A Conversation, In Neon



Sign meet Sign.


Metabolic Studio FlipVideo

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Farmlab Public Salon
Christina Ulke
Friday, March 20, 2009 @ Noon
Free Admission



About the Salon Join Christina Ulke for a reflection on collective cultural resistance practices in the Americas and beyond. She will talk about her work with the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, collective identity and representation and some of her public art work.

About JOA&P Issue 6, i love to we:
In this time of political transition the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest offers a vital portrait of creative and critical ideas driving at the grassroots. 8 years of failed and erratic leadership underlies the new issue of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. Issue 6 is three books in one: In three acts of contemporary analysis (“i love to we”, “Antiwar Survey”, “Insurgent Theory”*) the issue attempts to capture voices and projects crucial to artists, activists and other exploratory practitioners. The laboratory of social and political media produced during this decade has been explosive. The seeds from this eruption have spilt every which way.

In “i love to we”, editor Christina Ulke has chosen to look at projects taking root and becoming members of deep forests, rather than just a gaudy spring time show. Leaving cold war inspired practices of resistance behind, often characterized by short interventions and tactical play, this section of the Journal theorizes art and cultural practices that generate change through the means of conscientious infrastructure building--and their political potential. Contributors: Amy Franceschini, Fritz Haeg, Bonnie Fortune, Brett Bloom, Juliana Parr, Charlotte Sáenz (aka Lozeh Luna), Kelly Marie Martin, Aviv Kruglanski, Kate Rich, Ben Schaafsma, Aimee Le Duc, Mark Chamberlain, Lisa Anne Auerbach, Veronica Wiman, Town Hall Meetings (Daniel Tucker, Nato Thompson and LA Participants).

*West Coast Antiwar Survey edited by Robby Herbst and Insurgent Theory, Marc Herbst Editor.


About the Salon Speaker
Christina Ulke is a public artist and theorist; co-editor of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest, co-founder of joaap.org and co-publisher of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press. Joaap’s activities include the production of discourse around artists and activists’ practices in form of a printed and online Journal, public lecture series, curatorial work, art projects, and the Journal Press. Its serial publications are distributed nationally, internationally and are available online (http://www.joaap.org/6/issue6.htm). With the editorial collective of the Journal (current members include Marc Herbst, Robby Herbst and Christina Ulke. Past members also included Ryan Griffis, Cara Baldwin and Lize Mogel), she has contributed to the 2008 California Biennial; Democracy in America: The national Campaign, Creative Time 2008; Civic Matters, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; Fine Print: Alternative Media, P.S.1, New York; and the documenta 12 Magazine Project Archive, Kassel, Germany. Ulke has presented in numerous museums, art schools, universities, and conferences, including Transitory Público at the UCLA Labor Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. She has created permanent and temporary public artworks, including a bus stop poster project for A Los Angeles Llegaron y por Hollywood se Pasearon during the Mexico City Book Fair and Amigo Studios Revisited, a permanent parking lot installation commemorating a legendary recording studio in North Hollywood. Her most recent public art project, twenty-two thoughts meeting at a corner, was a commission for the Silver Lake Branch Public Library. She currently serves on the faculty of the Graduate Public Art Studies Program (Art in the Public Sphere) at USC.

Image: “Das Ende Einer Ankündigung”:
California Herbs and Spice Company (Christina Ulke& Marc Herbst) with Gardenkunst Netz, Radio Ligna, Projekt Gruppe, and participants. Hamburg Germany, 2008

 



 

Public Salon Series
Mayisha Akbar & Judith Hopkins
Friday, March 27 2009 @ Noon
Free Admission

Compton Jr. Posse, Meet Taking the Reigns


About the Salon

A first-ever summit between the executive directors of two Southland organizations that help kids, via horses.

More information about this Salon to be posted soon.

About the Salon Participants

More information about Mayisha Akbar coming soon.

Judith Hopkins came west to attend California Institute of the Arts. In 1987 after receiving her MFA, she taught art at community colleges and the California Youth Authority. Twelve years ago she went on a trail ride in Sequoia that changed her life—she took up riding horses and never looked back. In 1998 she and Debra Avery founded Taking the Reins, a nonprofit organization that teaches life skills to at-risk girls through a unique equine-based educational program. She has served as the executive director of Taking the Reins for the last decade.

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DO NOTHING
New Neon @ Under Spring



Do Nothing.

By Qingyun Ma, presented to the Metabolic Studio.

Installed March, 2009, Under Spring.

(Related: See Ma's print made for the recent Metabolic Studio project, Chora Prints 2008: New Political Posters from TJ2LA.)


Metabolic Studio FlipVideo

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Join "The Tin Man Group" on Facebook

See photos and read witness postings from the Metabolic Studio's March 14 open rehearsal of the Owens Valley Dry Lake Bed Glass and Water Orchestra and visit to meet “Oz” in the Emerald City. You must be a Facebook member to join this group.

Search on Facebook for “The Tin Man Group.”

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Flickr User Bacchruz's Wildflower Photos


This blog received a kind email from Flickr user Bacchruz, pointing to the photos she recently took of the wildflowers planted and tended to by the Metabolic Studio team, and located on the grounds of the Los Angeles State Historic Park, across the street from the Studio's L.A. River-side location.

Above is one of those images from Bacchruz; here's a link to her other shots of the wildflowers, the junker gardens at the Metabolic Studio, and otherwise.
Great thanks again to Bacchruz.


Photo courtesy Bacchruz

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Farmlab Public Salon
Jesus Sanchez
Friday, June 26, 2009 @ Noon
Free Admission

More info. TBA.

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Farmlab Public Salon
Karen Mack
Friday, March 13, 2009 @ Noon
Free Admission



About the Salon

Trekking Los Angeles: Local Adventures in a Global City is a marketing campaign, implemented by LA Commons and UCLA School of Urban Planning to promote and make more accessible the diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and contribute to answering the question, how does culture contribute to community development? The campaign started in 2007 with series of cultural tours and activities featuring three neighborhoods – Leimert Park, Highland Park and Thai Town – and continued in 2008 with Trekking Los Angeles: BBQ Adventures in a Global City and the launch of the Trekking LA website (www.trekkingla.org). Trekking Los Angeles over the last two years has brought hundreds of people to these neighborhoods and made them more visible to thousands of others through coverage by major media including the Los Angeles Times articles and Los Angeles Magazine. The mission of LA Commons is to engage communities in artistic and cultural expression that tells their unique stories and serves as a basis for dialogue, interaction and a better understanding of Los Angeles. Key to the implementation of this mission are community-based art initiatives which employ local artists and art students in translating community stories into public art. Since the inception of LA Commons’ in January 2003, they have implemented 15 initiatives in eight neighborhoods, involving 28 artists, 160 youth and 900 community members in the art making process, and several thousand as audience members. LA Commons’ projects increase participants’ involvement in the civic landscape, leverage local cultural assets into increased tourism and economic activity and build bridges across the diverse communities of Los Angeles.

About the Salon Speaker

Karen Mack is founder and Executive Director of LA Commons, an organization dedicated to promoting Los Angeles' diverse neighborhoods through locally based, interactive, artistic and cultural programming. LA Commons has implemented community art projects, tours and classes in communities throughout LA and in partnership with organizations such as the Central American Resource Center, the South Asian Network, Thai Community Development Center and UCLA. Prior to work with LA Commons, she served as a Public Service Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where she researched the role of culture in community building. Her appointment at Harvard followed work as the Vice President, Program Development and Planning at Community Partners, an organization that provides developmental support to start-up nonprofits throughout Los Angeles County. While on staff at Community Partners, she developed a wide-range of initiatives including the incubator services program and organizational partnerships with institutions such as the California Wellness Foundation and the California Endowment. She holds an MPA from Harvard University and an MBA from the John Anderson School of Management at UCLA. She is currently president of the board of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative and an appointed member to the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Cultural Plan for the City of Los Angeles.


Image above designed by Julie Ray, courtesy LA Commons

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Goats Leaving Park on Wednesday Morning


If you'd like to come down and see these goats, then Tuesday, March 10, 2009 is your last full day to do so.

More info here.


Metabolic Studio photo by Kate Balug

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LA Observed's Burman Visits Anabolic Monument, Interviews Goats

At LAObserved.com, columnist Jenny Burman visits the Anabolic Monument and files this playful dispatch, headlined, "Goats Workshop."

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Local Newspaper Hales Goats, If Not Studio

The current edition of the Los Angeles Downtown News features a photo of the goats brought to the Anabolic Monument by the Metabolic Studio.

The Anabolic Monument is an ongoing artwork by Lauren Bon; it is tended by the multidisciplinary team at the Metabolic Studio in association with California State Parks.

The New's shot was taken by the legendary L.A. shooter, Gary "Take My Picture" Leonard.

The photo is accompanied by a brief text blurb. In that blurb, the Metabolic Studio's longtime friend and colleague from across the street, Sean Woods, of State Parks, is cited.

(No mention is made in the blurb of the Metabolic Studio (Farmlab + Chora + AMI).)

But for more information on the ongoing project, along with current updates, please feel free to visit here and here.

And while visiting the goats in-person -- they will remain inside the Anabolic Monument at least through Wednesday, March 11 -- take in the surrounding wildflowers, now in bloom and likewise a planned legacy of the Not A Cornfield (2005-2006) artwork.

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Farmlab Public Salon
The League of Imaginary Scientists w/ visiting pyschogeographer Liz Kueneke
Friday, June 12, 2009 @ Noon
Free Admission


“In League with Imaginary Science”


About the Salon

Selected for ApexArt’s 2009 Franchise project, The League of Imaginary Scientists has organized an exhibition on participatory mapping, entitled x, y, z, and u, at Outpost for Contemporary Art June 4-July 3. At the Farmlab salon, the League will present their past participatory projects, along with Barcelona-based artist Liz Kueneke, whose public map embroidery project will be created during x, y, z, and u, in cahoots with Highland Park.

About the Salon Participants

The League of Imaginary Scientists is a group of interdisciplinary thinkers and tinkerers who present participatory art events with playful engineering and scientific assertions. The League concocts micro-festivals for microorganisms and repurposes centuries-old physics apparatus for new experiments. The resulting diversions from the everyday celebrate the everyday, like their machine for reversing progress and returning viewers to childhood.
http://www.imaginaryscience.org

Pyschogeographer Liz Kueneke compels community members to create maps of their respective urban areas based on what they think about their city, resulting in personal thoughts elevated to the status of statistical science. Based in Barcelona, Liz Kueneke is mapping the world, city by city. Her community mappings result in public drawings, installations, and embroidery projects created in collaboration with community members.
http://www.hangar.org/gallery/lizkueneke


Images courtesy The League of Imaginary Scientists

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Farmlab Public Salon
Victoria Yust and Ian McIlvaine
Friday, May 29, 2009 @ Noon
Free Admission

Click for more information

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State Park Blog


The Los Angeles state Historic Park (LASHP) has a blog.

(The park is located across the street from the Metabolic Studio and is home to the Anabolic Monument and Studio-tended and planted wildflowers.)

Here's one post and here's another post about the goats that the Metabolic Studio brought by.



Screen grab from LASHP website

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Farmlab is Polling Place For Today's L.A. City Elections


Today, Tuesday, March 3, 2009, Farmlab is serving as an official polling place for the city of Los Angeles' elections.

For address and suggested directions to Farmlab, click here. (Please note that the office and gallery hours listed on that webpage do not apply today. Instead, official citywide voting hours are in affect.)

This marks the first time Farmlab has hosted voting in a city election.

Last November, Farmlab served for the first time as an official Los Angeles County polling place.


Farmlab Photo by Kate Balug

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Facebook Groups

Become a fan of Strawberry Flag on Facebook.

Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio is working on this piece with both veterans and professionals at the West L.A. VA hospital. It is dedicated to the men and women in service to our country.


See photos and read witness postings from the Metabolic Studio's March 14 open rehearsal of the Owens Valley Dry Lake Bed Glass and Water Orchestra and visit to meet “Oz” in the Emerald City.

Search on Facebook for “The Tin Man Group.”


You must be a Facebook member to join this group.

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See photos, videos, and read and make postings about the Anabolic Monument.

Search of Facebook for "Anabolic Monument."

You must be a Facebook member to join this group.

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Also:

The old Farmlab Facebook page is inactive.

The old Farmlab MySpace page is no longer updated.

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