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: