A&D NEWS

May 9, 2012

rootoftwo: Post-Industrial Complex at MoCAD

ba-b&l (11111011100), a new piece by rootoftwo (A&D Assistant Professor John Marshall and Cezanne Charles), is featured in the POST-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX exhibition at MOCAD, May 11 - July 29, 2012.

Exhibition: POST-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
May 11 - July 29, 2012 at MoCAD

Post-Industrial Complex is an exhibition and source book that celebrates the ingenuity and adaptivity of the Detroit community. This multidisciplinary exhibition, comprised of locally made objects and recorded interviews with makers, proposes a conversation about the meaning and value of personal labor in Detroit. From the half-baked idea to a life’s work, from the janky fix to a potentially world-changing solution, the spirit of invention takes center stage.
Programming includes a trading post, how-to sessions, exhibition tours led by community members and barbeques in the back parking lot. This exhibition is organized by Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit Curator of Public Engagement Jon Brumit and Curator of Education Katie McGowan.
Major support for Post-Industrial Complex is provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Related programming support is provided by the McGregor Fund and Edith S. Briskin/Shirley K. Schlafer Foundation. http://mocadetroit.org/

About the work: ba-b&l (11111011100) is a sound installation, originally created and shown in 2001 that utilizes digital recordings from texts about the development of language in ancient Mesopotamia. The texts have been sliced into the most basic elements of language – the building blocks that are used to construct words. These phonemes are layered in order to create a real time mix between 5 sets of custom designed/built speakers. The texts are appropriated and reworked from Neal Stephenson’s novel “Snow Crash”, published in 1992. This seminal work of cyberpunk deals with history, linguistics, anthropology, computer science, politics, cryptography, memetics, and philosophy.

For Post-Industrial Complex, we wanted to rework ba-b&l. The original 2001 work focused on the internal interactions between the audience’s auditory and analytic processes, which were engaged in deciphering the babble to make meaning. With the 2012 iteration we wanted to explore the capacity for the audience to now physically interact with the work in a way that triggers the intact texts to be played. As a studio, we work through a process of researching issues, materials, and technologies. We have an interest in the use of new technologies, materials and methods to encourage interaction and engagement with audiences. ba-b&l fuses our interests in art, language, design and our socio-cultural relationship with technology.

About rootoftwo: rootoftwo is a hybrid art and design studio co-directed by John Marshall and Cezanne Charles. John Marshall, PhD is an assistant professor in the School of Art & Design and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. Cezanne Charles is director of creative industries at ArtServe Michigan. They have been collaborating since 1998 to make experimental objects and experiences that challenge assumptions, undermine expectations and reveal conventional behavior.

rootoftwo’s work derives from their interests and observations related to how context informs and transforms behavior, interactions and relationships. Works engage both audience and context as a result. Whether through the creation of art, social objects, experiences, or works in the public realm, they create opportunities to reframe systems, infrastructures, and networks. rootoftwo’s works specifically attempt to disrupt and undermine the systems at work through humor, play, interaction and participation. Their works create a condition where we can perceive ourselves, the here and now, and the future differently. They have presented work in Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
http://www.rootoftwo.com

May 7, 2012

Anne Mondro Presents at the Society for Arts in Healthcare Conference

Associate Professor Anne Mondro, along with her partners at the UM Geriatric Center’s Silver Club Program, a day-program for persons with dementia, presented at the Society for Arts in Healthcare’s 23rd Annual International Conference. Her talk, titled Shared Vision: A six-year collaboration between university students, dementia care staff, and persons with dementia, addresses the role of community engagement in higher education and how to develop a reciprocal community partnership.

May 2, 2012

MoMA Acquires Matt Kenyon’s Notepad

A&D Associate Professor Matt Kenyon’s work NOTEPAD has been acquired by the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art New York (MoMA), New York City. This was the same work featured in last summer’s “Talk To Me design” exhibition.

http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2011/talktome/
http://www.swamp.nu

May 2, 2012

Matt Kenyon Featured: Adversarial Design

Matt Kenyon’s work is featured in the recently published book titled “Adversarial Design” by Carl DiSalvo (MIT Press) In Adversarial Design, Carl DiSalvo examines the ways that technology design can provoke and engage the political. He describes a practice, which he terms “adversarial design,” that uses the means and forms of design to challenge beliefs, values, and what is taken to be fact. It is not simply applying design to politics—attempting to improve governance, for example, by redesigning ballots and polling places; it is implicitly contestational and strives to question conventional approaches to political issues Chapter 4 titled Devices of Articulation: `Ubiquitous Computing and Agonistic Collectives focuses on Kenyon’s work SPORE.

http://www.swamp.nu
http://www.amazon.com/Adversarial-Design-Thinking-Theory/dp/0262017385

May 2, 2012

Matt Kenyon: Art and Artificial Life in Madrid

Matt Kenyon’s work featured at the first major international retrospective of Art and Artificial Life award winners in Madrid Spain. Kenyon will be exhibiting a new version of SPORE that he has built since joining A&D. This new version of SPORE is powered in part by microbial fuel cells. SPORE is a self-sustaining ecosystem for a rubber tree plant purchased at Home Depot. In this project, Home Depot is responsible for the plant in two ways: first, an unconditional guarantee to replace any plant they sell, for up to one year; second through an implied cybernetic contract. This second responsibility is the creative content for the work, where the economic health of Home Depot is transitioned through a series of physical computing techniques to a mechanism for controlling the watering of the rubber tree. The exhibition opens May 8th VIDA retrospective exhibition will coincide with the reopening of the Fundación Telefónica new cultural centre in the Telefónica´s historic headquarters. Other artists included in the exhibition include: Eduardo Kac, Ken Rinaldo, Philip Beesley and Rafael Lozano-hemmer.

http://www.swamp.nu
http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com

April 27, 2012

Holly Hughes: Standing Heat opens in Chicago

“Standing Heat,” produced and curated by Holly Hughes, opens at Links Hall in Chicago on May 4th. The series of animal themed performances runs Friday through Sunday at Chicago’s premiere performance space in Wrigleyville, and features an array of nationally known artists. Chicago based storyteller Kestutis Nakas will open the series with “No Bees for Bridgeport,’ an exploration of urban bee-keeping set against the shifting demographics of a South Side neighborhood and “Other Animals” by multi media artist and eco-activist, Deke Weaver. Week two features Kevin Kling, a Minneapolis based story teller and frequent NPR contributor in a world premiere of “Chicken Soup for the Chickens.” Finally, the last week features performances by Kim Marra in “Horseback Views,” which recounts her journey to the 1980 Olympic equestrian competition, and a performance by U of M’s Dance Department’s Amy Chavasse in “Girldogsongs.”

Hughes was selected as a curator after a national call for submissions.

Tickets for the event are available at http://www.linkshall.org .

April 16, 2012

Looping Detroit, Nick Tobier’s People Mover

Looping, Detroit is a collection assembled by Nick Tobier of visual artists, MC’s, poets , radio producers and novelists with the People Mover as its organizing spine. Each contributor selected a station of the People Mover to explore it. The radius was up to them from the platform to the next stop. Looping Detroit is the collected creative responses to Detroit’s elevated monorail—a brief ride in time to be sure, but these stops and their surroundings are filled with lives past and present, provocation and candor. Think of it as a journal for eccentric explorations, a Situationist rant, a poetic ramble. Just not anything that would be, say in an inflight magazine of what to do and see in Detroit. Contributors include: Chace MCWrite Morris Airea Dee Matthews David Gluckman Francine Harris Lolita Hernandez Cornelius Harris Walter Lacy Justin Langlois Mary Lum Patrick Morris Zak Rosen Stacey Malasky Nick Tobier Cee Ann Yates Michael Zadoorian Every third Sunday of the month UDM sponsors Broadside Press Poets´ Theatre on the U of Detroit/Mercy Livernois campus. The event lasts from 3-6pm and has a featured reader or group of readers followed by a discussion and an open mic session. Broadside Press was started in the 1960s in Detroit by Dudley Randall (best known for his poem, “The Ballad of Birmingham”). For the last 45 years Broadside has been publishing outstanding work by African American authors such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lourde, Haki Madhabuti, and many others. The Press also has a very strong commitment to Detroit and community activism, viewing publishing as a way to build and empower community. (image: Broadway PM, by Stacey Malasky)

April 9, 2012

Larry Cressman: Work included in UMMA exhibit

A&D professor Larry Cressman’s work is included in Recent Acquisitions: Curator’s Choice, Part II - the second part of a two-part exhibition introducing recently acquired works from UMMA’s collections gifted to the museum during the past five years. Associate Curator of Asian Art Natsu Oyobe selected the works included in this exhibition.

Recent Acquisitions: Curator’s Choice, Part II
University of Michigan Museum of Art
March 31 - August 5, 2012

http://umma.umich.edu/

March 21, 2012

David Chung to Present a Lecture at the Library of Congress

On April 24th at 11am, A&D Professor David Chung will present a lecture about his collaborative research and designs for the Korean Bell Garden and Pavilion at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.  The Korean Bell Garden is located at the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia.

This event requires an invitation. Please contact David Chung at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you are interested in attending.

http://www.davidchung.com

March 8, 2012

New Paintings by Shiva Ahmadi at Art Dubai

Leila Heller gallery, New York, will be exhibiting new paintings by Shiva Ahmadi at Art Dubai 2012. The show will be open on March 21.

http://www.ltmhgallery.com/artists/shiva-ahmadi/