Machine Project

Artist Mick Lorusso will come to us from Mexico City to speak about his projects with Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs). MFCs contain bacteria that have the ability to release a small current of electricity while they decompose organic matter. After the talk, Lorusso will give a short demonstration on how to set up a simple MFC, using only basic materials like mud and sugar.

Sasha Archibald will give an illustrated talk on make-up in early cinema (1910-1940) and cosmetic pioneer Maksymilian Faktorowicz. This is the first event for Quarterly, an occasional series of Machine Project events organized in conjunction with Cabinet, the quarterly arts and culture magazine based in Brooklyn, New York.

In this two-day workshop, students will pair traditional and non-traditional mold-making to create work that is first classical and then distorted. Make life casts and silicone molds of found objects, learn to cast with wax, plaster, and resin, and then push each material past its conventional use to achieve curious and surprising results. There are only a couple spots left in the workshop, so register now!

Registration is $105 for Machine members and $120 for non-members. Visit the following link for more information about the class, and to sign up: /build/engine/archive/classwork/2013/08/31/experimental-casting-workshop

Poet Aaron Kunin will read some of his poems for us, possibly out of his most recent book Grace Period, a collection of aphorisms, sketches, and fragments. Following Aaron’s reading, we will host the Los Angeles premiere of Harry Dodge’s recent video, THE ASS AND THE LAP DOG (or Maladie du Pays), which focuses on problems of transposition, or of flawed translation —of being ill-equipped, untrained, displaced, not “passing” — proposed in part as a type of homesickness.