and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Lacoste School of the Arts in 2002. He received international attention for his project in Flux Factory’s NOVEL show.

Annie Reichert swears she is from Seattle, New Jersey, and Ohio. She enjoys photography, eavesdropping, gold paint, fake blood, avocados, good storytellers, and building things–even though she’s not very skilled at it. Professionally she keeps busy but rarely profits from it: her pictures have been published in USA Today and US News and World Report for free! As an artist, she is interested in making oblique references to her childhood, hoping that no one will notice. Annie has surprisingly soft hands and wishes she could tell lies better and less often.

Ksenya Samarskaya is a designer-artist-inventor concerned with narrating and structuring grandiose plans for the minutiae. Notwithstanding, it often ends up the other way around. She lives in Brooklyn, is fond of rotating dinners and would love to hear from you if you happen to have an electric kiln or a letterpress that you no longer care for.

Matthew Slaats is the new kid on the block, making his preliminary excursion into the New York art scene. Working in a multitude of areas, his main interest is in engaging people through his process. He accomplishes this by recontextualizing spaces through performance. He recently worked in Singapore as a project manager for the Ong Keng Sen’s production Diaspora. Other work includes working as a production manager with theatre artist Richard Gough. In the meantime, he’s out exploring the already explored.

For press inquiries, contact stefany @ fluxfactory.org

THIS SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
Performances by Mr. Resistor and the George Galliano Jazz Trio starting at 7!
Ice Cream and Delicious snacks in the Kafeteriaeria!

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT TATLIN, HIS TOWER, AND CONSTRUCTIVISM,
HERE’S A GOOD PLACE TO START…CLICK NOW…

illustration by Briony Barr

illustration by Briony Barr

illustration by Daupo

illustration by Daupo

This past year, and especially the last few months, we began to notice the streets of WesternQueens becoming filled with new works of public art. More and more, it seems that the neighborhoods of Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside, and Woodside have become a laboratory for the latest in street art.

Further research revealed a hitherto unknown collective called Queens Blackout Division that has recently put out a call to artists asking them to produce art in the streets of Western Queens. They want artists to post information about the work on their website, queensblackoutdivision.net.

The more we thought about it over here at the old Flux Factory, the more we realized that we have something of a movement on our hands. Our show, therefore, is simply a concerted effort to get the public out on the streets and interacting with the work. To facilitate this interaction, we’re organizing audio tours, walking tours, bike tours, maps, and other material. The exact schedule for these tours will be posted on this site soon. By the opening of the show, September 23, most of this material will be easily downloaded directly from this site. These tours should be good fun and will all be different.

Our space on 43rd Street will become a video archive, headquarters, and giant map for charting all the work going on in the neighborhood.

Looking forward to seeing you out on the street!

CATALOGUE by Melanie Cohn
you may view and purchace a copy here

AUDIO TOUR BY STEFANY ANNE GOLBERG and MORGAN MEIS
Download tour here (zipped folder, mp3 format)
Instructions: There is currently one Audio Tour. Listen to all individual tracks in order.

VIDEOS
Showing in the Flux Factory space: Open Air by Knox, a street art documentary starring ESPO, Marco, Dan Witz, FAILE, Michael De Feo, Skewville, Tiki Jay-One, Lou. www.myspace.com/openairstreetart

MAPS
Map are free and downloadable. Print one out and see the streets of Queens on your own.

TOURS-All tours meet at Flux Factory at 3pm unless otherwise indicated.
Bikes for bike tours will NOT be provided by Flux Factory.

Sunday, September 24: Bike tour with Jean Barberis

Saturday, September 30: Walking tour with Andrea Dezsö
THIS TOUR IS NOT MEETING AT FLUX FACTORY! Meet at 3 pm on Ditmars Blvd. in front of the Starbucks. Take the N or W to Astoria get off at the last stop, the Starbucks store is right there at the end of the elevated train as you come down the stairs.
(***more info below)

Sunday, October 1st: Bike tour with Kerry Downey

Saturday, October 7th: OPEN HOUSE NEW YORK WEEKEND!
and Walking tour with Melanie Franklin Cohn

Sunday, October 8th: OPEN HOUSE NEW YORK WEEKEND!
and Bike tour with Ellen Kleckner

Saturday, October 14th: Walking tour with Meg Duguid

Sunday, October 15th: TBA

Saturday, October 21st: Street Tour and Pub Crawl with Morgan Meis and Ellen Kleckner

***Andrea Dezsö and Adam Gurvitch: Chasing Berch Walking Tour

High Art, Low Art, No Art – Berch in Queens

Depending on one’s class and neighborhood, many Americans’ exposure to ‘art’ is limited to what they see in advertisement: billboards, TV commercials, product packaging, calendars; homes, bars, and shops display reprints of vintage beverage logos, travel posters, and promos for movies and music.

Astoria and Long Island City, solidly working class neighborhoods being revived foremost through immigration and increasingly through gentrification, are distinguished by a streak of nostalgic painting on shop windows and exterior walls by the artist Berch. Berch has given the neighborhood a subtle, defined visual brand invoking the American dream of the neighborhood’s Italian, Irish, and Greek settlers of decades ago. Berch’s street paintings depict Easter feasts, Christmas regalia, autumnal bounties, Greek New Year’s delicacies, fruit cornucopias, bouquets, loaves of peasant bread, and crisp pizzas.

Berch gives us an expression of enduring aspirations, a common thread extending the desires of the neighborhood’s established ethnic enclaves to the newest generation of settlers who seek the neighborhood’s promise. Walking the neighborhood’s commercial avenues from Broadway to Ditmars, residents of western Queens are enticed to indulge in each new season’s festivities and the idealized goods on offer inside the shops that Berch has adorned. Forego the latest, hippest trends, and Berch will point you to family businesses that have sustained Astorians for generations with prosciutto, Sicilian slices, stuffed grape leaves, fresh fruit, and all the rest.

Berch’s style is reminiscent of the commercial art of an earlier period. His content and subject matter are strictly proscribed, but he paints with a free hand. After September 11th, 2001, Berch contributed to the city’s burgeoning impromptu wall memorial movement. His work is distinctive enough that you can always recognize a Berch without having to see the signature, which is high praise for any street artist. We’ve sought out Berch, but haven’t yet been able to speak with him.

So who is Berch, and what are we to make of his art? Are the neighborhood’s pervasive, custom hand-painted still lifes decoration, advertising, mural, or something beyond?

And Dubok Demolition Rok duo

————————————————–

OPOLIS presents Comix-Fluxture-as-city. Opolis is an imaginary city, located in the Flux Factory main space. Individual city blocks have been assigned to individual cartoonists and illustrators. These cartoonists have designed the buildings and environments that will fill the city blocks (an apartment building, a looming office skyscraper, a library, a public park…) with invented characters that are the citizens of Opolis.

OPOLIS is the third manifestation of Flux Factory’s annual Comix Fluxture exhibit. These exhibits have brought cartoonists and illustrators into the gallery to create comics narratives that also function as installation art. The ongoing objective of the series is to create works of art to be read intimately€”as a comic strip€”but also contribute to an overall installation spectacle.

OPOLIS was made possible from generous support by
THE GREENWALL FOUNDATION and
NEW YORK STATE COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS

FINAL OPEN HOURS:
Friday the 4th from 4 – 7 pm
Saturday the 5th starting at 12pm with closing party starting at 7pm.

PERFORMANCE BY BRIAN AND LEON DEWAN AT 8:30pm!
Brian Dewan and Leon Dewan will perform on the Dual Primate Console and
other handcrafted semi-automatic electronic instruments for the closing
party of OPOLIS, August 5th. The open-air performance will take place at
8:30 pm on the Flux Factory roof, a veritable drive-in-movie without the
movie. The Dual Primate Console requires two operators, and the Dewans will
weave together intertwining rhythms. In addition, two rhapsodic solo
instruments, the Swarmatron and Melody Gin, will also be featured.

MORE INFO HERE

FLUX FACTORY’S SPRING BENEFIT BAZAAR 2006

With donations by no less than 250 artists, from over 20 countries, on five continents! click here for details

Click here to view the embedded video.

READ ABOUT FluxBox in TIMEOUTNY!

AND IN THE NEW YORKER!

New Yorker (see bottom of page)

AND ON WNYC!

Soundcheck on WNYC (Yes, I got to meet Patti Lupone for about 2 glorious seconds and I know you are jealous…)

Get the limited edition FluxBox silkscreen nowish!!!

Take a look at some excellent photos of the opening from photographer Catherine Aman here.

Our first offering up for grabs is Bone Bleach by Jim Drain.

Jim Drain recently won the Baloise Prize at Art Basel, and the work is, well, amazing.

$350, unframed, dims: approx. 16″x16″

Interested parties should contact morgan@fluxfactory.org about purchasing this piece outright; as well, pay attention to this space over the next couple of months as we rotate all the (few) works that didn’t move at the Auction. it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, at least this lifetime.

As part of SEVEN, we’ve been trying to get the MTA to let us make a special dinner for the Supervisors of all the stations along the 7 train. A group of fluxers would come to the supervisors house and then we would cook them up a feast in their own kitchen. We would all sit around eating, drinking wine, and talking about our favorite moments aboard the 7 train. Perhaps we’d become fast friends. Who knows? Maybe we would hate each other.
Here’s the letter that Lois H. Tendler, Director of Government and Community Relations for the MTA, sent us on December 13th, 2005.

7 Train Project #1:
Local vs Express

In September of 2005 Flux Factory will present Almost Something, a show of subtle, beautiful, and often-strange original works. Artists include Yuji Oshima, Robert McCarren, Reuben Lorch-Miller, Nick Normal, Elodie Huet, Eric Baudart, Jayeon Kwon, Miwa Koizumi, Celine Coville, Kerry Downey, Stefany Anne Golberg, and Marco Scoffier.

more info: http://almost-something.com

We’ve recently joined a program with QSAC (Quality Services for the Autistic Community).

QSAC was established in 1978 by a group of concerned parents of children with autism. These parents strongly believed that people with autism were capable of living at home and, in some cases, participating in normal social activities, forming relationships, maintaining employment and becoming productive members of the community.

Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a group of autistic individuals and two staff members come by Flux and help out with whatever projects we have in the works. Their first project was to help us put up our summer show, While You Were Playing Rubik’s Cube. They have also started painting and drawing in our public space/experimental lab. One of the paintings, by Mr. G and Jamel, is now a permanent part of our collection. It’s pretty damn good. We’re very happy about the program.

also check out the Comix Ex Machina mini comic!

At 9pm on May 7th, 2005, three novelists were enclosed within three individual habitats designed and constructed by three teams of architect/artists. For thirty days, this was their reality. Nightly, they dined together (courtesy of a revolving cast of chefs). Public readings of the novels-in-progress were held every Saturday evening, with viewing hours throughout the week. On June 4th, each writer emerged from his or her habitat, having completed a novel.

The three habitats were constructed during months of collaboration between the writers and architects. This process was designed to address complex issues of design, desire, and space (or lack thereof). NOVEL took the isolation of the writer to a rather extreme conclusion in order to investigate what would be produced under those conditions. But, just as writing is solitary, it is also a performance. The writer, sitting alone, is always conscious of an audience, whoever that may be. NOVEL combined the private and public aspects of writing in a striking way. The goal for NOVEL was to facilitate the production of quality fiction and explore the act of writing itself as a performance, installation, and kinetic, living sculpture.

The experiment lasted from May 7th to June 4th, 2005.

Click on the image above to view pictures from the show (it will take a minute to load, please bear with us). Click on the construction image to view pictures from the installation process. Click on Tubby to view the outtakes.

Artistic Personnel For Novel

Writers

Laurie Stone is author of Starting with Serge (Doubleday, 1990), Close to the Bone (Grove, 1997), and Laughing in the Dark (Ecco, 1997). A longtime writer for the Village Voice (1975-99), she has been theater critic for The Nation, critic-at-large on NPR’s Fresh Air, and a regular writer for Ms., New York Woman, and Viva. She has received grants from NYFA, The Kittredge Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, Poets & Writers, and in 1996 she won the Nona Balakian prize in excellence in criticism from the National Book Critics Circle.

Ranbir Sidhu is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize in fiction and his work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, Zyzzyva, Other Voices, Press and a Houghton-Mifflin college reader among other publications. Trained as an archaeologist, he has worked in California, Nevada, Israel and France. One of his finds, a 3,000-year-old woman, made cover skeleton of Biblical Archaeology Review. Most recently, he worked for the United Nations in Sri Lanka as a communications consultant.

Grant Bailie is a Cleveland-based writer and artist. A contributor to McSweeney’s and Zygote in My Coffee among others, Grant’s novel Cloud 8 was published in 2003 by Ig Publishing. His work was selected for honors by the Writer’s & Poets League of Greater Cleveland and he had been a featured speaker and reader at book events in the US and Canada. His paintings have been exhibited at William Busta Gallery and Joyce Porcelli Gallery.

Read his exclusive before-the-box interview with Night Train’s Tom Jackson here.

Architect-Artists

Salazar Davis Architects, founded in 1998 by Mauricio Salazar and Paul Davis, is a full-service Manhattan-based architecture and design firm. Salazar Davis entered the Queens Museum of Art Design Competition in 2001 and was chosen as one of five finalists from among several hundred entrants. Now in design phases on projects ranging from a Williamsburg restaurant to NYC broadcast studios for a national talk radio network, the office is also active in California.

Tricky ink. is a collaboration between Kwi-Hae Kim and Mitch McEwen, two artist/designers pursuing a Masters of Architecture degree at Columbia. Kwi-Hae entered architecture through sculpture and set-design at RISD where she received a BFA in Sculpture. Mitch entered architecture through political economy and painting at Harvard. Tricky ink. focuses on materials, performance, and temporality as design problems. Recently, they co-produced a hoax real estate development company, complete with website and project plans for a temporary skyscraper. (See www.newamericansprawl.org)

Ian Montgomery received a B.A. in Studio Arts at Bard College in 2003 and was an Artist-in-Residence at the Lacoste School of the Arts in 2002. Trained as a Carpenter and furniture maker, his current work combines found materials with organic patterns and processes. NOVEL will be his first NYC gallery show.

Guest Artists

Myla Goldberg: Guest Curator for Writers
Myla Goldberg’s first novel, Bee Season, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2000, and the winner of the Ribalow Prize and the Borders New Voices Prize. It is being made into a major motion picture and has been translated into nine languages. Myla has written book reviews for the New York Times and Bookforum. Her short stories have appeared in Harper’s, failbetter, and McSweeney’s. She is most recently the author of Time’s Magpie, a book of essays about Prague. Her next novel, Wickett’s Remedy, will be published by Doubleday in October 2005.

Alexander Briseño & 306090: Architectural Consultant
Alexander Briseño holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Michigan and runs Sohbr Studio, and architectural/design firm. He has also attended the Swiss program of the Southern California Institute of Architecture, located in Vico Morcote. Alex is Series Editor and Publisher of 306090>Architecture Journal, was a designer for Dimensions Volume 15 and has held instructor positions in theory/writing and drawing at the University of Michigan and Pratt Institute. He recently completed travels as a Booth Fellow throughout northern Italy. Alex has worked for several award-winning architecture firms throughout the United States and has thus gained a wide range of project experience. He is a registered Architect in the State of New York, a member of the American Institute of Architects.

Guest lecturers

Tom Bissell’s criticism, fiction, and journalism have appeared in Harper’s, Men’s Journal, Esquire, McSweeney’s, The Boston Review, and Best American Travel Writing 2003, among other publications. He is the author of Chasing the Sea (Pantheon, 2003) and is currently writing a book about Vietnam scheduled for publication by Pantheon in 2006.

J.M. Tyree was a Keasbey Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge. His essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: Best of the McSweeney’s Humor Category (Knopf), New England Review, Discover, and The Believer.

Flux Factory and the NOVEL crew would like to express ultimate gratitude to the following
for their culinary support:

H&D Bagels, El Shater, Carri Skoczek, Melanie Cohn, Miwa Koizumi,
Gianna Chachere, Cafe Bar, La Vuelta, Ariyoshi, Cavo Cup and Lounge, Sage cooking,
Dazie’s, La Vuelta, Dan Spicer, Jen Sotham, Lil Bistro 33, Diane Campbell, Ten 63

This program was supported in part by Material for the Arts, Tekserve, and public funds from
the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

You can find the Old Town Review’s blog portal on Novel here.

A solo show by Paul Burn

“Absolute Zero Nowhere” is a solo show displaying New York artist Paul Burn’s large-scale sculptures and installations. He uses sculptural tableaus and dioramas to investigate fantasies of eternal wilderness and the powers of Nature to negotiate with the expansionist practices of human development. The works, often featuring elements of a frozen and stilled winterscape, fuse systems based on scientific practice and engineering with environmentalist politics and a romanticist perspective.

works included:

Portal, a vacuum-formed airplane window, set into the center of a wall in a large empty room which invites the viewer to look out onto a vast landscape of mountains modeled on an Antarctic landscape, with a seamless backlit sky and a fog machine producing realistic clouds;

Grand Canyon, a stereo-lithographic model of the Grand Canyon produced using stone from the actual canyon;

Two, a figurative sculpture depicting two figures on top of a snowy, hairy cliff, coexisting and yet not cohering;

and the Flux Factory-commissioned Ice Cave , an enormous crawl-through monument and perennial Flux favorite.

an exhibit that will showcase works by emerging artists raised within a milieu where comics and Japanese animation began to reveal a dark side beneath the Hello Kitty exterior.

Something in the work of these artists remains childlike and innocent. But a deeper look reveals a poignant dark side. An unsolved dichotomy, makes the work feel both empowered and vulnerable.

This ambiguity translates into works that come across as fun and disturbing, dark and light, cute and scary without really favoring one or the other. Subverted clichés of feminism, pop culture or eroticism mingle with nightmarish visions.

This show will entice Kids and have grown ups shiver.

featuring:Ciou, Aya Kakeda, Camille Rose Garcia, Mickry 3, Miss Van, Eun-Ha Paek, Saya Woolflak

Curated by Jean Barberis.

Special thanks to
Material for the arts
Pro Helvetia

The personal hand craftsmanship of the book and the many less conventional mediums/forms that they can take will be explored. The ambition of this show is to examine the idea of the book as sculptural object, narrative, and metaphor

presenting:Woojung Ahn, BB & PPINC, Doug Beube, Kyle Bravo, Mariwyn Curtin, Margot Casstevens, Andrea Dezso, Kerry Downey, David Gassoway, Sharon Gilbert, Coco Gordon, Dylan Graham, Robbie Guertin, Mary Hambleton, Denise Hawrysio, Alex Holden, Dave Hoyt, Shane Ingersoll, Aya Kakeda, Stacey Kirby, Yunmee Kyong, Sean MacElroy, Kurt Madison, Marisol Limon Martinez, Shelia Manion Artz, Yuki Maruyama, John Meager, Leah Oates, Eliana Perez, Maddalena Polletta, Claire Rau, Fred Rinne,Maddy Rosenberg, Jessica Rosenkranz, Rebecca Rubin, Junko Shimizu, Samara Sussman, Robert The, Marshall Weber, Elena Wen, Christopher Wilde, Scott Williams, Lisa Young, Liz Zanis

October 9 – 28, 2004, Flux Factory, Long Island City, NY

February 2 €“ 26, 2005, Fisher Arts Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

special thanks to Booklyn!
Visit www.booklyn.org

Every book is a €˜classic’, in its own special way. But some are more classifiably classic than others. Flux Factory would like to give its own nod to some of the most popularly recognized classic literature of the world.

On Saturday, Oct 16th, 2004 Flux Factory, as part of the What The Book? show, presents a performance slash reading series slash recording session in one great night. Ten participants will read ten different international classics, simultaneously, for the public, from beginning to end.

The event will be a telethon-style event, hosted by the venerable Daupo Gassaway, which will urge donations from viewers in this exciting marathon. Beverages, medical care, and snacks will be provided to the readers, but they must not stop reading until they are finished. Additionally, each reader will have his or her session recorded, and available for future sale. (Of course, it is expected that all the readings will bleed into each other, thus making for a nicely multifarious recording.)

Classics On Tape. A perfect way to enjoy the classics. All at once.

free and open to the public. Event begins at 5pm.

It is the norm to encounter various forms of ‘technical difficulties’ especially here at Flux Factory.

Thus, we now bring to you a diverse series of workshops.Unless indicated, all workshops will occur at our location, and are often entirely free.

Upcoming 2005 Workshops will resume in mid-october.

questions? email sebastien@fluxfactory.org

____________________________________________________________
Past Workshops

May 8th 3-6pm – Live Media Series #3- Chiaki Watanabe
#3 of 3workshops covering the medium of video and how it may be
applied in various artistic expressions. This first workshop theme will be
“visual music”, using video as an instrument. (suggested
donation $5.00) more
info here: http://www.nicknack.org/lv/

May 15th, 3-6 pm – NOVEL -
Panel Discussion

May 22nd, 3-6pm – NOVEL Artist Forum

May 1st, 1-3pm – VideoBlogging w/ Jay
Dedman
Setting up a videoblog for your grand parents has never been easier.
This second sunday…those who participated in the first workshop will come
show us their work…we’ll answer any questions…hook them into the community…and
help them tweak their process.
April 24th – Live
media series – 3-6pm – hosted by Chiaki
Watanabe
The first of 3 workshops covering the medium of video and how it
may be applied in various artistic expressions. This first workshop theme
will be “visual music”, using video as an instrument. (suggested
donation $5.00)

w/ Guest artists
Giles Hendrix : www.gesture.org
Chris Jordan: www.seej.net
chiaki: nicknack.org
April 17th, 1-3pm – VideoBlogging w/ Jay
Dedman

Setting up a videoblog for your grand parents has never been easier.
A double series workshop focused on new forms of internet expression and communication.
This first sunday we will learn how to do make a videoblog, show plenty of
examples, get them up and running, and do a practice post. A follow up will
take place on May 1st.
April 10th
- DIY Video Projector – 3-6pm
- w/ Sebastien Santamaria

For those who are tired of waiting for video projector prices to drop to what
you may consider “affordable”. Learn how to make your own high end
video projector for less than a tenth of the cost.

April 3rd – Soft
Sculptural Objects – 3-6pm – w/ artist Saya Woolfalk
Three hour
workshop to create a soft sculptural object that comes from her most
recent piece Winter Garden: Hybrid Love Objects. The object is a mini
palm tree attached to a fuzzy pink tomato. Some sewing experience is helpful
and some materials will be provided. Please bring, scissors, hand sewing
needles, pins, and a light colored cotton thread. Material fee $5

Saya Woolfalk was part of Cute & Scary at Flux Factory, her most recent
work can be seen in the Greater New York show at PS1

March 20 – Knot
Tying – 3-6pm – with Brian Matthews
Learn how to tie knots like a sailor, like a pirate, like a mad husband, like
a person who knows how to tie knots.

Sunday
Oct 10th, 2pm – Knitting with Plastic

A workshop in creating elegance from trash. Sarah Hollis Perry will
demonstrate ways to make upholstery material, clothing, hand bags and

other fabric using recycled plastic bags, tyvek house wrap and other
found materials. bring your own plastic bags.

Sunday Aug22nd.
RADIO LAB FOR RNC PROTESTS Admission free
free103point9 Online Radio, the NYC IMC Sound Team, and independent media
from all over the country will provide Live coverage of the protests during
the Republican National Convention. This Radio Lab workshop will teach radio
and streaming basics. With Sarah Lippek and Tom Roe from free103point9. Also
streamed live on free103point9 Online Radio at www.free103point9.org

Aug 8 SILKSCREENING!!!

Flux Factory now offers silkscreening facilities to the public! Come to our
tech initiative to have access to our facilities, learn the basics of printing,
and educate yourself on how to build your own workshop cheaply. If you would
like to begin printing please bring your own screen, paper, and your image
in black on a transparency (acetate).

June 20th – How
to take slides of your art work
Artists of all kinds come one and come all to learn how to take fantastic
slides of your work. We will teach you how to use your 35 mm (SLR) camera
to take professional looking slides of your 2-D and 3D work relatively inexpensively.
Troubleshooting techniques, question and answer session, where to buy and
develop film, lighting problems, tungsten vs. daylight, light meter issues,
and how to control your lighting. This will be a free tech initiative. Bring
your knowledge and your problems.

March 28th
- Install Fest & Linux Audio

For those who’ve always wanted linux running on their computers, but never
dared to install it alone. This is a great opportunity to learn the basics
and get started on how to improve your life with free software!
Marco Scoffier
will also demonstrate using audio in a linux based environment,
covering certain programs.
Bring you laptops, even your desktops (backup your files!). NO RSVP

March 21st – Make 3 books in 3 hours.
Join new york artist Andrea Dezso
here at fluxfactory to create 3 one-of-a-kind books

(an origami book with its own box, a magic-fold book and a double-spined concertina
book).
Beginners to book making welcome. If you have an x-acto knife, a glue stick,
or any special
paper that you’d like to use, bring them with you.

Dec 7th – An Afternoon of Folk Electronics
Hosted be Brian and Leon
Dewan, creators of exotic analog electronic musical instruments. We’ll
look at some of the instruments they have built, combined with printed-circuit
board etching and soldering demonstration, from circuit conception through
finished product.

note: if you like wires and control nobs, do not miss this!

Nov 30th – A look into Linux part 2
We will have taken a PC and installed Linux, and we will have seen what happened.
As we become administrators of our own linux systems, Marco Scoffier will
continue in this workshop to explore other computing possibilities, show how
they aren’t that scary, and how useful they can be.

Nov 23rd – Video Mixing and Streaming

A workshop on QuickTime streaming and on Keyworx,
a free multi-user video mixing software. With Eric Redlinger, from the Keyworx
team and host to the video component of SHARE,
a weekly laptop gathering.

Nov 16th €“ Pinhole Photography 3pm – 6pm
Experience the magic of pinhole photography! Learn to construct your own camera
from a simple box and print photos from it in the same day. All materials
provided. $5 materials fee. 8 people max.

Nov 16th – Puppets that do stuff 2pm – 6pm
Nick Jones
of Pirate Puppet Rock Opera Consortium Jollyship
the Whiz-Bang
We’ll cook up some paper mache, sculpt a basic rod puppet and figure out how
to make it move, using some combination of string, springs, and rubber
bands. Small details make all the difference: a simple gesture or two will

raise your puppet above the realm of mere representation — it’s what makes
garbage become alive! Create your alter ego! Make a new friend! Basic materials
provided. Small fee for fancy things from my personal stash.

Nov 9th €“ Rube Goldberg Workshop
Ever want to spend 3 hours, use just about every item in your house, to make
an omelet. Rube Goldberg was onto something when he drew his chain reaction
machines that endlessly wasted an enormous amount of energy and time to do
simple things. Now you can learn how to build one of these brilliant machines
under the instruction of Brian
Matthews, Mechanical Engineer and madcap artist.

Nov 2nd – A look into Linux part 1
In this course we will take a PC and install Linux, and see what can happens.
Marco Scoffier will create a Linux workstation at Flux, user accounts will
be distributed, and new methods of computing will be exposed. Programs like
Pd(sound software) and blender(3d package) will be covered.

Oct 26th – Modern recording at home and in the studio
This informal seminar will explore the basics of digital recording,
editing and mixing. In comparison to its analog counterparts, we’ll look at
Pro Tools and some examples of what it can do in both a home studio and a
professional recording environment (and how the two intersect). Basic recording
studio standards and techniques will also be addressed. This workshop will
occur at MelodyLanes
recording studio in Williamsburg.

max. 10 attendees, rsvp and details with sebastien@fluxfactory.org

Aug 31st – Beginner Sewing It’s been a long time since you could
ask your Mommy to darn your socks, much less make you that special prom dress.
Now’s your chance to finally grab a hold of your holes and learn to sew! Lead
by Fluxer Stefany Anne Golberg, this workshop will go over the basics of hand
and machine sewing, with hand from 3-4:30 and machine for the rest of the
time. Bring things you want to repair or sew something special to sell on
the Flux products page. There will be some needles and thread available but
you are encouraged to bring your own. And if you’ve got your own machine,
you can bring that too.

Aug 24th – Life Beyond Word and Web Surfing

Learn some simple techniques to make your computing more effective.
This session is hosted by Sebastien Santamaria, who will explain the basics
of digital imagery and html/webdesign. Bring a laptop, or share. Have some
ice tea.

-functional art objects and music made from waste.

There is an alchemical process that takes place when waste is converted into something useful. REFUSE is a collection of work by artists who apply this process to castaway raw materials reshaped into functional art objects and sound sculptures. The exhibit will include pieces whose emphasis is on form and function, making scavenged material an integral, possibly unapparent element of the work through skilled transmutation. An apparent dwelling space within the gallery will be assembled with pieces ranging from dresses woven from cassette tape ribbon (Alyce Santoro), a chair reupholstered with woven blue new york times bags (Sarah Hollis Perry), chairs fashioned from recycled road signs (Boris Bally) and tables crafted from scrap wood (Scrapile). Several Interactive sound sculptures and musical instruments made from waste will be placed throughout the gallery providing a sonic backdrop for the space.

Featuring works by: Shinsuke Aso, Boris Bally, Neil Benson, Lea Bogden, Steve Bradley, Carrie Collins, Peggy Diggs, Joy Halsted, Jennifer Long, Jacob Mitas, Nikolai Moderbacher, Cynthia Norton, John Parker, Sarah Hollis Perry, Paul Rutkovsky, Jason Sanford, Alyce Santoro, SCRAPILE, Colleen Rae Smiley , David Snyder, Erwin Timmers, Steve Thompson, Crispin Webb
with musical performances by
Ken Butler, Isac Zal, Neptune

curated by Jacob Mitas

click to view online documentation

a comix fluxture

The artists: established and emerging cartoonists, illustrators, and graphic novelists. The project: create a maze of intersecting paths in the Flux Factory gallery space over which comic book characters will interact and develop. Visitors are invited to walk through the maze and experience a Choose Your Own Adventure story, with side-plots, dead-ends, and parallel narrative universes, created in a collaborative atmosphere. Depending on which directions visitors choose at various junctures along the way, the course of the story will be altered accordingly. A visitor would be able to walk through the maze several times and see different versions and permutations of the narrative each time they do. The Comix Fluxture takes comic art and illustration seriously as a vibrant contemporary art form, but not by refusing to have fun

Participating Artists: Woojung Ahn, Vanessa Davis, Andrea Dezso, Daupo, Alex Holden, Aya Kakeda, Joy Kolitsky, Wendi Koontz, Yunmee Kyong, Jason Little

click here to view online documentation

click here to view secret mission video

read a sample mission

click here to listen to the self-guided walking tour created by artist Raul Vincent Enriquez

THE CLIENT: NEW MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
Profile: Founded in 1977. Erecting new headquarters in the Bowery district, Manhattan, New York. Has hired Flux Factory to infiltrate and profile immediate environs for future operations.

THE AGENCY: FLUX FACTORY, INC.
Profile: Information architects and idle masterminds. Artist-types. Have developed missions to be carried out by people, people not themselves. Compile and assess data from completed missions, then return to New Museum. Instrument of choice: Faux-tech.

THE INFILTRATORS: JOHN Q. PUBLIC
Profile: Contracted out by Flux Factory to complete important missions. Scouts, Moles, Patsies. Individuals will receive mission dossiers at Bowery Martial Arts and proceed incognito from there.

THE MISSIONS
The Flux Factory command center is located in an undisclosed recess of the Bowery Martial Arts store. Agents pick a difficulty level, easy, intermediate, difficult, or impossible. Instructions are relayed by telescreen, and any equipment needed to complete the mission is provided in a mission pack. Agents are advised to choose wisely and carry out their mission€” whatever the cost.

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: EASY
For the spy on the go.
Pedestrian infiltrators are tasked to perform simple acts of derring-do such as: make a confidential delivery in the neighborhood, deposit an object in a vital location, initiate a sequence, or post a secret message to a contact . Even small or seemingly inconsequential acts provide key links in the command network.

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE
Mid-range espionage.
Agents will gather information by means of an elaborate audio sequence retrieved from public payphones, or orchestrate a photographic composition replete with hidden meaning. Forethought and follow-through required from can-do specialists.

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: DIFFICULT
Elite intrigues.
Caution: For dedicated individuals only. Agents will be asked to delve deeper, uncovering, for example, a riddle wrapped inside an enigma behind a veil of secrets sitting in a pool of inky shadows. Once the process starts there can be no turning back.

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: IMPOSSIBLE
Missions impossible.
Secret missions which cannot be publicly revealed.

Artists will develop a number of sound pieces that interact with one another by following a rhythm of 60 beats per minute and using a drone that is the note D.
The goal of the show is to explore the concept of ’song’ through a collaborative process, in which the artists and musicians work together to create a coherent group work yet allowing the individual pieces to exist independently. The final result will be a collective song that can be walked through without the use of headphones. Pieces will range from the electronic to the mechanical.

With works by:
Pierre Bastien (France) – Guillermo Brown (USA) – free103point9 (USA)
Marco & Miwa (France-USA-Japan) – Stefany Anne Golberg w/Morgan Meis (USA)
Bruno Persat & Sebastien Sanz de Santamaria (France-USA)

click here to view online documentation.

- the edible show

All You Can Art is not interested in works simply made out of food€”a cream cheese painting, if you will€” but rather works of art that are themselves taste experiences. This show will be a day-long event of installations and performances that revolve around the concept of taste, eating, and food. Moreover, all the art will be (more or less) edible.

The work in this show is to be felt and tasted, smelled and consumed.

featuring works by: Prudence Emma Staite – UK, Miwa Koizumi – Japan, Frederic Pradeau – France, Stefany Anne Golberg – USA, J. M. Tyree – USA, Morgan Meis – Timothy Don – USA, Flux Factory – USA

click here for online documentation

Impossible Tea Party was performed at the 2003 DUMBO Arts Festival as part of the Water Art section. It was an experiment in sophisticated not-drowning. Four floating platforms, designed by Fluxer Brian Matthews, were created as well as a floating tea table. Everything and everybody was dressed up real nice, like a Victorian tea party. Directions and semaphore flags were placed at the shore. The audience was encouraged to order a cup of tea by using semaphore signals while we floated out in the East River. It was our job to make a cup of tea by getting ourselves over to the table with ropes and small paddles.