3 weeks, 2 wheels and a dog on thyroid meds

It's been an intense 3 weeks in Austin. The chickens and their lazy ways have become an enviable and distant dream, I've gotten alot better at negotiating these fault-line hills on my single speed, and Jackson, the elderly resident of the Taylor Street lofts has tired of Mrs. Bairds buns. He's been diagnosed with a thyroid problem and so we both have had to step up to more rigorous medication strategies. As it turns out, pill pockets work like a charm.

Today marks the beginning of week 4 and the wrap-up of many loose ends here in the Texas capital, and although I'd finally like to say I'm On Vacation, the reality is far from it. The workshop with the UT design juniors was a mega-success and before I forget everything that happened, I'm trying to make notes and plans for the next opportunity to run something like this.

The juniors were fearless, enthusiastic, professional, and committed to the project: Magic Circles for Midtown. They were assigned a location in Austin that can be described as 'uninteresting', 'transitional' and 'empty' and they gave it new life and meaning with experiments for play in public space. 30 Second Theatre, A Shady Busstop, Bubblewrap Carpet, and Tic Tac Toe Day took the sleepy zone by surprise and gave it's daily inhabitants something to think about. These projects were undoubtedly a success in that they changed the daily behaviors and caused unlikely interactions, questions and comments from the local population. They were also a success in the lessons learned and generalizations acquired:

1. 'For Free' signs are often -- in our world of 'free offers' that are never really free -- a deterrant, and dissuade action or interaction.
2. Play more freely happens in groups. Perhaps we each have our own adult non-play inertia that needs to be overcome by force -- and that's most easily achieved by a friend or two.
3. Play begets play: if potential players happen upon play in progess, they are more likely to join than they are to initiate it.
4. Bananas are always a good foot in the door of absurdity.
5. Feedback loops are integral. People want to know what's going on, and they're more likely to have a meaningful experience if there's some sort of contextualization, framing or explaination. The easiest way to do that is for the artists on-site to answer questions and encourage interaction. Without them, the interface needs to be robust and possibly redundant in order to provide inspiration to act, encouragement for action, feedback for action, and answers to questionsa about action.

Students get into their roles by forming a single-file field-trip line to the site

An early experiment with unquantifiable outcomes. Is this gentleman really voting with his choice of seat?
Did he even see the chalk designations on the ground?

Another early experiment: materials brought on site become reveal several problems: of function and meaning.

I made fun of 7-11's 'Every Cup Counts' promo -- but truth be told, I couldn't walk in and NOT vote for Obama.
Clearly others felt the same way.
I felt strangely excited the rest of the day, walking around with my Obama cup, even once emptied of it's slurpee.
OBAMANOS! OBAMA!!!!!!!!!

Nancy, Angela, and JM hard at work on their second prototype. They are hardcore.

The bubblewrap carpeting in the construction tunnel had early and repeated success. Case in point: Alyssa made a point over the 2 days of this installation to come through the tunnel to jump on the bubble and when asked about her experiences, she commented that the installation had been the brightest point in her week. Thanks, Alyssa!

Trouble-makers in the making: I didn't realize that this was the class when we were walking up and I was thrilled at the turnout of bus stop clientelle!

Here's everyone -- plus a nice lady waiting for the bus -- waiting for trouble to come their way.

Bananas!

Notice the big smile on the fellow at the left who has his dry-cleaning, a balloon (you can't see) from Teddy and Kerrie, and now a banana.
He's going to be the patron saint of public art some day.

Lastly, the Playtime Hustler hustles some real play from the folks in the smoker's lounge at Guadalupe and 15th.
Here's to more Less Work, More Play afternoons. And maybe even some large-scale building-to-building tic tac toe.

Now that we can see how play can be so easily achieved -- I'd like to challenge myself to seek the notion of Meaningful Play in further versions of this type of workshop.

In starting to think about it, I came across a posting in Jane McGonigal's syllabus for her class Game Design as Art Practice : According to Salen & Zimmerman, meaningful play requires that players be given opportunities to take non-random actions or make decisions that have a discernable (immediately clear) and integrated (makes "big-picture" sense) effect on the game. For your game critique this week, please evaluate a game you play by asking the question: Does meaningful play happen? To what degree is it meaningful, compared to other games? Which game design elements make it meaningful (or not)?

These are exactly the questions I've been asking myself, although I'd substitute 'intervention' for 'game'. But maybe I should check myself. Maybe it is games I'm talking about and rejecting the idea because I don't (yet?) consider myself a game player. And that's a posting for another time.

But big congrats to the students for their hard work and great outcomes. It was a successful adventure for all involved, and I look forward to future opportunities, both with this subject matter and with this particular group of students.

You know you're back in Austin when...

...you leave the house for lunch and are joined by a family of chickens. Big ups to Thoughtbarn and Sproutfarm for offering the Taylor Street Lofts (and their bookshelf) for my month long residency, and to Cyclist for the good company and transport to and fro before my bike arrives. Not much yet to report except a good run along the river? the lake? this morning followed by a good chunk of research on 'PUBLIC ART PROJECT PLAY' and 'SOCIAL PRACTICE'. Lunch at Casa Luz, courtesy Ms. Tina Pumilia -- who knew there was such a macrobiotic compound two shakes from downtown?? -- coffee from Jo's, some sweatshirt research, and now I'm back at Taylor Street trying to buckle down and get some work done. Welcome to my procrastination.

What I *should* be doing is preparing for the workshop and lecture I will running/giving in two weeks, amongst many other things. That's what I'm here to do: teach, talk, and get some art ideas out of the machine and into the world. So watch me go. Be back soon...probably too soon...to catch up and process the whirlwind that was the Netherlands in September.

I Made It!

Last, but not least, this is the post I've been meaning to write for 5 months. Rewind back to the DNOS when I was up all night listening to Midnight bird and gorging myself on episodes of Grey's Anatomy, and then the redemptive week in Scotland, and then the exhausted return to New York. Of course I should have written this post off the cuff as I was jetlagged and unpacking, but there was New Work to dive into and well, you know how the old gets swept under the rug of the new.


But for those of you who tuned in, those of you who I've seen in the months since, and or those of you who ended up here on a wild Google chase, here's a sampling of the final results. I'm actually returning to the Netherlands in 6 weeks to finish documenting the large piece and hopefully to find a home for it; and if not, to say goodbye to it. So it's a nice moment to look back on the insanity and begin to reinstall the work in the foreground of my thinking. Time is flying and there's alot to do between now and September 9th.

As you may or may not recall, I engaged in several lines of inquiry on my way to the final project which is currently titled Fullstop Gamescape. But before we get there, here are the final pieces from the work along the way.

1. Legoscapes: clear glazed and underglazed
upon showing these to some of the other residents, one remarked that they are a fantastic study in 3-d tiles. Thanks. We might just work on that some more, minus the lego reference...

2.Hillside studies in lace, large and small

None of the large pieces survived the firing, despite the problem solving efforts and extreme expertise of the staff. We all agree that with one more try, we think we could make them work. Here's a piece of one of the large ones -- it stands prouldly on it's own, unglazed, more like a screen or a gate than a stool or a hill. It's followed by several of the smaller pieces, unglazed with and without 'grass' underneath. I hope I can find a way to realize these full scale someday either in waxed rope, fiberglass or cement modules. The figures don't establish proper scale, but they do add a bit of life all the same. I love those tiny train people.

And without further ado...
3. Fullstop Gamescape (!!!!)
The first shot is a detail shot in the studio to show how the pieces are crafted and stacked. They have a hand-made feel, alot of uneveness but are solid and unbreakable. Shown here is the cloud. So uncloudlike to the untrained eye, but I do love it so.

The rest show the set up of the prototype in the courtyard of the EKWC. When I go back in September we'll install them at the busstop in Den Bosch and hopefully they'll get used and enjoyed for the 30 mintues they're in place. Fingers crossed. If you know of anyone who might be interested in showing or purchasing, please contact me immediately!

Putting the Heart back into Furniture Trade Shows

What HAVE I been doing for the past 5 months -- besides ferrying on the water and moving, that is? I'm currently at NY magazine, but that's a post for another time. My plan, upon return from NL, was to work part-time and make art part-time. I even got a studio space. Instead, I worked fairly round-the-clock on a very sprawling but satisfying project with the handsome men of ProAm (teamproam.com). They won the account with Harter Furniture (harter.com) to evolve their fairly new brand and launch their newest task chair, GET; in short, they were contracted in early February to do all of Harter's marketing and communications for 2008, which in the furniture world really means that everything has to be done by JUNE1. So luckily, I had to leave the Netherlands post-haste, and they needed a sassy third to jump into the water and pull the boat alongside them.

They pitched three outstanding ideas to the company who chose one and we went into overdrive building that vision into a new product catalogue, a microsite, and a showroom, all in the span of 4 months. Aye, laddie, it was alot of work. There will be proper documentation on my site soon, but here are a few snaps from behind the scenes of the showroom installation.

Move it!

I live just in front of that black building. So this is my backyard, sort of.

Today and yesterday behind us, we're going to start rewinding a little faster to...a month ago.

A month ago I was in Los Angeles visiting the Silverstein-Hurleys and they're newest member, the very Lovely and Amazing Yarden Fenway. Both first and middle name for this little wisp of a thing have great meaning -- but I'll let her dazzled parents tell you all about the little miss, her name, as well as the ins and outs of her feeding schedule:

http://aliyahandseamus.blogspot.com/

As I was saying, I was in LA to meet Yarden and hang with her happily exhausted parents and generally enjoy the life and times of a newborn, which in fact, despite the fatigue, are pretty idyllic.
Until the call came.
On our way to the valley, I got a call from my landlord, and instead of the usual question of 'can I come in to do some work on the kitchen sink' kind of call, it was a call to tell me the city had notified her that it had been notified that she was renting an illegal apartment. That's my apartment, the illegal one. So very long story, alot of anxiety and worry drawn short, I returned from LA on a redeye on a Wednesday morning, and by Wednesday afternoon, I had a new apartment. In Red Hook. There's alot of reasons why, and how, and really I'm just tired of repeating them all. The essence is that I've always loved Red Hook as my own personal piece of Richmond VA in Brooklyn -- watery, cobbled, nautical, colonial, sagging, and EMPTY. Given the current rentalscape of the 5 boroughs, and how much you would not believe it costs to live most anywhere desirable in the city, it was eiteher Bed Sty, Crown Heights (love you Anna Deavere Smith, but I can't go there alone), Sunset Park, or East Bushwick (Bushwick IS east -- that's just a coverup name -- and I'm just not a Williamsburg girl, never will be). But there were 5 apartments available in Red Hook, and at only double my current rent, they were all a bargain. So I took the one with two real bedrooms and no creepy rotting edges, and here I am: 234 Van Brunt. Emergency Move 2008 was completed in 1 week. I think it's the best way to move. And I can say this after moving 5 other times this past year.

I love it here. Please visit. You're welcome any time.

Rediscovering the Disney

So yesterday:
I met my studiomate Charles behind IKEA (my new backyard, satellite office, and general lifestyle supplier) to get our water taxi on and cruise to lower Manhattan to see the David Byrne/Creative Time Piece: Playing the Building...? I still don't know the proper title and don't care, but know that I should. The water taxi trip out of the basin and across the river to the Southstreet Seaport was thrilling enough! The water! The sun! The watery bounce of the taxi! We steamed past the brooklyn shipyards, their long-necked cranes, and a containership in port, stacked with containers like cans in a pantry.




We got to the seaport and I realized that in all my years here, I've only been to the seaport once before, and all I remember is being lost and having to pee. Not this time! My liquids were under control and I was seized by the Bermuda-triangleness of it all! The FDR a'crackle just above us, the humming throngs of tourists magnetized towards the seaport, the helicopters taking off and landing at the heliport, like loud bumblebees touching down on the same azalea. Getting our bearings, we noticed that Wall Street really is wall-y -- the buildings rise up immediately into a dizzying maze, and that no one really seems to know where they're going. Besides perhaps the homeless dudes asleep the the nice little outdoor park for whom I would guess that is home and they know where they are. There were so many people on bikes -- which I normally only associate with the West Side -- the times I've run on the east side, it was just me and some lunchtime smokers. How times have changed. The streets do something weird that not even New York plated cars seemed to comprehend, and so the bikes -- many of which were piloted by tourists, and therefore doubly confused -- and us pedestrians and drivers were all just trying to scurry in a general direction. And all of those directions were different. Forget traffic laws and normal behavior patterns. I loved it.

And I liked the David Byrne piece -- the building is pitch perfect: elegant and crumbling, well-lit but still dingy. But the piece itself just made the space sound like the world's loudest radiator at the beginning of winter. Ah well. If only Mr. Byrne had given Janet Cardiff a call and they'd had a drink or two. The piece might have been really dazzling.

gorgeous, right?

David Byrne doppleganger and public art enthusaist

On our way back to the water taxi, Charles wondered aloud when we might be able to start enjoying Govenor's Island just as paused in front of the building labeled GOVENORS ISLAND FERRY. We looked out to find a boat in the slip and so, unexpectedly, we took a spin to Govenor's Island. Not as prepared as everyone else around us with bikes, picnic trolleys, sunbrellas, and complete napping set-ups, we disembarked on the island, took a walk and set down for a spell. It's going to be great there, but don't tell anyone. Let's just keep it our secret magical place, ok??

As we were waiting for the ferry back to the water taxi, we were talking about how the past two hours were unlike any two hours we could remember having past our first couple years in the city. What I mean is that moving to New York is like moving to the best amusement park for creative people one could ever imagine -- performances by all our heros, shows by all our favorites, unexpectedly crazily inspiring happenings like large furry mascots wrestling on the street, all stacked up and spread out over the city every day of the week and every night...well, it just gets to be too much. And so do our rents, so we start working all the time to pay for our rents and fund our dreams...and so we forget about all the wondrous stuff outside our offices and apartments. We have to, otherwise we'd go crazy having to miss out on so much all the time.

And well, a lot of us -- me in particular -- find the grind after awhile boring. And we try to get out. Or maybe we do get out -- for awhile. And maybe then we find ourselves back for one reason or another, and we decide that It's Time To Start Loving The City Again. And yesterday was perfect for that. The water rides, the waterfalls, disappointingly thin and 'So Six Flags' according to Charles, but falling as they are for a short amount of time, it was wonderfully Disneyesque. If you can imagine all that candy-colored fibreglass pulled back, this is what it might look like, and but it would still be fun. Way more fun. Because it's New York, too.


I'm sure I'll end up editing this down in a few days, but I just want to get it down and out. So for those of you who may be reading this disclaimer, this entry may make more sense in a few days. Read again if you can.

Everything and Nothing at all

That's the inner A to the inner Q when I wonder just what I've been spending the past 5 months doing, if not, of course, blogging. Or, better yet, what has been occupying my time so very much that I can't type a word in edgewise??? Everything and nothing at all. But here I am today, a blazing Sunday in July, finally ready to answer the question and bring us all -- me including -- back up to date.
Let's work forward to back, shall we? It might just create a virtual mobius of time in my personal blogosphere.

Right now: I'm goose-bumpy from the A/C here in BAKED. It's my new neighborhood wifi cafe, and it has big over-shellacked timbery tables and squishy vinyl-pillowed benches, and somehow it's easier here to think than anywhere else in my life currently. Maybe it's all the wood; or the brown and orange color scheme which simultaneously makes me think of the words 'Halloween Brownie'. Maybe it's the general mellowness of the place. Maybe it's the strange selection of free buttons at the cash register that proclaim 'I DO NOT BENCH PRESS'. Maybe it's the most delicious lemon-poppyseed muffin chaser to my egg sandwhich this morning. I loathe and love this place already in very equal parts: a little over-self-consciously designed, even for a designer; full of parents and impossibly cute children (park slope, stop following me already!), overpriced baked goods and coffee, teapots and tshirts for sale; free wifi, great coffee, decent staff and interesting non-parenting sorts... But I will always remember it as the first lunch here in my new neighborhood with Mvisiting UT Arch pal, Ms. Emily Scarfe.

We'll get to the new neighborhood part in a moment, but first, there's yesterday to get to. I've named it Rediscovering the Disney...