||102724| AGAIN AGAIN! : ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH ||
[IMAGINAL DISCO RE-ORIENTATION]
{CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE}
- WELCOME (AGAIN)
- WORKING IT | UPDATES / ANNOUNCEMENTS
- YES, AND | OFFERINGS + INVITATIONS
WELCOME (AGAIN), FELLOW TRAVELERS
Hey there humans. I have so much to tell you, to share and to say! Things are moving so fast, and there is such a vast chasm between communication and expression, and no matter what, so much is left by the side of the road. But: I want to be more intentional about The Record, archive-obsessive that I am. So I’m working my way back up to sending and posting updates / longer form written work more regularly in addition to what happens more responsively on other platforms.
If you’re interested in reading a bit more about how I’m looking at this renewed practice and what I imagine this space looking like on Substack, there’s an updated “About” description here. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!
[Photo: shot 1/24/24, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Digital image.]
WORKING IT: UPDATES / ANNOUNCEMENTS
Bennington CAPA Fellowship Final Term / Projects and Programs
Spring 2024 marks my fourth and final semester for my work as a Fellow through the Center for the Advancement of Public Action (after which I’ll also receive their selective midcareer MFA in Public Action). This term I’m focusing on finalizing the Open Source designs for (as well as the public materials and tools that accompany) the modular, scalar Speculative Solidarities interventions I’ve had installed there: Archive + Access | Publication as Public Action (in Crossett Library), the YEAR ONE | Seed Lab (in CAPA), and the decentralized Sites + Sounds audio public story telling project.
In addition, I’m running three tutorials with dedicated undergrad and grad students this semester: “Queering Community Spaces for the Public Good,” “Move and Be Moved: Archive and Access Practices for Movement and Performance Artists,” and “Archive + Access II: An Urgent Action and Community Response Working Group,” (with students from my fall A+A seminar).
As part of this work I’ve been framing out related public programming which operates in a hybrid format, online and off — and which I’ll continue building, maybe with YOU (see INVITATIONS)! You can check out the beginnings of the ARCHIVE + ACCESS | IN CONVERSATION playlist here on YouTube.
[Image (above) - Hand renderings / proposal sketches for the “Publication as Public Action” installation in Crossett Library, November 2022. Pencil and watercolor on gessoed cardboard.]
SOLIDARITY and MOVEMENT WORK UPDATES:
At this moment in particular I’m focused on collective efforts with other artists and art-workers committed to capacity-building and strategizing, and I’ve been working to use my skills as a resource builder / systems analyst to create concrete guides and tools, support event planning and comms networks for ongoing work around the situation in Palestine / the Levant as well as with the current state of emergency facing asylum seekers / migrants crisis in NYC.
If you’re interested in joining a creative / cultural resistance working group (which spun out of JVP’s NYC chapter but is now coalition connected and working on myriad actions / events / strategies) please let me know and I can add you to our Signal chat and invite you to future planning meetings.
The best place to access the resources I make and archive / collate is via my Instagram profile.
NEXT STEPS / OFFERINGS + INVITATIONS
Central to my intentions in accepting the Fellow position at Bennington was the desire to concretize the methodologies, curriculum, programs and site-specific offerings that I have been developing over two decades into truly Open Source, modular materials and services — that I can now bring to a range of spaces, humans, organizations, institutions, workers, etc.
It’s been critical to me to recognize that a lot of the ways in which I use language intentionally as part of my practice can sometimes make what I offer challenging to grok for the many populations I seek to work with — so I’ve been focused on translating that back into tangible, legible formats that feel accessible online and on paper, since in person my down-to-earth approach usually takes care of confusion.
Though operationally I’ve functioned this way for years, I took the leap in 2022 to formalize my offerings / services as AUTONOMOUS MECHANICS STUDIO + LAB, articulating my own role as, well, DESIGNER, taking me back to my roots.
I am so excited about the installations / activations / interventions, libraries, toolkits, curricula, workshops, coaching, and other offerings broken down there — and I’m actively looking for places to do residencies, visiting artist or artist-educator stints, to embed these projects into your site / office / place of worship / park / gallery…?
Let’s talk!
There will also be invitations made to be part of (and/or attend) a series of live-streamed and in person events around these projects, starting soon! Stay tuned for more details.
[Image: screen capture of the TOOLS + INVITATIONS page of the Autonomous Mechanics Studio website; banner image is an original temporally manipulated panorama photo from my ongoing Impossible Grammars series, c. 2018]