Machine This Weekend: May 25th – 26th

WORKSHOP : Intro to Arduino
Saturday, May 25th / Sunday, May 26th / Saturday, June 1st / Sunday, June 2nd from 12 – 3pm
An Arduino is an open-source micro-controller with the ability to quickly and easily interface with a variety of sensors, electronics, and software making it a staple of physical computing in artistic applications. We will cover a variety of topics such as basic electronics, hardware sensors, programming in the Arduino language, and what can be done when you combine all of these things.

Registration is $225 for members / $250 for non-members. Sign up at the following link:
http://machineproject.com/archive/classwork/2013/05/25/intro-to-arduino-4/

EVENT : Kamau Patton – The Sky Above
Sunday, May 25th at 6pm
At the Machine Project storefront.
Join us for a (real time) broadcast tour of all the buildings in downtown that have ever held the title of “Tallest Building in Los Angeles”. Conceptualized and performed by Kamau Patton (with the help of a helicopter pilot, filmmaker and sound engineer), this is the first time we’ve ever rented a helicopter for anything.

This event is part of Machine Project’s Field Guide to L.A. Architecture.

Machine This Weekend: May 18th – 19th

EVENT : Clump and Whistle
Sunday, May 19th 2013 at 1pm
Glendale Civic Center Plaza // Broadway and Glendale Ave
Clump and Whistle: an emergent performance for up to 100 participants based on principles extrapolated from Elias Canetti’s book Crowds and Power. The public is invited to join with Machine Project and artist Sara Roberts for two participatory performances. Clump is an experiment in group/crowd behavior, based on a simple rule set but without fixed outcome or direction. In Whistle the crowd, equipped with multi-pitched whistles, configures to play compositions based on what the person next to you has just done, making propagating sound waves. Click here for further details.

This event is part of Machine Project’s Field Guide to L.A. Architecture.

EVENT : Machine Project in Miami
Saturday, May 18th from 6:30 to 8pm
Location will be disclosed with RSVP.
RSVP by May 16 to splash@cannonballmiami.org or call 786-347-2360 for more information.

Machine Project, in collaboration with Cannonball, presents Swash Motions. In this new work, Corey looks to the popular beach landscapes of Miami as a canvas to create an ephemeral, experiential piece that invokes the spirit of the open air and the edge of the world.

Fogel and a small ensemble of musicians will reimagine the well-trodden beaches as a boundless stage. Natural resources, such as water, sand, and breeze, become raw materials in a collage of choreography, sculpture, and improvisation. Swash Motions blends music, color, gesture, and material forms into a sensual exploration of berm, swash, wrack, and dune.

Machine This Week: May 10th – 12th

EVENT : Interactive Ping Pong Music
Friday, May 10th from 7 – 10pm
At the Machine Project storefront.
Composed by Joshua Gerowitz and performed by Brendan Carn, Casey Anderson, Louis Lopez, Stephanie Zaletel and Daniel Eaton. Computers, traditional instruments, cell phones and speaker objects will be used to realize this site specific composition focused on interaction, exploration and socialization. Everyone in attendance will have a chance to participate.

EVENT : Rehearsal for Clump and Whistle
Saturday, May 11th from 2 – 3:30pm
West side of Stadium Way just South of Academy Road at Elysian Park.
Come join Sara Roberts and participate in a rehearsal of Clump and Whistle: a project for Machine Project’s Field Guide to LA Architecture. Clump is an experiment in group/crowd behavior, based on a simple rule set but without fixed outcome or direction. In Whistle the crowd, equipped with multi-pitched whistles, configures to play compositions based on what the person next to you has just done, making propagating sound waves. Click here for further details.

EVENT : Anna Petrisko – Jeepneys’ Bowling With Aliens
Saturday, May 11th 2013 from 8 – 10pm
At the All Star Lanes Bowling Center // 4459 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90041
Jeepneys and alien friends host a celestial bowling party for Machine Project’s Field Guide to LA Architecture, followed by a parking lot performance of interstellar sounds and movements in The Popwagon, a mobile venue transformed into a vibrant tropical spaceship just for the occasion. Click here for further information.

EVENT : Improvised Sound Ping Pong Tournament
Sunday, May 12th at 2pm
At the Machine Project storefront
Honor your mothers by attending an event that combines a ping pong tournament with improvised sound. Each player will be teamed up with a musician who will be using direct output generated from gameplay, and as the tournament progresses, improvised duets will arise. Participating musicians include Casey Anderson, Raphael Arar, Clay Chaplin, Phil Curtis, Wyatt Penn Keusch, Dan Letourneau, Stephanie Smith and Mark Trayle. If you would like to sign up as a player, please email Raphael Arar: me@rarar.com. Players will be selected on a first come, first served basis.

EVENT : Carmina Escobar – Massagem Sonora
Sunday, May 12th from 4 – 6pm
At The Korean Bell of Friendship, Angel’s Gate Park // 3601 Gaffey St, San Pedro, CA 90731
An experiment on intimacy, personal space and bodily resonance by Carmina Escobar for Machine Project’s Field Guide to LA Architecture. Massagem Sonora establishes a relationship of discovery between individuals, usually strangers, that allow themselves to be improvised on via voice and facial resonators applied to their bodies to discover their own unique resonant geographies. Also makes for a great Mother’s day gift. More information can be found here.

If you’re in Marfa, Texas

We are so pleased to be screening the premiere of our upcoming DVD release Machine Project Presents! at the Cinemarfa film festival, featuring fourteen films of two years of performances, workshops and interviews. Accompanying the screening will be a performance by Cliff Hengst and a reading by Anthony McCann. Whether you’re in Marfa already, or planning for a 14 hour drive through the beauty of the American Southwest to go the festival, we’d love to see you there.

Screening and performances are on Friday, May 3rd at 10pm. Click here and scroll down to “Mark Allen and Machine Project” to reserve a seat.

Machine This Week: April 30th – May 1st

EVENT : A guided tour of a portion of a city that i don’t particularly know
Tuesday, April 30th and Wednesday, May 1st embarking at 6pm
A performed poetical pet-free potential little adventure to be walked head-on in the very ignorant company of Dominique Gilliot, a French artist who, although she doesn’t know shit much about this part of the town (nor about Los Angeles as a whole either), has got a (naïve yet mind-stimulating) lot to say about it. Mesmerizing interpretations, blurred impressions, accurate sensations (+ depending on the weather, the artist might be wearing short pants).

EVENT : Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
Wednesday, May 1st at 8pm
Join us for the next installment of East of Borneo’s EATS of Borneo series: A special screening of “WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE” (1980), in memory of the great documentary filmmaker Les Blank who passed away on April 7. The short documentary features Herzog fulfilling the bet that if his friend Errol Morris completed his film on the subject of pet cemeteries—what would be Morris’s debut release “Gates of Heaven” (1979)—Herzog would eat his shoe. The film follows Herzog as he cooks his own Clarks boots in duck fat and garlic with the help of Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. Following the film, refreshments will be served.

Machine This Weekend: April 27 – 28th

WORKSHOP : Yodels of the WorldSaturday, April 27th from 3 – 5pm
We will learn all kinds of yodeling, herding calls and glottal techniques including but not limited to yodels from America, Africa, Bulgaria/ the Balkans, and Scandinavia, including Swedish kulning. We will also cover Jewel, Zap Mama and Alanis Morissette. No singing or yodeling experience required! Hold onto your lederhosen.

Registration is $30 general admission & $25 for Machine Project members. Sign up at the following link:
http://machineproject.com/archive/classwork/2013/04/27/yodels-of-the-world

EVENT : PING VS PONGSaturday, April 27th at 8pm
Ping and Pong have been partnered for years, but very little consideration is given to the intense, simmering rivalry that lurks just beneath the surface. In this audience-controlled lecture, Jason Torchinsky will explore the parallel and separate histories of both all the things he could find named Ping and Pong, the grandfather of all video games.

The lecture itself will be controlled by the audience playing a real, 1975-vintage Pong machine. If left player scores, Ping will be discussed, and if right, Pong, and back and forth until either Torchinsky’s head explodes or the audience leaves in disgust and pity. It could totally fail as well! Come and see!

EVENT : Chance meeting in a storefront of a ping pong table and a sound installationSunday, April 28th from 3 to 5pm
Raphael Arar & Wyatt Penn Keusch invite you to experience a ping pong table and some sound at Machine Project. A set of activities will be available upon arrival—you may choose whether or not to follow them. The only guidelines are to interact with the space (play a match, walk around, throw some ping pong balls in the air) and experience a responsive sonic environment in the process.

PERFORMANCE: Machine in Miami: Asher Hartman’s “The Florida Room” at Cannonball Friday, April 26, 2013, 8:00 PM Saturday, April 27, 2013, 7:00 PM & 10:30 PM

Cannonball (Miami, FL) and Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA) are thrilled to announce the premiere of Asher Hartman’s new play The Florida Room. This two-hour live, public play will take place at two private residences in the MiMo district of Miami and feature actors Franc Baliton, Rochelle Fabb, Michael Morrissey, Paul Outlaw, and Joe Seely.

The play’s narrative follows a man who has become so alienated from himself at mid-life that he is split into beings, gradually becoming a deity whose creative and destructive impulses have a profound effect on his closest friends who’ve come to help him in the home he’s house sitting. Beneath the mythically charged plot is a terse exploration of psychological violence, debt, friendship, and the American quest for security. Audiences watch as the play unfolds around them. Musical, nastily funny, and haunting, The Florida Room makes us think about the deep emotional attachment we have to the material world.

WORKSHOP: Walking Into Walls (And Curtains) With Asher Hartman at Cannonball, Miami Monday, April 29, 6:00-9:00 pm 

Free and open to all

Cannonball (Miami, FL) and Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA) are thrilled to announce a one-day workshop by artist Asher Hartman. Free and open to the public, Walking into Walls (and Curtains) is a workshop of actors and visual artists interested in stirring up new ideas about “live art.”

We will collectively ponder and perform questions about the ways in which the coupling of actor and artist can spark new ideas about the relationships between the being and the object; space, place and text; seeing and sensing, making and witnessing. Our goal is to rethink the ways in which crossing disciplinary boundaries can widen the sight lines of live art. Without making a grand distinction between performance art and theater, we may consider spoken texts, naturalistic and other acting techniques, and blocking and choreography, meditation, and energy work as useful tools, and we will be thinking about concepts of audience and stage. Everyone will perform.

Machine This Week: April 18th – 21st

EVENT : Reanimation Library Debriefing and Word Processor Launch
Thursday, April 18th at 8pm
Reanimation Library founder Andrew Beccone will present an overview of the library’s history, objectives, and activities. Los Angeles-based writers Colin Dickey and Bruna Mori will read from their contributions to Word Processor, the library’s ongoing exploration of its own holdings.

Dickey will respond to Abyss: The Deep Sea and the Creatures that Live in It, while Mori will tackle a new (and as-of-yet uncataloged) acquisition, Seeing Well Again Without Your Glasses. The evening will culminate in a completely routine—yet often hidden—celebration of technological hoo-ha by publically uploading electronic files to the library’s web host via an FTP client, thus “launching” the new installment of Word Processor. Sparklers will be at hand.

EVENT : The Day of Speculative Motion
Sunday, April 21st : Ongoing from 9am to midnight
Tea, toast & talk with Kelly Sears at 11am

The Day of Speculative Motion presents a series of dystopic short works featuring wayward astronauts, ghostly beauty queens, eager soldiers, haunted ex-presidents alluring telephone operators and doomed 1970s high school students. Kelly Sears uses popular American imagery to create parafictional readings of the nation’s past and forge connections with the present-day. These works draw on the intersection of animation, experimental film, recycled cinema, and the film essay. Through this patchwork of American Post War histories, Sears examines the darker side of the American Dream in hallucinatory vignettes.

WORKSHOP : Pantomime Workshop
Monday, April 22nd : 7 – 9pm
Pantomime: the visualization of imaginary things through stylized physicality.
Alexander Technique: a way of tuning one’s whole self to any activity, restoring good natural coordination and giving all movement and effortless quality.
This workshop will explore the spectrum of movement, and how Alexander Technique and Pantomime can be used to take movement to its very essence, and develop movement into stylized physicality, create illusion, convey and evoke emotion, and develop characters.

Registration is $35 general admission & $25 for Machine Project members. Sign up at the following link:
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5970478863

Drawing and Drones, insect edition

Drawing and Drones: Life Drawing with Insects edition from machine project on Vimeo.

Machine This Weekend: April 13 – 14th

WORKSHOP : Glitch Art Workshop
Saturday, April 13th from 1 – 5pm
Learn how to databend and datamosh images and video, to compress and re-compress, animate, break, re-animate, and turn conventional image processing inside out. A discussion of early glitch art, artists, visual aesthetics, and conceptual aesthetics (appropriation of artifacts, and the technical appropriation of entropic processes) will center around a hands on breaking of data structures and file formats.

Registration is $40 for general admission and $30 for Machine Project members.
Sign ups and more information can be found at the following link:
http://machineproject.com/archive/classwork/2013/04/13/glitch-art-workshop

EVENT : Nature Hike to the Ruins of Poetry and Song
Sunday, April 14th; meeting at 3:30pm
Join us for a poetry hike from the end of Lake Avenue in Altadena to the ruins of the Echo Mountain Resort. Once we arrive at the resort Kirsty Singer will be reading poems to touch trees, dirt, plants and rocks by and John Martin will be singing songs for people to look at his drawings of human and animal relations by.

Please visit the following link for hike details and further information:
http://machineproject.com/archive/events/2013/04/14/nature-hike-to-the-ruins-of-poetry-and-song

VOTE FOR US!

VOTE : Everything, Everywhere: LA 2050
Voting begins Tuesday, April 2nd and ends Wednesday, April 17th

Vote for us to receive a $100,000 LA2050 challenge grant to create grassroots art organizations all over LA County.

At Machine Project we are continually inspired by the grassroots cultural organizing happening all over LA. For the LA2050 challenge grant we propose to help seed the next generation of local, visionary work by helping 10 people or groups to start their own spaces throughout their neighborhoods in LA.

You can check out our proposal and click “Vote for this Idea” to vote for us!
http://myla2050.maker.good.is/projects/machineproject

If you need to register, please remember to validate your email address (you’ll receive instructions after you vote) so your vote gets counted. You’ll see a notification at the top of the screen once your vote has been successfully counted.

EVENT : DIY Art Space or Whatever
Saturday, April 6th at 4pm

APOLOGIES DEAR PEOPLE, BUT WE ARE TOTALLY FULL. Email m@machineproject.com with the subject line [thanks for nothing] to be on the wait list for next time

If you’d like a more intimate, formal version of the above proposal Machine Project Executive Director Mark Allen will once again be offering his DIY Art Space or Whatever Workshop on Saturday, April 6th at 4pm. Mark will answer questions, give advice, and provide an overview on the basics of starting your own grassroots, cultural venue.

If this is something you are interested in attending, please email Mark at m@machineproject.com with the subject line [want to be starting something] and include whatever questions you have, so he can prepare to be as useful as possible.