Leah Beeferman & Michelle Higa

Michelle Higa is a Brooklyn-based artist who creates interactive video installations and reactive objects. She is currently serving as editor-in-chief for CHAISE, a DVD magazine featuring emerging artists. Visit her website at www.slanted.org

Leah Beeferman is a Brooklyn-based artist with a feverish interest in architecture and urban space -- and flying machines. Additionally, she is the co-designer of Cabinet Magazine. www.inkbox.org has drawings and details.

The Opolis Regional Historical and Futurological Society

instead of having one large structure built in the shape of the block, we are now thinking to have 3 or 4 small structures that fit within our block, mini-sites as it were (see diagram); mini-construction sites! these "sites" will be small, closed boxes made of wood, each sized approximately to fit on top of a small table. to elevate them from the ground, they'll stand on four 1.5ft posts.
the narrative drawings will cover the 4 vertical sides and the tops of these objects. i imagine at least some of the tops to be slanted. this plays into the narrative structure of the drawings: see diagram... but the flying machines dropping buildings will be sliding down the slanted tops after they've been shot out of the factory on the tallest side. the buildings will fall on the shortest side. the two identical sides will have drawings showing the construction, sorting, organizing and building of these fallen buildings into "functioning" landscapes/cities.

each box will have one LCD placed to interact with the drawings, and several small speakers with sound. there will be a small DVD player within each box running these movies/sounds. we need to find a way to procure these DVD players, if possible; is this something flux might have (used for showing other video art?) or could borrow? who should we ask about that? the three or four boxes will be dispersed around our block (see diagram). we'll figure out their exact shapes and locations once we've been assigned a block.

addendum regarding the last sketch: the boxes will be spaced a little further apart so viewers can actually see the drawings on all sides.

flying machines could look like this:

or this,

or this!

basically, the flying machines are up in the air collecting data from the air to translate into architecture. all of the tiny parts sticking off of the machines are reading the air around them and converting that data into these hills. the latter flying machines above are dropping these hills (that we were describing yesterday). these hills will later become parts of the landscape and the buildings, and can thus become a shared "character" that people can put in their blocks!

more hills here:

the hills then land in containers, as follows:

and in groups, like this

cranes and similar machines then transport the hills,



to construction sites where the hills become both landscape and parts of the buildings--- buildings with flying machine "characteristics" --- like long cantilevered balconies with propellers keeping them afloat instead of pilotis, etc.

our block is to be titled

"The Opolis Regional Historical and Futurological Society"

the label will be on the floor, underneath the hanging boxes. there will also be a small "block plan" listing which box is what, as follows

#1: ANCIENT OVERSEA DEVELOPMENT
(depicting "ancient history" when there was not yet any land, and civilization was begun on the sea)

#2: CURRENT STATE LAND METROPOLIS DEVELOPMENT
(the present; land, buildings, etc)

#3: PREDICTED AIRBORNE REGENERATIVE CITY DEVELOPMENT
(the future: the airborne city when there is again no land --- due to whatever -- and the city is regenerating itself up in the air).

each of the boxes will depict a narrative roughly based on the drawings i sent out last week ---- with flying machines creating the architecture/landscapes/cityscapes below which, in turn, create new flying machines and new "data" for those machines. however, what is created by the flying machines will differ based on which "period" we are in.