Artist Project Summaries: May 2010

Liz Glynn

Project leader:  Liz Glynn, with Sneaky Snake as the house band, performances and events by Adam Overton and others TBA.

Project title:
III

Project summary:
  III  is a multi-site installation and event series using the architecture and archaeological history of the Great Pyramids at Giza to explore irrational behavior, superstition, and the desire to “cheat death” in the context of the financial crisis. This summer I will construct a replica of Menkaure’s pyramid on a hillside in Lincoln Heights out of forklift pallets. This temporary space will host performances and conversations facilitated by guest experts exploring pyramid schemes, cryogenics, near-death experiences, personal credit crises, strategies for financial survival, and more. Beginning with a small group of invitees, the audience will expand through a pyramid scheme.

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: I am seeking funding to purchase an analog FM radio transmitter to broadcast performances, conversations, and ambient noise.  Radio has long been the media of choice for conspiracy theorists, and this transmitter reaches up to 25 miles, expanding the audience to anyone randomly turning their radio dial.  At the conclusion of summer, collaborators will share the transmitter for future use.

Favorite pie?: Strawberry Rhubarb or Banana Cream

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Evelyn Serrano

Project leader: Evelyn Serrano

Project title: NOMAD LAB's Dialogue Project

Project summary:  The Dialogue Project is a live video installation and community event in the neighborhood of Valle del Oro (VDO), Newhall. The project will be organized in collaboration with NOMAD LAB’s Dialogue Lab participants, the VDO Neighborhood Committee and residents of all ages. This project is part of a 3 year-long community organizing and arts and leadership training initiative involving residents, artists and policy makers to address the exponential rise in crime, gang activity, violence and racial and ethnic intolerance in Valle del Oro. The project aims to define terms for inclusive and safe dialogue, and create a public forum for the sharing of stories, ideas, and proposals.

For more information visit NOMAD LAB's website at www.vdonomadlab.blogspot.com

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: Funds will be used towards the publication of a small bilingual "Dialogue  Manual/Manual de Dialogo" containing information on the topics of dialogue, conflict resolution and equity, gathered and edited by NOMAD LAB's Dialogue Lab youth and adult participants in collaboration with artists and mediation experts. Remaining funds will be used towards the  purchase of two video projectors, a laptop, a set of speakers and a 6-channel sound board.

Favorite pie?: Anything warm and gluten free


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Juliana Snapper

Project leader: Juliana Snapper

Collaborators: LA artists interested in using sound and voice in their work

Project title: Artists’ Voice and Sound Lab (AVSL)

Project summary: Using canned music in your video or performance work makes it just another music video. The Artists’ Voice and Sound Lab offers artists the tools for working creatively with sound and voice. Some of the freshest thinking about sound is coming from visual artists, but there is an urgent need for a place to experiment with, and develop our ideas.

In weekly meetings AVSL will offer participating artists:

Tools to develop their voices, and expand their sonic vocabularies

The opportunity to experiment with, and develop their ideas

The opportunity to have those ideas realized and documented for use in their pieces

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: Your moolah gets AVSL up and running! In order to start developing and documenting new work we need: a printer/scanner/copier ($250), 2 additional vocal mics ($300), 4 mic stands ($160), staff paper and poster board ($40) and beer to buy off my housemate from time to time ($50).


Favorite Pie?: Chicken Pot



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Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Editorial Collective

Project leaders: Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Editorial Collective (Christina Ulke, Marc Herbst ). In case we win, further collaborators are forthcoming.

Project title: Artists Pension Trust.

Project summary: The project is a “mod” of the Artist Pension Trust for Los Angeles based artists—keeping some of the benefits while eliminating major structural flaws.  Unlike the Artist Pension Trust, which fosters a star-system, the Artists Pension Trust has open enrollment and is designed to benefit all participating artists equally, with the potential of collectively organizing artists.

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: The money will go towards the design and administration of a website (including domain name). On the website, LA-based artists can sign up to enroll and invest an artwork to the collective pool. After 3 years, AsPT will hold an auction. Artists get 30% of their own sale amount, the rest of the money will be distributed among all members equally. This is a member-based model.


Favorite pie: Pecan Pie


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Llano Del Rio


Project leaders: Robby Herbst with Advisor, Katie Bachler

Project title: Socialist Commune/Llano Del Rio Guides


Project summary: We want to build a 21st Century socialist commune with LA! Solidarity, community, sustainability. We are proposing a series of guides that plot our course towards togetherness. Our first guide, A Map For An Other LA, located our conspirators throughout Los Angeles County, beekeepers, radical art spaces and urban gardens. Future guides will explore critical land and mindscapes of our commune;  bicycles, underground economies, dead or buried histories, urban dance, the military, interventionist art, esoteric theories, counter culture, the intricacies of city government. Llano Del Rio Guides will publish thematic guides thrice annually until the commune materializes; handshakes, health, milkshakes, land and sunshine!

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: 500 bucks is enough to pay for printing our next guide, City Dance.


Favorite pie: I bake a flakey delicious Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, Some apples are in their for the pectin.

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Laura Bouza


Project leader: Laura Bouza

Project collaborators: Gaia Mama (Florence Riggs and Kabbalah Bach)

Project title: Gaia Mama: A Sound and Light Portrait

Project summary: Gaia Mama: A Sound and Light Portrait is a film portrait of two sound healers, Florence Riggs and Kabbalah Bach. Sound healing is the exploration of the vibrational qualities of sound and how this affects the body. Florence Riggs and Kabbalah Bach have been working together under the name, Gaia Mama, meaning “earth mother”, to create a sound palate capable of spreading peace, healing and insight. As a filmmaker and visual artist, Laura Bouza has been working to create a film representation of these two women and their craft. The finished film will play with the representation of sound and light.

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: The funding will be used for 16mm film processing, printing, and other lab  costs associated with post-production.

Favorite pie? Key Lime

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Edith Abeyta

Project leaders:  Edith Abeyta and Gallery Visitors


Project title: Me, You, Us

Project summary: Me, You, Us is an installation-based experiment in mutualism between Edith Abeyta and gallery visitors for the exhibition, Crossbreed: the art of collaboration, November 22 – December 17, 2010, at the El Camino College Art Gallery.  Backpacks fabricated from donated clothing will be installed on individual shelves.  Visitors to the gallery can exchange a backpack for an object they made.  Participants’ objects will replace the backpacks and remain on view for the duration of the exhibition.  The final manifestation of the project is unpredictable but it is structured in a way to exemplify and facilitate non-exploitative exchanges by adopting a methodology of mutual aid.
 

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: Resource requirements, Various quantities of donated fabric and labor, scavenged wood, 1 gallons of primer ($20), 2 Gallons of Glidden Ultra Hide #1200 ($50), 200 Zippers ($200), Sewing Machine Maintenance ($45), 10 Spools of Thread ($50), @ box of Screws ($10), 2 Bottles of Wood Glue ($7), 1 Wood Putty, 10 Catalogs ($100).



Favorite pie: Lemon Meringue


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Amor Fati Art and Literary Magazine

Project leader: Michael Flores


Project collaborators: Brit L Manor, Aaron Garcia, Wilson Bethel, Sam Wickham, John Jajeh


Project title: Art  and Literary Magazine of Los Angeles

Project Summary: Amor Fati, the new art & literary magazine of Los Angeles, is a thematic, quarterly digest that solely embraces the works of LA writers, artists and creatives.  In a city of disparate parts, our aim is to create a platform for organic and challenging exchange that is reflective of this generation and brings a collective voice to an anomalous city. In Feb 2010, Amor Fati released its inaugural issue featuring 23 LA writers and artists. The magazine can be found online and at a number of notable bookshops and boutiques in the LA area, and has a sizable readership of 150 people after only one issue. www.theamorfati.com

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: Amidst the diminishing climate of printed literature in our modern world, Amor Fati wants to believe that printed works cannot only survive but also thrive in our inimitable city! Artist Bailout funding would go directly towards printing and promoting our second issue, essentially supplementing our 1-year start-up investment. Promotional campaigns include events and exhibitions, art demonstrations and formalized distribution.

Favorite Pie: If Cheesecake doesn’t count, it would be a Classic Apple Rhubarb Pie or Peach Cobbler a la mode!

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Owen Driggs

Project leaders: Owen Driggs and Felipe Zúñiga

Project title: Performing Public Space:  Economy of Gesture

Project summary: Performing Public Space (PPS) explores the ways artists instrumentalize their bodies in an effort to bend, expand, or puncture dominant spatial narratives.  Organized by Owen Driggs, PPS debuted in Tijuana in 2010 as an exhibition with artist actions, performances and a research arm. A tumbleweed of inquiry, PPS accumulates ideas and artists in each city it visits.

In this spirit PPS presents Economy of Gesture, a project introduced to Owen Driggs by Tijuana-based artist Felipe Zúñiga. Utilizing the advertising phenomena of sign spinning to convey site-specific poetry interventions, Economy of Gesture, employs the vigor of human directionals who throw, spin and twirl their messages.

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: If selected to receive the funds, PPS will fabricate signs and hire multiple sign spinners for a day of Economy Of Gesture twirling poetry action in Los Angeles.  Five artists and writers (with 5 more to come) have contributed poems and messages for the event.  Each message will need a spinner and a sign fabricated for a 3-hour event.

 Budget:

Sign spinner: $10-20 ($15 x 3 hours x 10 spinners = $450)

Sign Fabrication: $30 (10 x $30 = $300)

Felipe Zúñiga travel: $150


Favorite Pie: I am more or a cake guy, but I would never turn down pumpkin pie!


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Anna Mayer

Project leader:  Anna Mayer


Project title:  Dirtbag Structures for Gathering

Project summary: I seek funding to run several workshops teaching the simple earthbag building techniques developed by Iranian architect Nader Khalili. Using the familiar and beautiful form of the arch, I’ll instruct anyone interested in how to use readily available sandbags and barbed wire to create earthquake-resistant structures scaled to the human body. While occupying a vacant lot in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles over a period of many weeks, the builders and their arches will accumulate to serve as a highly optical testament to the disaster-proof potential of DIY building techniques and intuitive engineering.

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: Funds would go towards the materials needed to build the arches and for any expenses incurred when the various groups of builders gather each week. Supplies needed include repurposed polypropylene bags, tampers, barbed wire, and the cost of trucking in found dirt.


Favorite pie: My Aunt Mary-Jane’s raspberry pie is my favorite.


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Nancy Popp

Project leaders: Nancy Popp and Igor Grubic

Project title: Nancy Popp In Collaboration with Igor Grubic

Project summary: Artists Nancy Popp (Los Angeles) and Igor Grubic (Zagreb) will perform a series of politically-motivated gestures individually created in their respective cities and countries. They will then pass descriptions of these actions to one another as a series of text-based instructions or ‘scores’ to be interpreted and performed in the other’s city, creating works that would highlight the complexities and comparisons between the cultural and political contexts.

Individuals create gestures based on the place they live, its politics, relationships and culture, its regional particularities. These individualistic particularities can bridge cultures through personal affinity, and are often mis-translated when they cross borders and interact with other populations and places.

How will you use funding towards the realization of your project?: Grant monies will be utilized for props, materials for the actions, photographic and video
documentation for individual performances, mailings and communiqués between the artists, and travel expenses.

Favorite pie?: