Farmlab

Metabolic Studio Twain Tour: L.A. Creek Freak Historic Bridges Excursion

2010-12-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

This December, the Metabolic Studio teams up with L.A. Creek Freak for a new installment in its “The Twain” Trolley tours. The December tours will showcase a dozen of Los Angeles’ iconic historic downtown bridges.

These monumental City Beautiful bridges, over the Los Angeles River and in Downtown L.A., were built between 1906 and 1932 and represent a hopeful forward-looking moment in the city’s history of growth and expansion. Many of the beautiful concrete-arch spans are targeted for demolition; this tour will spur conversations on the bridges’ significance - past and future.

What: Twain Trolley tours of the Downtown Los Angeles bridges
When: Fridays, December 3rd and 10th 2010
Trolley departs 1pm, returns 3:15pm
Where: The Metabolic Studio, 1745 North Spring Street, Unit 6, Los Angeles CA 90012

See Google Map

How much: Tour is free, but space is limited; reservations are strongly recommended - please RSVP to lacreekfreak@gmail.com
Note: tours include three short walking stops (approximately 5 minute walks) – wear comfortable walking shoes.

All tours will include commentary by Joe Linton, author of Down by the Los Angeles River and contributor to the L.A. Creek Freak blog. Each trip also includes special guest conversationalists:

Friday December 3rd:
Mike Woo – L.A. City Planning Commissioner
Eloy Torrez - artist

Friday December 10th:
Matt Coolidge – Center for Land Use Interpretation
James Rojas – Latino Urban Forum

Metabolic Studio Public SalonJerri Allyn & Inez BushFriday, August 20, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-08-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

Debating through the Arts / Presentation and Interactive Workshop

Can you imagine including artists on the world stage at the UN, advocating for cultural participation in global affairs? This Salon will begin with a brief presentation by Bush and Allyn about a daylong theatrical event on Dec. 5, 2009, based on a Model United Nations paradigm. The performance included 4 teams of artists acting as UN Delegates, creatively debating the pros and cons of Freedom of Expression, and Gentrification and Cultural Equity.* The presenters will note how this model is evolving for Debate #2 on Sept. 26, 2010 at St. Elmo Village.

After the introduction, Bush and Allyn will conduct an interactive workshop that provides a “taste of the Debates.” The two will begin by facilitating a 15 minute discussion with Salon participants that distinguishes two sides of the following question, and how it effects Metabolic Studio, their neighbors, and / or downtown LA:

Gentrification and Cultural Equity: Can community members and local governments ensure cultural equity in the revitalization of their neighborhoods? How do we resolve the class war? Participants will then break into small groups to brainstorm “win / win” solutions – which can be as wild as one can imagine - for the issue debated. All will gather again to share the small group creative ideas, and to conclude the Salon workshop. The participating artists in Debate #1 included: Marjan Vayghan, Shana Nys Dambrot, Micol Hebron, Marissa Mercado, Michele Jaquis, Rosalyn Myles, Carol McDowell, Marcus Miceli, Juna Amano, Trinidad Ruiz, Beth Peterson; a socially-engaged lunch was provided by Portable City Projects with Jules Rochielle and Flora Kao.

Jerri Allyn has an MA in Art and Community from Goddard College (VT). Allyn creates site-oriented, interactive installations and performance art events that become a part of public life. The Artist Educator often collaborates, working extensively with new art genres. Allyn is a co-founding member of The Waitresses and Sisters of Survival, public performance art groups. Internationally exhibited, she has received a Rockefeller Foundation Residency, Italy; an International Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fellowship, Mexico; NY State Council on the Arts, LA Department of Cultural Affairs, and National Endowment for the Arts grants, among others.

Inez S. Bush, M.A. in Education, Leadership and Change, and BFA in Graphic Design, is an entrepreneur, creative director, graphic designer, trained facilitator and coach. Currently an Arts Consultant, she guides school districts in arts education implementation by developing and implementing integrated arts curricula, arts programs and professional development for educators. Ms. Bush is also co-founder, CEO and Creative Director of Gramercy Partners, Inc., an award-winning marketing, communications and design firm. Her thesis and lifework is focused on identifying the key to sustaining arts education and arts integrative methods in educational practices.

Metabolic Studio Public SalonGabriella SalomonFriday, August 13, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-08-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

Intuitive Chefing; the art and science of simple salads

In this salon we will explore and learn about the art and science of making salads. We will begin with a brief overview of raw foods from a flexitarian perspective, including what ingredients, tools, and resources are essential for a healthy diet and lifestyle. Then I will share my secrets to making salads more creative and delicious, as well as demonstrate a recipe (or 2 if we have time) for a dressing that will bring new life into your salad bowl.

Gabriella Salomon, aka Raw Mama, is a certified Spiritual Live Foods Instructor, aspiring nutritionist, and a new member of the Metabolic Studio team. She trained at the Tree of Life Rejuevenation Center, one of the world’s leading spiritual, vegan, raw and live food healing centers. Gabriella began working out of her home in Santa Cruz, California, delivering raw lunches to local community members, and quickly made her way into the downtown farmers market through a unique and innovative business model for a food collective. Currently, she works for the Metabolic Studio as the kitchen manager of the Strawberry Flag Project at the West VA hospital. There she works with veterans to bring healthy food to the table and share alternative ways of creating community around healing nutrition.

Metabolic Studio Public SalonLeslie GersicoffFriday, August 6, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-08-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Fair Trade, Sweatfree Labor and What We Can All Do to Help End Slavery in Manufacturing

How slave labor is "employed"/procured and how to determine certified slave-free production chain - Leslie Gersicoff
El Monte and the birth of the anti-slavery sweatfree movement in the U.S. - Taja McKinney Zisler

Current statistics about slave labor around the globe and at home in the U.S. - Jerilyn Stapleton

More major sweatshop cases in the U.S. (eg. American Samoa) affecting all Americans - Taja McKinney Zisler

Los Angeles Sweatfree Commission/National Consortium and action post card campaign - Floyd Glen-Lambert

CA supply chain bill and and action each person can take - Vanessa Lanza

Resources on where to buy sweatfree products - Taja McKinney Zisler

Leslie Gersicoff is the Executive Director of the Jewish Labor Committee, a social justice organization formed over 75 years ago to bring trade unionists and others out of Nazi Europe's threat of slave labor and death camps. Its current program of educating labor and the general community about the possible signs of human trafficking is aimed at reducing and eliminating slavery in American labor. Leslie chairs LANES, the Los Angeles Network to End Slavery, a coalition of outreach and service groups working to end slavery in Los Angeles County. LANES works closely with CAST, Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, to find and restore victims of human trafficking to a healthy life. She holds a B.A. in English Literature and is working, proving there is some link between fiction and reality.

Jerilyn Stapleton is the JLC WR Project Director to End Human Trafficking in American Labor. She is involved with the current creation of a Federal Department of Peace and is very active in NOW and coalitions to end Domestic Violence. Her other affiliations include Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Women’s Committee, American Federation of Television and Radio Artist AFTRA Women’s Committee, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Task Force for Universal Healthcare, Women in Film WIF, CLUW, NWPC.

As CAST’s Volunteer Coordinator Taja McKinney Zisler is responsible for recruiting and managing more than 50 active volunteers who assist with all areas of CAST’s mission. Taja also organizes and runs a 40-hour comprehensive trafficking training program for volunteers held three times per year. Volunteers at CAST answer our 24-hour hotline, assist survivors in our shelter and accompany clients to appointments, provide interpretation (in 16 languages), and provide administrative, outreach and legal support. Taja is also responsible for creating CAST student chapters at universities around the greater Los Angeles area and raising awareness about trafficking through outreach initiatives, community presentations and trainings.
Taja holds a Masters degree in International Social Development from University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and a BA in International Studies from Boston College. Prior to joining CAST, Taja worked for 4 years in the field of humanitarian relief and development, as a high school teacher both in the United States and Bahamas.

For more information, visit the CAST website and JLC WR.

Metabolic Studio Public SalonLuis ItuarteFriday, July 30, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-07-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Transformation of Tijuana Through the Arts

How artists and independent art centers are making a difference

The role of Southern California

Consequences in the rest of Mexico

A founding member of Canada’s Artists at City Hall and the street art coalition Alley Art, artist, designer and curator Luis Ituarte has been Director of Cultural Activities for The Olvera Street Merchants Association; art teacher at Plaza de la Raza, and The Junior Arts Center in Hollywood; Programs Coordinator and curator at the Lankershim Art Center and Director of Art in the Park with the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department (LACAD).

In addition to being a founding member of the Graffiti Arts Coalition and Urbanos L.A., he is a member of Tijuana Cultural Think Tank El Foro Cultural Ciudadano (FOCUC) and a member of San Diego-based arts organization Public Address. Now retired from LACAD, he consults with organizations on both sides of the border, Luis serves as President of COFAC Mexico and Co-founder/Director of Tijuana’s La Casa del Tunel Art Center.

Metabolic Studio Public SalonRick MillerFriday, July 23, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-07-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

The LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design: A Metabolic Pecha Kucha

The pecha kucha format (20 seconds per slide X 20 slides per presentation) tends toward a rapid-fire staccato of diverse ideas, interests, and projects. In our Metabolic Studio salon, we plan to retain the volume of new thoughts and concepts thrown before us, but to slow the pace at which they are digested by providing greater time and space in which audience and presenters can discuss the material. We are effectively blurring the line between presenter and audience as presenters are drawn from the long-standing audience of Metabolic salon attendees.

Rick Miller is a cultural geographer researching urban landscapes, both abroad, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia as well as locally in Los Angeles. The LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design has been operating pecha kucha events in LA since 2004.

Metabolic Studio Public SalonFrances DinkelspielFriday, July 16, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-07-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California

When Isaias Hellman arrived in Los Angeles in 1859, it was more Mexican pueblo than American city. Hellman started as a dry goods clerk and rose to become Los Angeles's most successful banker and businessman. He lent Harrison Gray Otis the funds to gain control of the Los Angeles Times, Edward Doheny the money to find oil, and Henry Huntington the backing to build the region's extensive trolley service. Hellman donated the land for the founding of USC and controlled the city's private water company until 1901. By the first decade of the 2oth century he was president of Wells Fargo Bank and controlled more than $100 million in capital. Come hear the story of the man who indelibly shaped Los Angeles.

Frances Dinkelspiel is an award winning journalist who writes frequently for the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times called her bestselling book, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman, "impressively researched and engagingly told."

Image: Isaias Hellman, courtesy of Frances Dinkelspiel

More Information:
www.francesdinkelspiel.com, www.towersofgold.com

Metabolic Studio Public SalonMichael WilkenFriday, July 9, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-07-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

Native Peoples of Baja California and the Creation of New Spaces for Cultural Revitalization

Baja California, Mexico is a land of remote and rugged coasts, mountains, and deserts only a few hours from downtown Los Angeles. For thousands of years, native peoples have made their homes in the peninsula’s unique landscapes; hunting, gathering and fishing in annual cycles of movement. Through knowledge of the natural world passed on over generations, they have learned to interact with local plants, animals and natural habitats in ways that have provided them with food, medicine, tools and shelter. They have developed technologies for the production of basketry, pottery, bows and arrows, cordage and carrying nets, stone tools and housing.

Today, Baja California’s artisans and environmental specialists are finding new value in the expertise inherited from previous generations, as they are invited to teach their skills at US reservations, museums, state parks and universities. Traditional arts, originally made for use in daily life, have evolved into valuable art objects and prized trade items that embody the region’s indigenous culture and history. This multi-media presentation uses photographs, music and lively narrative to show how Native Baja Californians are creating new spaces for the revitalization of the original cultures and languages of this land. Learn about how Mexican and US volunteers are collaborating in the creation of the Tecate Community Museum, an innovative new space for indigenous culture.

Michael Wilken is an anthropologist specializing in indigenous peoples and the native environments of Baja California. He has documented traditional lifeways of the Kumiai and Paipai peoples, and has developed lifelong collaborative relationships with many indigenous artists and cultural authorities, helping to promote sustainable livelihoods and cultural revitalization. His writings have been published in both academic journals and popular magazines such as News from Native California. Wilken lectures in American Indian Studies at San Diego State University where he is also a student in the Masters program in Anthropology. He is currently collaborating with the non-profit organizations Corredor Histórico CAREM and Fundación La Puerta to create the Tecate Kumiai Museum, set to open in fall of 2010.

Image courtesy Michael Wilken

Metabolic Studio Public SalonRobby Herbst & Katie BachlerFriday, July 2, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-07-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

A Map For An Other LA: Post-Politics or Otherwise

This past winter the Llano Del Rio Collective released it’s first Guide, “A Map For An Other LA”. This guide highlights projects within Los Angeles that act as if they constitute an other possible city; one whose ethics are based on sharing, cooperation, creativity, land economic and food justice. Post-politics by some is described as the progression from party based, policy driven, activity towards action based autonomous action. This Salon will explore Llano Del Rio Collective map and the ideas which inspired the project, as well as the remaining questions concerning autonomy within public space.

Robby Herbst is an agent of the Llano Del Rio Group who recently produced A Map For An Other LA. This is the first guide published by the Llano Del Rio Group in what will be a series of provisional publications aiming to instigate the expansion of the social and political imaginations of Los Angeles. The next Llano Del Rio Guide will look at attempts by individuals to intervene in the functioning of the city through the creation of temporary or permanent “scores”. He is a recipient of a Warhol Foundation Artist Writers Grant. Currently his artwork can be seen in the Berlin at the NGBK in a group show, titled in German, Theater of Peace. He is an adjunct professor of New Genres Art at USC and a faculty member in Goddard College’s MFA in Interdisciplinary Art.

Katie Bachler drew the Map For An Other LA. She is an educator focused on the intricacies of nature and possibilities of alternative economies in Los Angeles. She recently co-curated a beet-in (celebration of the beet) at her studio space in Highland Park. She makes gardens, dances with Bodycity, and just received her Masters from USC's Art in the Public Sphere program.

Visit the Llano Del Rio website
Image: Another LA Map, courtesy Llano Del Rio Collective

Farmlab Public SalonPaul K. ChappellFriday, June 25, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-06-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Why World Peace is Possible and How We Can Achieve It

Like most Americans, I grew up thinking that peace was a naive dream. In this talk, I explain how I learned at West Point and in the military that peace is possible, and how we can take steps toward achieving it. I will also explain what waging peace means and how, in the nuclear age, waging peace is required to ensure the survival of humanity and protect our planet. We all can create positive change in the world, and now is the best time to begin.

Some topics I will discuss include:

- Are human beings naturally violent?

- Why does war happen?

- Why do people join the military?

- How do armies make people fight?

- How is warfare changing in the 21st century?

- Why are the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. more important than ever?

- What does waging peace mean?

- What can we all do to end war, save our planet, and make a difference?

Paul K. Chappell graduated from West Point in 2002. He served in the army for seven years, was deployed to Baghdad, and left active duty in November 2009 as a Captain. He is the author of Will War Ever End?: A Soldier’s Vision of Peace for the 21st Century and The End of War: How Waging Peace Can Save Humanity, Our Planet, and Our Future (May 2010). He lives in Santa Barbara, California, where he is serving as the Peace Leadership Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is working on his third book, Peaceful Revolution, and he speaks throughout the country to colleges, high schools, veterans groups, churches, and activist organizations.

Note on the cover image: The sculpture shown is The Triumph of Napoleon in 1810 by Jean-Pierre Cortot, part of L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The Romans used laurel wreaths to celebrate military conquest. This sculpture shows Napoleon being crowned with such a wreath at the height of his power. Triumph depicts the glorification of war, the leaders who drag countries into war, and the celebration of death that disregards the soldiers and civilians killed during war.

Further Information: www.paulkchappell.com

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: www.wagingpeace.org

Image: Courtesy Paul K. Chappell

Metabolic Studio Public SalonOrchid BlackFriday, June 18, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-06-11T09:57:00.000-07:00

Oak our Mother, Acorns our Food: Preparing Acorns to Eat

Acorns have long been a food staple of Northern Hemisphere peoples for whom gathering and preparing them was an important communal task. In that spirit of sharing work and wisdom, join native plant expert Orchid Black for her introduction to the history and culture of this highly nutritious food. In a hands-on workshop we will identify different oak species, leach and grind flour, and eat yummy acorn cornbread.

Orchid is a garden designer and owner of Pitcher Sage Design, which offers native plant consulting, habitat creation and sustainable design services to the greater Los Angeles area. Orchid writes and lectures about native plants, water-saving strategies, and sustainable gardening, and is currently teaching Sustainable Garden Practice at UCLA Extension.

PLEASE NOTE: Because this salon comprises a talk and workshop it will last longer than usual, ending around 2.30pm

Image: Shelled Acorns in a Pine Needle Bowl Handmade By Jim Otterstrom, 2007. Courtesy Jim Otterstrom

Further information: http://nativesanctuary.wordpress.com

Metabolic Studio Public SalonDenny ZaneFriday, June 11, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-06-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

It’s Time to Move LA

Denny Zane, founder and executive director of Move LA, will provide a presentation and lead a discussion regarding the creation of the business, labor, environmental coalition that led to the successful Measure R campaign of November, 2008, and the subsequent development the “30/10 Plan.”

Measure R, a ½ cent sales tax increase to fund transportation improvements was approved by 68% of Los Angeles County voters. It will raise nearly $40 billion over the next 30 years and enable Los Angeles County to develop a modern public transit system. The “30/10 Plan” is a proposal led by mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa and Move LA, which seeks federal loans to enable our community to accelerate that development to 10 years.

When LA County voters approved Measure R by nearly 68% it began an historic transformation for our community. Because nearly 70% of Measure R funds will be invested in public transit projects and services, including the Wilshire Blvd. “subway to the sea,” it will enable a transformation of Los Angeles County from an entirely auto-centered community to a community with real transportation choices, including subway, light rail, expanded bus service, as well as bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

The “30/10 Plan” will see that transformation accelerated from 30 years to 10 years. The concept began not long after the passage of Measure R. Since that time Mayor Villaraigosa and Move LA have conducted a coordinated effort to build support among local constituencies and in the federal government to facilitate low cost loans that will enable these projects to be developed on an accelerated basis. This “30/10 Plan” has gained widespread support in Washington, DC, and has found a champion in Senator Barbara Boxer in addition to the support of virtually the entire Los Angeles County Congressional delegation.

What will the Measure R transformation mean for Los Angeles County? What are the prospects for a successful “30/10 plan”? What do we have to do to keep it on track? These and other questions will be the topic of this presentation and discussion.

More about Denny Zane

(Image: LA County Measure R maps)

Further information: www.movela.org

Facebook: search for Move LA

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:M.A. GreensteinFriday, June 4, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-05-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

Beautiful! Sticky! Plastic!

(Why putting your brain/mind back into your body matters now more than ever before!)

Immersive, connective, regenerative, the embodied brain/mind is a beautiful thing: It lights up like a Christmas tree when we feel most alive, engaged and active in the world; it's lights go out when we die. In this salon, publisher, researcher, somatic tracker and arts advocate M. A. Greenstein discusses the neuroscience research that has long inspired her to set up an 21st century, whole-brain learning and consulting institute dedicated to improving lives with embodied, "brain-aware” thinking and creative inquiry. The goal of the institute? To insure the future practice of more vivid, sustainable and open source design thinking and problem solving in facing the challenges of day-to-day urban life.

M. A. Greenstein, an internationally recognized commentator, researcher, educator and coach on best and future practices for "opening the doors of perception." Based in L. A. with networked alliances throughout the Asia Pacific region, she founded The George Greenstein Institute and the future-focused e-zine BODIES IN SPACE to advance high level strategy in designing and adapting creative and holistic learning systems as well as to encourage progressive leadership in related issues of neurotech innovation and designing sustainable lifestyles. Dedicated to BIG THINKING energized by visionary "sci-art" and anchored by S.I.T. (Somatic Intelligence Training), Dr. G is a whole-brain systems generator who privileges "interoception" as a search engine for catapulting & mapping best design images and ideas. An Adjunct Associate Professor at Art Center College of Design, Dr. G. is also member of TED, Mindshare.la, The Neuroleadership Institute and in alliance with the Society for Neuroscience and the Neurotechnology Industry Organization. Dr. G. online: DrG@Twitter.com.

http://bodiesinspace.com

http://greensteingroup.com

http://greensteininstitute.com

Photo courtesy: Van J. Wedeen, MD: www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos/people/showPerson.php?people_id=196

Metabolic Studio Public SalonLinda DukeFriday, May 28, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-05-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Museum of Wonder

This program explores the idea of museums, especially art museums, as places to have extraordinary experiences. More and more, museums are measuring their success in terms of facts or information remembered by people after a gallery visit. Are there other take-aways that, while harder to measure, hold more value for people or even empower them? Could schools learn something from these less-recognized museum take-aways and be inspired to enlarge definitions of “learning”? What value lies in attempts to find words for the ineffable or for what, at least at first, seems to lie beyond language? We will look at images, listen to visitor voices, and share perspectives as we consider wondering as a positive experience, far from the right-answer paradigm.

Linda Duke studied and taught Asian art history before art museum education became the locus of her work. She has led education and public program efforts at Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois, the UCLA Hammer Museum, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. She is especially interested in different learning, including what is sometimes called learning disability, and the relationship between visual experience and language.

Above: Ole Worm's Cabinet of Curiosities from Museum Wormianum, 1655. Smithsonian Museum.

Metabolic Studio Public Salon: Karen Atkinson Friday, May 21, 2010 @ Noon Free Admission

2010-05-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

10 Steps to Getting Your Sh*t Together

Karen Atkinson will present various steps every artist should know in order to have their sh*t together, using the software she created for her artist run company. As a follow up to the presentation, Karen will hang around to answer any questions.

Karen Atkinson is an artist with a wide variety of experience that includes curating and exhibiting in multiple countries, guest editing publications, producing independent projects and public art. She has taught for 30 years, 22 at CalArts. Karen’s company Getting Your Sh*t Together has a professional practices blog, tons of free information on the website, an Artist Manual publication and a Teaching Manual for teaching the business of art. She has spoken at numerous conferences and events.

Further information: www.gyst-ink.com

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:Lev ManovichFriday, May 14, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-05-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

How to read 1000000 Manga pages?

Visualizing patterns in art, cinema, TV, animation, games, comics, user-generated content and mass media

Over the last 20 years, information visualization has become a common tool in science and also a growing presence in the arts and culture at large. However, the use of visualization in humanities is still in its infancy. In 2007 we established a new lab (softwarestudies.com) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and California Institute for Telecommunication and Information (Calit2) to focus on the analysis and visualization of patterns in large sets of visual data - art, photography, film, animation, motion graphics, video games, magazines, web sites, and other visual media.

I will show how use of visualization allows us to ask new kinds of questions about cultural evolution and history and will show a number of current research projects - including the analysis and visualization of patterns across 1,074,790 Manga pages (912 titles).

Cultural Analytics: http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/09/cultural-analytics.html
Software studies initiative: softwarestudies.com
Visualizations: flickr.com/photos/culturevis/

Lev Manovich's books include Software Takes Command (released under CC license, 2008), Soft Cinema: Navigating the Database (The MIT Press, 2005), and The Language of New Media (The MIT Press, 2001) which is hailed as "the most suggestive and broad ranging media history since Marshall McLuhan." He has written 100 articles which have been reprinted over 400 times in many languages. Manovich is a Professor in Visual Arts Department, University of California - San Diego, a Director of the Software Studies Initiative at California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), a Professor at European Graduate School, and a Visiting Research Professor at De Montfort University (UK).

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:Flora Gil Krisiloff, Mary Marx, Libby BoyceFriday, May 7, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-04-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

Project 50 and Growing:

Housing the Most Vulnerable Chronically Homeless Persons in Skid Row

Los Angeles has long been known for its large number of homeless persons living on Skid Row. Within this group, the County of Los Angeles identified the most vulnerable, chronically homeless individuals, both veteran and non-veteran. In order to best address this problem, PROJECT 50 was created. Traditionally, services are available for the homeless from an assortment of agencies on or servicing the Skid Row area. Each, however, with their own intake forms and procedures often times further disenfranchising the homeless.

The purpose of Project 50 was to identify, then rapidly place into permanent supportive housing, the 50 most vulnerable of the chronically homeless people who have been sleeping on the streets of Skid Row the longest. These are the people practically everyone said were “service resistant” and would never get off the streets. An extensive collaboration, including the County and City of Los Angeles, Common Ground of New York, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Los Angeles Police Dept., Probation, Public Counsel, Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, Skid Row Housing Trust, non profits and the VA was formed.

Under the direction and with the spearheading of Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, 24 agencies/ organizations/ offices joined together to demonstrate that vulnerable chronically homeless persons are willing to and can rapidly move from the “Streets to Home.” An extensive multi-agency collaboration, utilizing a housing first approach coupled with an Integrated Supportive Services Team was implemented. The project’s initial phase included the creation of a registry according to mortality risk and length of homelessness. The innovative Vulnerability Index Survey tool developed by Common Ground was administered. Frequent characteristics of the vulnerable chronically homeless clients of Project 50 included higher utilization of emergency rooms and hospitals, as well as multiple arrests leading to incarceration in the LA County jails. Nine out of the 50 clients were identified as Veterans.

Project 50 Background, Outcomes, Implications and References HERE
Further information about the salon presenters HERE

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:Jeanine Centuori, Paulette Singley & Woodbury University StudentsFriday, April 30, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-04-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Guerilla Urbanism

Woodbury University architecture students present their “Guerilla Actions” from this spring’s studio “Guerilla Urbanism.”

The phrase “guerilla urbanism” carries with it certain inherent contradictions regarding the ability to produce a guerilla act—improvisational and unsanctioned by its very nature—as urban design—a protracted and planned process requiring the consent of myriad stakeholders. These two unnatural partners nonetheless offer a useful pairing, expanding upon and mitigating each others strengths and weaknesses--immediacy as opposed to long-term planning, action versus contemplation, individual agency in opposition to compromising with public agencies. Both forms of public intervention, though nearly adversarial in their processes, proffer an idealistic promise to positively transform public space. To what extent can we take lessons from guerilla activities in the formation of an urban design proposal? In our era of sustainable consciousness and the danger of green washing undermining this utopian agenda, examining the potential of activating our engagement with the environment emerges as a key factor in transforming the planet.

Jeanine Centuori is a Professor and Director of the Center for Community Research and Design in the School of Architecture at Woodbury University. A current outreach project examines alternative ADA solutions for educational facilities. This work is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Past projects have received national awards including a PA Award and a Best of Category for Environments from ID Magazine. Jeanine is also principal of UrbanRock Design (located at the Brewery Arts Complex), a practice involving public art, environments, and housing projects. The practice has completed public art projects in museums, public facilities, and parks around the country. They recently received a CA AIA Award for “Conditional Reflections,” a public art project in Denver, CO.

Paulette Singley is a Professor in the School of Architecture at Woodbury University in Los Angeles, California. She co-edited Eating Architecture and Architecture: In Fashion and has been published in Log, ANY, Assemblage and several critical architectural anthologies. She received a Ph.D in architectural history and theory from Princeton University, an M.A. in the history of architecture and urbanism from Cornell University, and a B.Arch from the University of Southern California.

Woodbury University Students: Vanessa Banos, Monica Bello, Stephanie Byrd, Brando Cohen, Oscar Corletto, Wilson Diaz, Hiep Do, Cody Glen, Edgar Gonzalez, Liliana Gonzalez, Alma Jauregui, Pablo Martinez, Kevin Montgomery, Fidelina Ramirez, Andriena Raventos, Danielle Reimer, Giovanni Salas, Mayra Sanchez, Sara Shakib, Jason Tosatto

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:David WilsonFriday, April 23, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-04-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

Nikolai Federov, Konstantine Tsiolkovsky and Dogs in Space - The Roots of the Soviet Space Effort

A telling of the tale of the deep origins of the Russian/Soviet Space Program through motion picture and images including the rarely seen notebooks of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky.

David Wilson is the founding director of the Museum of Jurassic Technology. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1974 and opened The Museum of Jurassic Technology in 1988 at its current Culver City, California location. Since its inception, the Museum has expanded both in terms of its public offerings, through exhibitions and associated programs, as well as in its public recognition and reputation. The MJT has exhibited internationally and Mr. Wilson has lectured throughout North America and Europe. In addition, Mr. Wilson has produced seven independent films, most recently under the auspices of MJT in conjunction with Kabinet, an arts based cultural institution located in St. Petersburg, Russia . The latest of their collaborative efforts is entitled Bol’shoe Sovietskoe Zatmenie - The Great Soviet Eclipse. Over the past decade, the Museum and Mr. Wilson have been honored through numerous grants and awards. In 2001 the MacArthur Foundation granted him a Fellowship in recognition of his accomplishments at The Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Image: Gregor Garzenko with Belka and Strelka, August, 1960

Image Courtesy: Museum of Jurassic Technology

Further Information: www.mjt.org

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:Sue Bell YankFriday, April 16, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-04-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

From Sculpture to Practice:

Tracing the Development of the Social through Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys was a well-known albeit controversial historical figure who was able to encapsulate his paradigm-shifting work in a few useful phrases - most notably, the phrase “social sculpture,” which illustrates Beuys’ idea that activities which structure and shape society are a form of art no longer confined to a material object or artifact. From this radical notion (and buttressed by decades of expanded, non-object based conceptual practice) arose a variety of practices engaged in social and spatial issues through participatory, research-based, and collaborative processes. Using Beuys as a jumping-off point, this salon will survey the notion of "social practice" or "participatory artwork" from its historical roots to its diverse contemporary forms.

Sue Bell Yank is the Assistant Director of Academic Programs at the Hammer Museum, and was intimately involved in the formation and conceptualization of the Watts House Project. She writes frequently about social practice on her blog and has published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest and Mammut Magazine. Yank graduated from the USC Masters of Public Art Studies program in 2008.

Image: Joseph Beuys, Joseph Beuys's Action Piece, 26-6 February 1972; presented as part of seven exhibitions held at the Tate Gallery 24 Feburary - 23 March 1972 © Tate Archive Photographic Collection

Further information: www.suebellyank.com

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:Greg Horos & Melissa RosenFriday, April 9, 2010, NoonFree Admission

2010-04-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

The Aesthetics of Sustainable Retail

(Or: How to Fit a Full Service Organic Deli, a Wine and Beer Shop and a Natural Grocery in Under 500 Square Feet of Retail Space)

How do small retailers address the desires of the individual and the needs of the community through limited means? What resources can budding entrepreneurs use to take their sustainable vision into brick and mortar reality? How can a full service organic deli, a wine and beer shop and a natural grocery fit in less than 500 square feet of retail space?

Greg Horos and Melissa Rosen, the founders and co-owners of eco-convenience store Locali, will address these questions while exploring the crucial role of small business in the "greening" of Los Angeles.

Located in the Franklin Village section of Hollywood, Locali offers natural and organic alternatives to conventional convenience store fare in addition to a full service deli. Coming upon its first anniversary, Locali has experienced a multitude of triumphs and tribulations doing business in Los Angeles. With the goals of providing loving customer service, mouthwatering healthy food, and education about the power of the citizen’s purchase dollar, Locali buys organic and from its neighbors.

Greg Horos and Melissa Rosen, are a husband and wife team equally passionate about food, wellness and sustainability issues. Greg Horos' background includes careers in business development and marketing along with years in radio as a creative services director and on-air personality. Melissa Rosen is a writer, restaurateur and health counselor with a nutrition consulting practice, Libra Nutrition & Wellness. Together, they came up with the idea for a convenience store experience that fits 21st century concerns. They opened Locali with the desire to make healthy and planet friendly purchases easily accessible to their community. Their hope is to encourage other small businesses and entrepreneurs to put social responsibility and environmental stewardship above the bottom line.

Further Information: Locali

Image: Locali, courtesy Melissa Rosen

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:Sam EastersonFriday, April 2, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-03-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Museum of Animal Perspectives: Crowdsourcing Remotely Sensed Wildlife Imagery

This presentation will focus on the history and future of the Museum of Animal Perspectives (MAP). The Museum of Animal Perspectives collects and displays wildlife imagery that has been captured using remote sensing cameras. Through the presentation and interpretation of this imagery, the MAP endeavors to expand the public's capacity to empathize with animals and plants.

MAP founder Sam Easterson is a video naturalist. Included among the museums that have exhibited his work are the Whitney Museum of American Art (Biennial), the Walker Art Center, the New Museum and the International Center of Photography. In addition to working as a video naturalist, Sam Easterson has also held staff positions at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and at the Te Tapa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand. Most recently, Easterson worked as a Senior Producer at the Royal Ontario Museum, where he developed video content for the ROM’s new permanent Schad Gallery of Biodiversity.

Above: Burrowing Owl In Burrow

Courtesy: Sam Easterson/Museum of Animal Perspectives

Further Information

Science Friday
New York Times Lens
MAP Site

Metabolic Studio Public Salon:Juliano BrotmanFriday, March 26, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-03-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

New Perfect Food is Here:

A way to finally do something about all that green talk!

Juliano Brotman began working alongside his father, a chef, at the age of eight. By ten years old he was cooking at full gourmet status, able to make any of his father’s one-of-a-kind creations. Although constantly cooking dishes of butter, oil and flesh, even at a young age he realized that flesh and fat were just the medium; it was all about the spices – “edible alchemy!”

After wilderness encounters in Palm Springs at the age of fifteen, Brotman became a strict vegan. Health food chains wouldn’t be around for years to come however and, as he explains: “there was nothing! I was a raw fooder and I didn’t even know it until I started having to explain.

At 18 Brotman moved to Chicago where he found some raw fooders eating simple whole foods. There was, he says “only wheatgrass, fruitarians and salad-tarians. Even before I was a vegetarian and vegan, I followed in my father’s footsteps of not simply cooking, but creating. I always made wonderful new creations that blew people’s minds! When I turned RAW these amazing recipes continued! Everyone is genius at something!” In the years that followed, the RAW chef saw a shift in health consciousness – organic food became more accessible, vegetarian food became a menu option – and he moved to San Francisco. Here he found the city’s raw food group and attended their first raw potluck party. “It was a large, eclectic crowd, all interested in what raw food could do for them. But the potluck spread consisted of wheatgrass, fruit, fruit salads, many salads, bowls of dried fruits, nuts and seeds, and rejuvelac.” In contrast when Juliano’s food showed up – pizzas in 3 flavors, burritos, ice cream and chocolate avocado pudding – everyone went crazy!

In August 1994, Juliano opened RAW in San Francisco – the world’s first raw cuisine restaurant – and in 1999 he published RAW, the UNcook BOOK, the world’s first raw food cookbook of ‘Decadent Foods’. “Juliano”, he says, “has changed the world!” "There have never been so many flavors going into my mouth at one sitting", says the Vegetarian Times.

Click for more information

Above: Raw dishes at Planet Raw, images courtesy of Juliano Brotman

Farmlab Public SalonVan Zan FraterFriday, March 19, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-03-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

Jesus is my Homeboy - the real story

You may think you know Jesus is my Homeboy. It's the image you've seen on tee-shirts, hats and badges. It's the iconic design worn by celebrities too numerous to mention. It’s that shirt you’re wearing right now – but there is much more to Jesus is my Homeboy than just an image.

Jesus is my Homeboy was not developed to make a fashion concern motivated by cashing in on a trend. It is not a calculated ploy to make money; it was born of inspiration gained from life experience. It is now time to tell the real story behind the success of Jesus is my Homeboy.

Van Zan, President and CEO of the Jesus is my Homeboy Foundation Inc., served in the Navy during the Viet Nam War Era. He is an actor, a singer, and has performed with his family music group, “The Fraters”, at, among other places, the Brentwood and Wadsworth Theaters. For 14 years he was a union AFGE local 1061 representative, serving as a Steward, Vice President and Executive Vice President consecutively until 2002. He established the Jesus is my Homeboy Foundation Inc. a non-profit human services organization in 2007 to provide assistance with burial expenses and grief counseling for innocent victims of gang violence. The founder, a victim of gang violence himself, Van Zan has a deep commitment to assisting families and individuals in this sudden and unexpected time of crisis. Other services to be provided in the future.

Further Information: www.jesusismyhomeboy.org or www.jesusismyhomeboy.com

Farmlab Public SalonRobert BirchardFriday, March 12, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-03-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

HOORAY FOR EDENDALE!

A celebration of the birth and early growth of the movie industry in Los Angeles. Award winning film editor, writer and film industry historian Robert S. Bichard presents over 100 images exploring the first movie studios in L.A--which were established a century ago. The Selig Polyscope, Keystone, Pathe, Mixville and Norbig studios constituted L.A.’s first “Studio Row” in the 1910’s, and Hooray For Edendale! will take you inside the gates of these long-vanished pioneer film factories. This is a must attend event for anyone interested in the history of Los Angeles and the movies. This program was recently presented at the Hollywood Heritage Museum and the Los Angeles as Subject Archives Bazaar.

Image: Mack Sennett directing "Stolen Magic" (Keystone, 1915), Hans Koenekamp is the cameraman. Courtesy: Robert Birchard

Further information: http://www.rsbirchard.com

Farmlab Public SalonRoy A. BrownFriday, March 5, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-02-27T14:37:00.000-08:00

Vet to Vet:

Gladly Teach, Gladly Learn

The mission of Vet to Vet is to serve all veterans, their concerns, and emotional, spiritual, educational, vocational, transitional, real and present needs. We are veterans from every branch of service. We are combat vets and peacetime vets. We come from different backgrounds of every kind. Many of us have experienced the heat of battle and the consequences that often follow. Adjustment for us has not always been easy. That is why we have come together in partnership and cooperation with VA medical centers to offer peer support and education to our fellow veterans.

Vet to Vet is a peer support program that utilizes recovering veterans in a peer capacity to help other veterans. The program is a recovery-based model that involves veterans as both consumers and providers of mental health services. Vet to Vet provides a way for recovering veterans to be able to talk to others who have been through the same or simular experiences. It strives to educate veterans through direct interaction. Vet to Vet also involves consumers and families in orienting the mental health system towards recovery and develops paid positions for veteran(s) within the facility/network to work with mental health leadership in developing peer to peer.

Starting in 2003 with Roy Brown (Director) and Stacey Maruska (VA Liaison), Vet to Vet Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System has grown to be one of the premier Vet to Vet programs in the U.S. It also serves as the national training site for coordinators from across the country.

Further Information: vet2vetca.org

Metabolic Studio Public SalonWes JacksonFriday, February 26, 2010, NoonFree Admission

2010-02-20T12:33:00.000-08:00

We Can Now Solve the World's Oldest Environmental Problem

Wes Jackson, President of The Land Institute (founded in 1976), will describe how, through a combination of genetics/plant breeding and ecology/evolutionary biology, we can save our agricultural soils and waters from erosion and chemical contamination.

Born in 1936 on a farm near Topeka, Kansas, Jackson attended Kansas Wesleyan (B.A Biology, 1958), and went on to study botany (M.A. University of Kansas, 1960) and genetics (Ph.D. North Carolina State University, 1967). He was a professor of biology at Kansas Wesleyan and later established the Environmental Studies program at California State University, Sacramento, where he became a tenured full professor. He resigned that position in 1976.

Dr. Jackson’s writings include both papers and books. His most recent work, The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge, co-edited with William Vitek, was released by University of Kentucky Press in 2008. Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place, also co-edited with William Vitek, was published in 1996. Becoming Native to This Place, 1994, sketches his vision for the resettlement of America's rural communities. Altars of Unhewn Stone appeared in 1987 and Meeting the Expectations of the Land, edited with Wendell Berry and Bruce Colman, was published in 1984. New Roots for Agriculture, 1980, outlines the basis for the agricultural research at The Land Institute.

The work of The Land Institute has been featured extensively in the popular media including The Atlantic Monthly, Audubon, National Geographic, Time Magazine, The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Life magazine named Wes Jackson as one of 18 individuals they predict will be among the 100 "important Americans of the 20th century." In the November 2005 issue, Smithsonian named him one of “35 Who Made a Difference” and in March, 2009 Wes was included in Rolling Stone’s “100 Agents of Change.”

Wes Jackson is a recipient of the Pew Conservation Scholars award (1990), a MacArthur Fellowship (1992), and Right Livelihood Award (Stockholm), known as “Alternative Nobel Prize” (2000). He has received four honorary doctorates and in 2007 received the University of Kansas Distinguished Service Award.
Further Information: The Land Institute

Farmlab Public SalonBuck McGibbony & Yuki Uehara-McGibbonyFriday, February 19, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-02-13T08:36:00.000-08:00

Geocaching – An Adventure Network

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.

This salon will offer you a brief introduction to the technology and practices of Geocaching. We will share a few stories from our adventures while Geocaching and talk about how you can get started yourself. We will introduce you to Geocaching in a simple concise way and you will have the opportunity to go out and discover a Geocache for yourself at the event. Bring a GPS if you have one, but it’s ok if you don’t since we will a few available for use.

Buck McGibbony is a software engineer & computer technician residing with his wife Yuki in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. Buck is currently owner of WiseWerks, a small software development and consulting company. When not tweaking computer programs or running around L.A. fixing printers and hard drives Buck enjoys flying, hiking and traveling.

Yuki Uehara-McGibbony is from Japan and came to Los Angeles in ‘93 to study theatrical lighting. After working for stage productions as a freelancer for over 10 years, she decided to settle down in a cubicle. Now she happily works for a Japanese company as bilingual secretary. Yuki enjoys Geocaching while on vacation and here in Los Angeles.

Farmlab Public SalonMarcos Lutyens & Alessandro MarianantoniFriday, February 12, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-02-09T23:23:00.000-08:00

Parts per million: Phase transitions in awareness

This Salon highlights Marcos Lutyens' and Alessandro Marianantoni's ongoing project CO2morrow, a large scale installation on the facade of the Royal Academy, London, UK in the exhibit eARTh: Art of a changing world. The installation will travel to various National Trust properties in the UK through 2010. The project explores the relationship between public awareness, perception and atmospheric conditions, particularly CO2 levels, and its effects on social and cultural issues.

Marcos Lutyens is an intermedia artist who has exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale of Art and shows curated by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the image Festival in Italy and the the Royal Academy in the United Kingdom. He has often worked with the process of hypnosis to explore the unconscious and associated schema, and collaborated with Matt Mullican, Raimundas Malasauskas and other artists and curators. He recently performed at Artists Space, NYC, Kunstverein, Amsterdam and the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and is involved with continuing explorations into the mind. He engaged in experiments with Dr. V. S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, at the University of California, San Diego to explore the brain's neural pathways in the synesthetic mind. His work with the mind, has lead him to develop events and exhibits that reflect research with specific social or ethnic groups such as the Muxhe, from the Zapotec culture in Southern Mexico.

Building on his investigations into consciousness and social dynamics, Lutyens has worked on large scale projects that involve interactivity, the environment and new technologies. Works include data tracking, feedback from vehicle traffic and pedestrian flows, pollution and air quality levels, brain wave monitoring and other objective factors that are generally invisible to the casual observer, and yet as important to us as the subjective processes of the inner mind.

Alessandro Marianantoni works on projects across different fields: culture, technology, environment and art with a multi-disciplinary approach.He produced several interactive art installations exhibited between Los Angeles and Italy, receiving public and private sponsorships. He earned a degree in Computer Science from the University of L'Aquila, with a thesis on perceptual interfaces at the USC Integrated Media System Center, afterwards he was a researcher at the UCLA REMAP center at the Theater, Film and TV Dept where, across different projects he was able to enrich his research in technology. While based in Los Angeles he often travels to Italy where, with public funding, he started MEDIARS, an Experimental Center focused on Cultural Heritage and Technology. As a program director at MEDIARS he runs the international summer program Art, Technology and Cultural Heritage in the Castle of Contigliano. Over the last 15 years he has designed and developed innovative projects involving music, healthcare and environment.

Further Information: www.co2morrow.net, www.mlutyens.com

Image courtesy Marcos Lutyens

Special Thursday Evening SalonMel ChinThursday, February 11, 2010, 7.00-9.00pmFree

2010-02-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

There is no (a) solution, because there is no (a) problem

Or: Making a 300 Million Dollar Difference with Conceptual

Art in the Age of Disaster and other Repetitive Negativities

Click for more information

Metabolic Studio Public SalonSimon BalmFriday, February 5, 2010, NoonFree Admission

2010-01-29T12:22:00.000-08:00

A Year at the South Pole

Simon Balm will describe his experiences during a year spent at the South Pole conducting astronomical research in one of the coldest and extreme environments on Earth.

A native of London, England, Simon Balm received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Durham in 1988 and his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the University of Sussex in 1992, working with Nobel Prize winning chemist Sir Harold Kroto. After graduate school he spent two years as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow in the UCLA Astronomy Department followed by four years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA where he helped to design, build and install a radio telescope at the geographical South Pole. After several Summer visits to the Antarctic he wintered-over with the telescope at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station during the 1995-1996 season as a scientist with United States Antarctic Program.

Following his work in the Antarctic he spent several years teaching Astronomy as an Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and then joined Santa Monica College as a full time faculty member in the Fall of 2000 where he is currently a Professor of Astronomy and Chemistry in the Department of Earth Sciences. In December of 2006 he traveled to the Antarctic again with renowned Santa Monica artist Lita Albuquerque as the science advisor on the first large-scale art installation to be placed on the continent.

Simon has many interests outside of academia including, hiking, mountaineering, swimming, scuba diving and horse riding. He also runs a small IT consulting business and is a musician, playing the trombone in a local community symphony orchestra.

Image: An aurora over the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station in winter

Courtesy: National Science Foundation

Metabolic Studio Public SalonAnne BrayFriday, January 29, 2010, NoonFree Admission

2010-01-26T15:44:00.000-08:00

Ads or Art or ?

Ad companies want to add 800+ electronic billboards to Los Angeles. Thousands are up illegally in LA. What do we want to do with our public space? To whom will you sell your eyeballs? Is public space best used to pump the economy during global warming? As ads switch from intrusive to inclusive experiences, what is their difference from art? LA City has tried for 2 years to legally distinguish art and ads and has failed to find words. Can you help? Does free speech cover ads? What is zoning? How have other cities presented large scale art and contained ad space? How can the arts in Los Angeles respond to her streets as evocatively as ad companies? Must our city be covered with ads? Why?

MAK Center for Art & Architecture is commissioning over 20 artist billboards in Spring 2010 through its outdoor exhibition How Many Billboards. In advance of the three panel discussions she will be composing moderating for the MAK Center in conjunction with this exhibition, Anne Bray will ponder these questions and more. Sample works will amply illustrate ideas.

Anne Bray is an artist, teacher and Director of Freewaves, a media arts organization in Los Angeles. She developed the concept of the multicultural network of media artists and venues in 1989 and has continued to see the organization through the technological, social and aesthetic changes of the 1990s to now. As an artist she exhibits her work as temporary installations in public sites and art venues combining personal and social positions via video, audio, slides and 3-d screens at gas stations, malls, movie theaters, on TV, in department stores, on billboards, and now wants art to be everywhere. She teaches public art and multimedia at Claremont Graduate University and USC.

Image courtesy of Anne Bray

Chosen as a “Best of Los Angeles Art Month” by ForYourArt

Farmlab Public SalonJ. Eric LynxwilerFriday, January 22, 2010 @ NoonFree Admission

2010-01-18T20:38:00.000-08:00

Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles

The acclaimed Los Angeles history book by J. Eric Lynxwiler and Kevin Roderick, Wilshire Bouelvard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles, tells numerous stories from what has been called the backbone of the city. The Brown Derby, The Ambassador Hotel and Bullock's Wilshire create a holy trinity of our city's culture, but there are other aspects to Wilshire's development that make it a cross section of Los Angeles life. Please join J. Eric Lynxwiler as he shares stories of the Boulevard and historic photos from numerous public and private archives.

J. Eric Lynxwiler is an L.A. native and active member of the Los Angeles Conservancy's Modern Committee who specializes in signage issues. A former board member of the Museum of Neon Art, he still celebrates the city's neon as a guide aboard the museum's famed "Neon Cruise". He co-authored and researched the book "Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles" and leads Miracle Mile walking tours for the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles.

Metabolic Studio Public SalonJoanne PoyourowFriday, January 15, 2010, NoonFree Admission

2009-12-16T16:00:00.000-08:00

A Resilient Los Angeles: What Could It Be Like?

The Transition movement is a worldwide network of grassroots communities and neighborhoods that are preparing for a post-petroleum future. They're doing this by growing local resilience, our ability to flex and adapt to great change. And it has been said that their approach at times looks more like a party than a protest march.

Climate change plus the end of cheap oil are converging to create a potent stew. Add economic contraction, and forecasts show that our future will be vastly different from what we have today. Yet if we plan ahead with creativity and imagination, the future with less oil could be even better than what we have now.

Through the Transition approach, we look at each aspect of our current lifestyles (food, water, transportation, energy, money, livelihoods, etc.) and begin to redesign it so that our local communities can become self-sufficient and resilient.

What might a resilient Los Angeles look like? As part of this salon, you'll be invited to share your vision.

Joanne Poyourow of Transition Los Angeles will explain the initial steps of the Transition approach, and update you on all the Transition-type activities blossoming throughout the greater Los Angeles basin.

Joanne Poyourow is the initiator of the Transition Los Angeles City Hub. Over the past year, Transition initiatives have formed in Culver City, Mar Vista, and South Bay, with groups under formation in Santa Monica, Inglewood and the San Fernando Valley. Joanne is the co-founder of the Environmental Change-Makers, a community group in the Westchester/LAX area that pioneered Transition ideas for many areas of Los Angeles. For five years, the Change-Makers have offered free public sessions that highlight environmental solutions, from bicycle transportation to local foods to alternative finances. Joanne designed the beautiful and prolific Community Garden in Westchester, which is a teaching garden as well as a supplier of fresh produce to the local food pantry. Joanne is a homeschooling mother of two, and helped found one of the LA basin's major homeschooling support organizations. She is the author of two books: Legacy, a novel which envisions a positive environmental future in Los Angeles, and Environmental Change-Making, a nonfiction how-to book on making that positive future come about. Joanne was a CPA in public practice for 13 years, and is quite proud of her intricate knitting projects.

Transition LA's Website: http://www.transitionla.org /

Image Courtesy: Christine Budzowski

Metabolic Studio Public SalonNance KlehmFriday, December 11, 2009, NoonFree Admission

2009-12-04T16:52:00.000-08:00

Everything Comes into this World Hungry:

Soilmaking and Building

There are three fundamentals that guide this time of descent into northern-hemisphere darkness. The winter season is one of decline and decomposition, activity below ground and general shadowiness. The fundamentals that guide us are:

Everything comes into this world hungry.

Everything wants to be digested.

Everything flows towards soil.

This salon will discuss various methods of transforming what is perceived as waste and turning it into soil or building/healing existing soil.

Nance Klehm is a radical ecologist, designer, urban forager, grower and teacher. Her solo and collaborative work focuses on creating participatory social ecologies in response to a direct experience of a place. She grows and forages much of her own food in a densely urban area. She actively composts food, landscape and human waste. She only uses a flush toilet when no other option is available. She designed and currently manages a large scale, closed-loop vermicompost project at a downtown homeless shelter where cafeteria food waste becomes 4 tons of worm castings a year which in turn is used as the soil that grows food to return to the cafeteria.

She works with Simparch to create and integrate soil and water systems at their Clean Livin’ at C.L.U.I.’s Wendover, UT site. She uses decomposition, filtration and fermentation to transform post-consumer materials generated onsite (solid and liquid human waste, grey water from sinks and shower, food, cardboard and paper) as well as waste materials gathered offsite (casino food waste and grass clippings, horse manure from stables, spent coffee grounds) into biologically rich soil. The resulting waste-sponge systems sustain or aid: a habitat of native species of plants, digestion of the high salinity of the indigenous soils and the capturing, storing and using of precipitation.

She has shown and taught in Mexico, Australia, England, Scandinavia, Canada, the Caribbean, and the United States. Her regular column WEEDEATER appears in ARTHUR magazine.

Read Nance's interview in the current Time magazine

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1945764,00.html

Nance's Website: www.spontaneousvegetation.net

Image Courtesy: Nance Klehm

Anabolic Monument Flower Harvest

2009-11-30T16:55:00.000-08:00

Friday December 4,

9am - noon: Harvest in the Anabolic Monument

nonn - 2pm: Join us for the Metabolic Studio Public Salon + Lunch

2pm - 4pm: Harvest continues in the Anabolic Monument

Saturday December 5

8am - 1p: Harvest in the Anabolic Monumentm

Join us in gathering the flowers in the Anabolic Monument this weekend.

Bring scissors, clippers, and containers. Take home what you can carry.

Contact Meredith for further information: mb.generator@gmail.com

Metabolic Studio Public SalonT. J. Mairs, C. de Arce, M. Carrasco, T. McKinney Zisler, S. Faxon‐MillsFriday, December 4, 2009 @ Noon

2009-11-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

Human Trafficking in Los Angeles County

a panel organized with the Studio for Southern California History

for the Studio’s current exhibit “Law & Disorder".

What are the most relevant definitions of human trafficking today? What are examples of human trafficking that we may not see but that may surround us? How has the passage of Assembly Bill 22 – the California Trafficking Victims Protection Act – increased our ability to recognize & respond to human trafficking in Los Angeles? How can we protect our daughters? What are the tell tale signs that someone is in a relationship that may lead to prostitution? What else can we do? As individuals? As a community?

Carmen de Arce: Ms. de Arce is a Victim’s Specialist for the greater Los Angeles area for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI works with other local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies and national victim‐based advocacy groups in joint task forces that combine resources and expertise on the issue. Today, the FBI participates in approximately 30 law enforcement task forces and approximately 42 Bureau of Justice Assistance‐sponsored task forces around the nation. The FBI Victim Specialists (along with victims specialists from the US Attorney Offices and/or other non‐government victim assistance service providers) work with human trafficking victims to not only advise them of their rights as victims but also to assure they get the help they need to address their short‐term and long‐term needs—like legal and repatriation services, immigration relief, housing, employment, education, job training, and child care.

Taja McKinney Zisler: Ms. McKinney Zisler is the Volunteer Coordinator for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking. The Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST) is a multi‐ethnic, multi‐lingual human rights organization that has been nationally and internationally recognized for its dedication to the identification of victims, mobilization of all sectors of the community to identify and advocate against trafficking, and provision of direct services for victims. CAST provides comprehensive long‐term services through a three‐armed empowerment approach, which includes Social Services, Legal Services, and Outreach and Training. The organization also operates the first shelter in the nation dedicated to serving victims of trafficking. CAST’s mission is to assist persons trafficked for the purpose of forced labor and slavery‐like practices and to work toward ending all instances of such human rights violations.

Susannah Faxon‐Mills: Ms. Faxon‐Mills is the Senior Coordinator of Youth Education for Break the Cycle. Those at Break the Cycle believe everybody has the right to safe and healthy relationships—regardless of where they live, who they are or what they believe. That is why they work everyday towards a mission to engage, educate and empower youth to build lives and communities free from domestic violence. Break the Cycle offers programs that defy geographic bounds—ensuring that no young person is excluded from receiving the help, tools and information they need to live free from violence. Their success is demonstrated by more than a decade of leadership in working with teens to prevent and end domestic and dating violence.

Leslie Gersicoff: Ms Gersicoff is Executive Director of the Jewish Labor Committee Western Region, a social justice organization that bridges the Labor and Jewish communities in a shared commitment to human rights. She also Chairs the transitioning Los Angeles County Unity Coalition formed to combat all categories of human trafficking. Educating labor leaders and rank and file members about signs of possible human trafficking and providing safe, anonymous avenues to report suspicions has been a prime focus of the JLC, as well as finding Latino victims of trafficking in the car wash and day labor industries. Human trafficking impedes and defies every principle fought for and won by organized labor and every advance gained, including the 40-hour workweek, overtime pay, paid benefits for health, pension and time off, legal recourse for labor law violations, representation on the job and a fair choice of employment. Leslie is also Secretary of the Labor Task Force for Universal Healthcare, a member of Arbeter Ring/Workmen’s Circle, Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California, National Council of Jewish Women, NABET-CWA Local 53, and Hollywood NOW.

T. Julie Mairs: Julie Mairs is the immediate past president of Soroptimist International of Los Angeles, Chair of Project Five‐0‐Los Angeles, and Chair of the Camino Real Region Soroptimists STOP Trafficking campaign. The Soroptimists STOP Trafficking campaign is an initiative of Soroptimists with 19 countries and territories including Canada, the USA, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Philippines, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Julie has over 25 years of experience in the leadership of human social and heath services and strategy and change management.

Studio For Southern California History

www.socalstudio.org

Does your history matter?

Image courtesy of Stanford University

Metabolic Studio Public SalonLaura Valdés Kuri & Claudio Valdés KuriFriday, November 13, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-11-06T09:40:00.000-08:00

Environment, Art and Science in Mexico

This salon will present an overview of how the environmental movement in Mexico has evolved in the last 20 years. Laura Valdés Kuri will present a slide show showing the groundswell of social participation in environmental and cultural activism in Mexico spanning from the 90’ to present day actions. Her brother Claudio Valdés Kuri will share insights on the greening of the art movement through a specific project “Ecocentro de Ciertos Habitantes” which is being developed by his theatre group “Certain Inhabitants”.

The Ecocentro is nestled at the edge of a forest, it will be an environmentally sound artistic retreat that will offer artistic residences and retreat facilities for creation, reflection, research, cultural exchange, artistic and environmental education and the development of theatrical productions. It is a model cultural project that incorporates artistic inspiration, education, sustainable development and the application of low-impact technologies that demonstrates how a long-term project can preserve natural resources, protect local traditional culture and nurture the theatrical arts. There is an elaborate outreach plan to work with the local rural communities.

This salon will describe just how the Ecocentro de Ciertos Habitantes has been designed with an inclusive multidisciplinary modality which, from its inception, has brought together a wide range of stakeholders who participate actively in its creation and development. Laura and Claudio will discuss how the two disciplines are intertwining through permaculture design, theatrical art projects, hands-on community development and the support of social networks and how collectively they are playing a key role in saving a significant endangered area of the Great Water Forest near Chalma, a rural village in Mexico.

There will be a Q&A in English and Spanish after the discussion.

Claudio Valdés Kuri's Los Angeles residency at CalArts and REDCAT is made possible in part by the City of Los Angeles' Department of Cultural Affair's Cultural Exchange International grant and the National Performance Network's Performing Americas Creative Exchange Program.

Laura Valdés Kuri has been recognized as a leader in the Mexican environmental movement. Since 1985, Laura has propagated environmental practices, sustainable education and community development projects that benefit the environment and society as well. With a background in Social Studies, Environmental Education, Bioregionalism, Permaculture and Ecovillage development she has spearheaded and served as an advisor for hundreds of rural and urban projects throughout Mexico such as the Environmental Promoters Group of Tejalpa, a recycling center run by a women’s collective.

Laura has been founder of the Bio-Regional Movement in Mexico and Latin America, co-founding member of the Ecovillage Network of the Americas (ENA) and coordinator of the national education project ECOHABITAT. She is also an Ashoka associate in Mexico. Laura and the networks she participates in have organized events, symposiums, conferences, fairs, workshops and international congresses in Mexico, Latin America and United States. She is focalizer for national and international environmental and bioregional networks. She has compiled and edited environmental books such as Welcome Home: Life Experiences and Bioregional Thinking (Mexico 2003) and Ecohabitat: Experiences Towards Sustainability (Mexico 2006)

Claudio Valdés Kuri, a prestigious Mexican director, is recognized as one of Latin America’s Artists with the most international acclaim. Founder and director of the Certain Inhabitants Theater Company, his work includes The Grey Automobile, Monsters and Prodigies: The History of the Castrati, Becket or the Honour of God and Where will I be Tonight?, all presented in Mexico and in Europe, Latin America, United States and the Caribbean. Specialized critics have given him well-deserved recognition, such as naming him the best director in experimental theatre as well as best group theatre director.

Several important governmental cultural offices have commissioned and co-produced his productions: National Theatre Company (Mexico). National Autonomous University of Mexico, International Cervantino Festival (Guanajuato) Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Kunsten Festival des Arte (Brussels) and Wiener Festwochen (Vienna). He has received several grants from Cultural Contact, the US-Mexico Foundation for Culture, Young Scholarship Holders and Co-Investment Projects from Mexico’s National Fund for Culture and the Arts.

The monthly publication Mexican Leaders has acknowledged Claudio as one of the top 300 most influential leaders of the country. With the creation of Ecocentro de Ciertos Habitantes, Claudio intends to merge the transformative powers of theatre and performance arts with Environmental Conservation and sustainable development in a rural community within the Great Water Forest in Mexico.

Further information: www.ciertoshabitantes.com

Image: Ciertos Habitantes Ecocenter Design, courtesy of Arq. Jorge Calvillo

Metabolic Studio Public SalonAaron Chappell & Juan de LaraFriday, November 6, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-11-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

Building the American Dream in the Inland Empire
About The Salon

During the most recent real estate boom, local boosters produced new cognitive maps of Southern California’s Inland Empire to show that the good life was possible in ‘cow country’ and a booming higher-end housing market created new business opportunities for upscale retail companies that had typically ignored the Inland Empire.

The ideal house – an embodiment of the American Dream - came to represent a lifestyle of luxury that homebuilders and marketers drew upon to stimulate conspicuous consumption. But much of the shopping that drove the local economy was underwritten by the same financing schemes that ultimately doomed the housing sector. The housing crash of 2007-2008 revealed that narratives about the good life didn't match financial reality for the majority of Inland Empire residents.

Considering the ways in which the relationship between finance, consumption, and housing significantly shaped the Inland Empire, Juan de Lara and Aaron Chappell will present a brief history of land, housing, and boom/bust real estate cycles and discuss current organizing efforts to reshape the social, economic, and physical landscape in that area.

Juan de Lara is a PhD candidate at UC-Berkeley studying the political geography of the Inland Empire. (LIUNA Homebuilding Campaign)

Aaron Chappell is a political and community organizer for the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) on their Quality for All campaign, which is uniting the workers who build homes with the residents who buy new homes to create good jobs, sustainable communities and a stronger regional economy here in the Inland Empire. Aaron has over ten years of experience in the labor movement.

Further Information: Quality for All

Image courtesy: Douglas McCulloh, from Dream Street

Metabolic Studio Public SalonAbigail LazkozFriday, October 30, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-10-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

More medals (bigger responsibility)

About The Salon

For me Art is in equal measure a laboratory of imagination and a tool to reflect on life.

The cultural products that have encouraged me to follow the creativity path have almost always had the existentialist ingredient. I believe that identification with the others uneasy approach to life has been the main reason for me to try to use the creative medium.

Let’s say that uneasiness is an inclination that I have inherited and art is the way I use to deal with that fondness for distress. War is for this matters a very useful subject, it can be used literally or, even better, metaphorically to express the struggles of being alive.

About The Salon Presenter

Abigail was born in Bilbao, Spain in 1972, she makes drawings, wall-paints and site-specific installations. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including in solo exhibitions at Monya Rowe Gallery, New York; Sala Rekalde, Bilbao; and the Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona; and Group Exhibitions in Hungary, Algeria, France Spain and the United States.

Above: More medals, bigger responsibility: Abigail Lazkoz, 2004

Indian and pigmented ink on paper, 43 1/4 inches x 72 1/2 inches

Image courtesy: Abigail Lazkoz

Metabolic Studio Public SalonSherwood Chen, Flavio Alvarez & Carlos GonzalesFriday, October 23, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-10-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

Alliance for California Traditional Arts
About The Salon

What are traditional arts? From Native Californian Kawaiisu basketry and language, to African-American quilt-making, Mixtec guelaguetzas and Hmong maykhong wedding negotiation chants, Western saddlemaking, or sacred Afro-Cuban batá drumming, Vietnamese opera and son Jarocho luthiery, California is home to hundreds of diverse traditions. Some folk and traditional arts have been brought to California from other countries or regions and have taken root here to become interwoven with the state’s cultural landscape and identity. Others have prospered long before California was ever a state, developed here by indigenous cultures and sustained today on and beyond California’s over 130 tribal reservations and rancherias.

Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) Associate Director Sherwood Chen will share rich examples of ACTA’s participating artists and organizations statewide, and discuss the community-driven power and the staggering beauty and diversity of a complex, vital, and oft underrepresented sector of arts practice in California today.

Joining Sherwood will be featured artists and ACTA participants Flavio Alvarez and Flavio’s grandnephew and protégé Carlos Gonzales. Flavio serves as Wanaragua chief amongst a group of drummers, dancers, and singers in Los Angeles—including Carlos—who represent, celebrate and sustain Garifuna language, dance and music, forms deemed by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Together Flavio and Carlos will share Garifuna history and culture, talk about what it means to pass on tradition, and how these traditions live and flourish in Los Angeles today.

About The Salon Presenter

Guided by the principles of cultural democracy, diversity and equity, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) strives to ensure that California’s future holds California’s past by providing services to support the state’s myriad living cultural heritages and to increase access to resources and opportunities for folk and traditional artists.

Further Information: Alliance for California Traditional Arts

Above: Garifuna master artist Flavio Alvarez (left) and his apprentice Carlos Gonzales (right) hold a Wanaragua headdress worn by Flavio the night before during the New Year’s Day 2009 Wanaragua processions.

Image courtesy: Sherwood Chen, ACTA 2009

Metabolic Studio Public SalonSuma JossonFriday, October 16, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-10-12T09:38:00.000-07:00

I Want My Father Back

About The Salon

I Want My Father Back is a 60 minute-long film on the suicide of farmers in Vidarbha. Vidarbha is in the eastern region of Maharastra State in India. Cotton is the main cash crop in this area.

The film looks at the reasons behind these suicides, beginning with the fallout of the Green Revolution and the impact it had on the soil and input costs for the farmers. This was followed by globalization processes which further led to a fall in prices of commodities. The other sections in the film include the changing traditional methods of farming especially with regard to seeds, the debt-loan trap faced by farmers, and the devastating effects of Bt. seeds. It also looks at the impact of pesticides on the soil and gives emphasis on organic farming.

The film raises these issues through ordinary farmers and activists like Vandan Shiva. It also looks at some farmers who have been practicing organic farming.

About The Salon Presenter

Born in Kerala, India, Suma Josson graduated in English Lit. from the College of St.Teresa, Minnesota, U.S.A. Having begun her career as a journalist, she switched over to the visual medium. Since then she has made two feature films and many documentary films on a wide range of issues. Her film on the suicide of farmers in Vidarbha, Maharastra has won several awards. She is also a poet and a fiction writer with Penguin having published a novel titled Circumferences.

Further Information

sumajosson@yahoo.com

Image

Still from I Want My Father Back

Metabolic Studio Public SalonJessica HallFriday, October 9, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-10-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

Water and Los Angeles - what is a sustainable water future?

About The Salon

Is Los Angeles a desert? Conventional wisdom tells it is. Reviewing the historical conditions of the region, however, suggest otherwise. How should this ecologically fragile region plan for its future and manage its water resources? Ms. Hall presents looks at landscape and urban design from the standpoint of water resource management.

About The Salon Presenter

Jessica Hall is an advocate for ecologically resilient urban waterways, and for the integration of functional ecosystems within cities. Through her work as a designer, watershed coordinator, and educator, she has become a leading voice in LA; her efforts have resulted in stream daylighting becoming a restoration goal identified in many local watershed plans. With a Master’s in Landscape Architecture from Cal Poly Pomona and an undergraduate degree in architecture from Princeton University, and experience working in both fields, she understands the challenges and opportunities of the built environment. She is a Senior Design Associate with Restoration Design Group, and also consults and lectures part-time. Ms. Hall was a Switzer Environmental Fellow in 2000-2001. Her work has been covered in the local media.

Further Information

LA CreekFreak

Image

Courtesy: Jessica Hall

Metabolic Studio Public SalonFelicity PowellFriday, October 2, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-09-25T13:54:00.000-07:00

"Medals of Dishonour"

About The Salon

Alongside the well-known association of medals with glory and achievement lies another darker tradition of the medal as an indicator of dishonour. Celebrating works that denounce their subjects and expose the rich tradition of this largely unexplored medal type, Medals of Dishonour is currently on exhibition at British Museum.

Medals of Dishonour reframes items in the British Museum’s permanent collection by presenting selected historic medals alongside newly-commissioned medals by thirteen internationally recognized artists, including Jake and Dinos Chapman, Ellen Gallagher, Richard Hamilton, Mona Hatoum, William Kentridge, Grayson Perry and Felicity Powell. Elegantly displaying the historical and contemporary medals together the exhibition offers a long view through history that is both intelligent and wry.

Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon writes that Felicity Powell, the conceptual progenitor and co-curator of Medals of Dishonour, has “singlehandedly…revived an entire Renaissance tradition - a rich and intricate tradition of subtle workmanship and symbolism”. At the Metabolic Studio Felicity will discuss both Medals of Dishonour and works from her recent solo show at London’s Domobaal. It will be a talk “about subversion, secret histories and historical hiccups”.

About The Salon Presenter

London-based artist Felicity Powell has exhibited widely on the international stage and had solo exhibitions at venues including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In addition to winning the Millennium Medal Competition by The Royal Mint and The British Art Medal Society, she has received numerous other awards and honors for her work, including commissions from the Linnaean Society and the Permanent Collection of the V&A Sculpture Department. She was elected a council member of the British Arts Medal Society in 2002.

Images

Above: Felicity Powell: Hot Air

Image courtesy: the British Museum

Further Information

Medals of Dishonour at the British Museum

Felicity Powell at Domobaal

Metabolic Studio Public SalonJulian LairdFriday, September 25, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-09-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

Arctic Ice and Frozen Seeds - Feeding the Future

About The Salon

High in the Arctic, deep inside a frozen mountain, a concrete bunker provides protection to one of the most important resources for human life on Earth - seeds. Julian Laird, of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, one of the principal partners in this ambitious project, will describe not only how the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was built and how it works, but why its treasure is so valuable and yet so threatened.

About The Salon Presenter

Julian is Director of Development and Communications at the Global Crop Diversity Trust, a young international organisation, with which he has been involved since before the Trust became a legal entity. Before moving to the Trust, Julian was Director of Programmes and Acting Chief Executive of Earthwatch Institute (Europe), an international non-profit organisation supporting environmental field research and conservation in 40 countries. Julian has been involved in the design and development of capacity building programmes in national parks throughout Africa, as well as global environmental awareness-raising campaigns in the public and private sectors.

Above: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault

Image courtesy: Mari Tefre/Global Crop Diversity Trust

Metabolic Studio Public Salon Public Practice, Otis College of Art and DesignFriday, September 18, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-09-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

Reunion/Reunión:

“Laton, CA: Public Practice in the San Joaquin Valley”

About The Salon

A cohort of nine first year MFA students designed a collaborative project, building on their observations, their skills and community needs as observed over several months. Their final project took place on Saturday, March 21st, in a public video installation highlighting the unique identity of Laton through multiple outdoor projections onto freshly painted buildings.

People of the community and visitors processed along the two block long main street of the small town of 1200 where they encountered music, video projections of life in the community, and opportunities to talk about the future of the region. Inside the local merchants stores, short video documentaries revealed the role of small businesses in the identity of this community. The once-abandoned Methodist Church was recreated as a community space and art studio. During the evening installation it featured a free store to nurture a temporary barter and exchange system, created by Suzanne Lacy and Otis students, and a video installation by Andrea Bowers. Photographer Raul Vega and Videographer Dana Duff also produced work on Laton suitable for this presentation.

The salon will present questions about how art can influence and change a community. After a presentation on their collaborative “Reunion / Reunion” project, students will open the floor to engage a critical dialogue about the work, and its artistic and political pursuits.

About The Salon Presenters

Public Practice is a new MFA program at Otis College of Art and Design. Its focus is on developing projects that ask the question “who and what is art created for?” With community building, and political action in mind, what can art accomplish? Graduate students explore new artistic strategies and practices based on observation, research, social commentary and activism, and visual and performance arts productions in the public realm.

Above: Event postcard

Image courtesy: Public Practice Otis College of Art and Design

Further Information: http://ospace.otis.edu/publicpracticeportfolio

https://wikis.otis.edu/sjv/index.php/Welcome!_Bienvenidos!_Bem-vindo !

Metabolic Studio Public SalonRickey SmithFriday, September 11, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-09-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

Urban Green on Spring

About The Salon

You may have noticed that Millies - the old hamburger stand on the Los Angeles State Historic Park - has been repainted a fetching citrus shade recently? Reincarnated for the 21st century, Millie’s burger stand is in the process of becoming "Urban Green at LASHP". Rather than burger and chips though, Urban Green will grow vegetables and serve them up in delicious vegetarian dishes.

Urban Green has contracted with The State of California Parks and Recreation to build an interactive, interpretive system on the site of The Historic State Park in Downtown Los Angeles. The development envisions “ON SPRING” as a community hub with activities involving educational and practical application of sustainable functions which guests can incorporate into their own personal lives.

Discussing the venture and answering questions will be Urban Green Founder and Director, Rickey Smith.

About The Salon Presenter

Rickey Smith is founder and principal of Urban Green, a social entrepreneurship dedicated to restoring, developing and promoting “green space” within the communities it serves. Urban Green was designed upon Rickey’s philosophy of Circular Synergy, which seeks to establish a CLEAR path connecting the inter-disciplines of Cuisine, Land-use, Environment, and Architecture into Renewable cycles of self-reliant communities.

Inspired by the challenge to evolve food production in the United States, and seeking to create a deeper, more significant experience than just the mere exchange of goods for money, Rickey is committed to the development of functional, small-scale operations using closed-loop, urban-farming systems within the Los Angeles Metropolitan area.

Recognized as a leader and change agent who passionately believes in the Urban Green adage “Waste not. Want not.” He is currently a guest lecturer at UCLA, local charter schools and conference round table discussions. Rickey is also recognized for his community service work with diverse organizations such as Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles Robotics Team and Mother’s Club in Pasadena.

Above: pre-green Millies

Image courtesy http://lashp.wordpress.com

Metabolic Studio Public SalonDan EtheridgeFriday, September 4, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-08-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

A New Food Landscape in post-Katrina New Orleans

About the Salon

This salon will present the collaborative work of the Tulane City Center (TCC) and the New Orleans Food and Farm Network (NOFFN) in their efforts to support the growing urban farming/local food movement in New Orleans. Although part of a national trend, the projects presented here also grew out of a post disaster context that has enabled many new visions to emerge with a high probability of success.

The salon will specifically look at two larger scale initiatives in the New Orleans area: the Viet Village Urban Farm (a proposed 28acre urban farm and farmers market in the principal Vietnamese nighborhood in New Orleans) and the Hollygrove Growers Market and Farm (a smaller local growers market and urban farming training center).

These projects differ in scale and intent, however they were both supported by the TCC/NOFFN collaboration that brought design, planning, technical and other skills to projects that had great community support and a piece of land. We feel we have developed a model to support groups that lack the resources to access these skill sets, and the projects we will present showcase how these community generated initiatives can begin to garner the momentum they need to become reality.

About the Salon Presenter

Dan Etheridge is Associate Director of the Tulane City Center and Adjunct Lecturer at the Tulane School of Architecture. Dan has a degree in Applied Environmental Management from Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia, is a Fellow of the Institute for Environmental Communications at Loyola University New Orleans, and has worked for the last five years at the intersection of regional coastal restoration strategies and urban design and policy. He has been published in environmental science and management journals, design publications and community advocacy forums and continues to work across these disciplines in research and practice. In addition, Dan is a partner in the environmental consulting practice Meffert + Etheridge Environmental Projects that specializes in bringing sound ecological practice and communication to design, planning and development projects.

Further information: www.tulanecitycenter.org

Image: Tulane City Center, courtesy Dan Etheridge

Metabolic Studio Public SalonKirk Anderson & Amy SeidenwurmFriday, August 28, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-08-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Let the Bees Be Bees!

About the Salon

Convinced that the current decline in bee numbers is the result of their ‘enslavement’ to industrial processes, Kirk and Amy will discuss the pleasures of beekeeping and ways to encourage the native feral bee population.

Bees make honey to survive, and they’ve been doing it a long time. In its natural state, honey contains sugars, yeast and enzymes. It can also contain pollen and propolis (the resinous substance made by bees to seal cracks and small gaps in their hive). Humans discovered this wonderful honey, and eventually figured out a way to make the bees work for them.

In the early days, beekeepers used an inverted straw basket called a ‘skep’ to house the bees. Later, a man named Langstroth invented the current square wooden box with removable wood frames. This made it much easier for beekeepers to look at their bees and to get the honey out.

Honey can be extracted two ways: the frames can be put in a centrifugal extractor and the honey spun out of the comb or the comb can be cut out of the frame, crushed and the honey strained from it. Commercial beekeepers store the extracted honey in 55 gallon drums until it’s needed. Honey left alone will crystallize. It has to be liquefied to get it out of the drum. If the temperature used to melt the honey is less than 120E it can still be called “raw”. Honey can also be pasteurized (at temperatures up to 280E) to stabilize it and improve shelf life by killing the natural yeast and enzymes.

Humans like to control their environment and the living creatures in it, so beekeepers figured out ways for their bees to make more honey. However, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” really applies to bees. When bees and their hive are messed with, all sorts of problems can arise. If bees are allowed to go about their business as they always have, they’ll create strong hives and delicious, beneficial honey.

About the Salon Presenters

Kirk Anderson is an urban beekeeper and the founder of an LA collective of small-scale organic beekeepers. His goal is to do right by the bees so that the bees can return the favor. Amy Seidenwurm is a fan of bees, food, dogs, wine, music, typography, technology and basketball. In her professional life, she is a digital marketing geek.

Above: Bees settle into a front porch hive cut out of a wood-and-masonry dollhouse, Los Angeles 2009. Courtesy Kirk Anderson

Further Information: www.backwardsbeekeepers.com

Metabolic Studio Public SalonDetective Don HrycykFriday, August 21, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-08-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

Art Fraud in L.A.

About The Salon
Los Angeles is the second largest center for the visual arts in the U.S. This has attracted art thieves and conmen (and women) who have often targeted the cultural heritage of the city. LAPD's two-detective Art Theft Detail has investigated many of these crimes involving not only art but other types of cultural property including rare books, musical instruments, fossils, and Hollywood movie props. These crimes involve not only theft of art but also fakes, fraud and forgeries.

Detective Hrycyk will discuss some of these cases and profile the type of art criminals who prey on artists, art dealers and collectors. Preventive measures that art lovers can take to protect themselves will also be discussed. Additional information about the Art Theft Detail including crime alerts on stolen art can be found at http://www.lapdonline.org/art_theft

About the Salon Presenter
Don Hrycyk is the detective in charge of LAPD’s Art Theft Detail – the only full-time municipal art investigative unit in the United States. During the 15 years that he has been in this position, the unit has recovered over $77 million in cultural property. He has been a police officer for over 35 years. Prior to investigating art crimes, Hrycyk worked a variety of assignments including homicide, robbery, sex crimes, burglary, juvenile, assaults, forgery, gangs, and patrol.

He graduated from California State University where he majored in Criminology. He teaches Art Crimes Investigation to law enforcement officers and lectures on the art crime problem. Hrycyk is a recipient of the Smithsonian Institution’s Burke Award for Excellence in Cultural Property Protection.

Image courtesy Det. Don Hrycyk

Metabolic Studio Public SalonGreenmemeFriday, August 14, 2009 @ NoonFree Admission

2009-08-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

Weaving the Landscape

About the Salon

Freya Bardell and Brian Howe of the Los Angeles-based design studio Greenmeme will discuss a variety of their projects. Their cross-disciplinary collective has worked to bridge artistic and scientific disciplines to produce public art, architecture, landscape and ecological design projects, which seek to raise awareness of the cultural and environmental conditions around them. Using science, form, history, story-telling and myth, they have created a series of site-specific works which are playful and educational interpretations of their surroundings. Come join our discussion on River Livers, Matryoshka dolls and how to harness the power of Grandmothers!

Further information: www.greenmeme.com