Machine This Weekend: March 30th

Workshop : Bulgarian Singing Workshop
Saturday, March 30
Part 1 (beginners): 3 – 5pm
Part 2 (advanced): 5:15 – 6:30

Part I (open to all)
We will learn tone production, odd meters, ornamentation and songs from the stunning Bulgarian polyphonic tradition. No previous experience necessary, ability to match pitch highly recommended.

Part II (advanced techniques)
Open to anyone with experience singing Bulgarian music solo or in a group. We will learn more intricate ornamentation, explore regional styles and refine singing techniques. Participants are invited and encouraged to bring something to sing solo or with a group.

Registration for Part 1 (beginners) is $25 for general admission & $20 for Machine Project members. Registration for Part 1 & Part 2 (advanced techniques) is $35 general admission & $30 for Machine Project members. Sign up & more information at the following link:

http://machineproject.com/archive/classwork/2013/03/30/bulgarian-singing-workshop-2

posted: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 |

Machine This Week: March 12th – 16th

EVENT : Expressive Machines
Tuesday, March 12th at 8pm
Expressive Machines is a band of sonic thrill seekers, composers who have turned to the creation of novel robotic musical instruments to achieve their musical vision. Founded in Charlottesville, Virginia by Troy Rogers, Steven Kemper, and Scott Barton in 2007, the multifaceted organization operates as a composers’ collective, performance troupe, instrument design/development shop, and research group. Members of EMMI will discuss their work and present musical performances by a small ensemble of their robotic string, wind, and percussion instruments.

EVENT : American Pi-Dol
Thursday, March 14th at 8pm
To celebrate National Pi Day (March 14th), Machine Project is hosting American Pi-dol: Pie of the Month Club. The American Idol-style event will feature a talent show where participants will show off a Pi or Pie-related talent or trick, judged by Machine Project Director Mark Allen, Top Chef Masters Judge and LAist Food Editor Krista Simmons and a to-be-announced mathematician. A $10 ticket ($3.14 for member ticket) gets you access to the contest as well as a slice of Strawberry Rhubarb Pie and glass of wine. The evening will end with a pie eating contest!

EVENT IS SOLD OUT!

EVENT : Jibade-Khalil Huffman
Friday, March 15th at 8pm
Artist and writer Jibade-Khalil Huffman presents a screening of recent text/image projects. Making use of the subtitle, these poems, in the form of slideshows/moving pictures, translate the varieties of the absurd into poetry. Huffman will present several long form slide works and will read fragments of a novel in progress in the otherwise uncomfortable moments in between pieces when someone is changing the carousels and re-focusing the projector.

EVENT : Emily Mast & Hana van der Kolk – Six Twelve One By One
Saturday, March 16th at 6:30pm
Note: Event takes place at the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society.
Emily Mast and Hana van der Kolk present Six Twelve One By One, a performance of six soon-to-be-first-time moms that examines the pregnant body through a series of task-like actions, movements, and dances. The performance is staged in the round at The Onion, a womb-like wooden dome that has been the home of the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society since 1961.

RSVP at the following link: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5713880370

This is the first of 30 projects in our summer-long series The Machine Project Field Guide to L.A. Architecture, which will include a tract home light show, the spirit of Whitney Houston, helicopters, a telephoto poetry doppleganger stakeout, collaborative walking tours, and much more.

posted: Mon, 11 Mar 2013 |

Machine This Week: March 8th

EVENT : The Book Of Frank by CAConrad
Friday, March 8th at 8pm
CAConrad, our favorite crystal-carrying poet from Philadelphia will be in residence and will read from his work THE BOOK OF FRANK in its entirety. The son of white trash asphyxiation, his childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift.

Enjoy a three minute film he made for the book HERE.

posted: Mon, 04 Mar 2013 |

Machine This Weekend: March 3rd

Workshop : Embroidery For Artists
Sunday, March 3rd from noon – 3pm
Learn the basics of hand embroidery from Jenny Hart in a class that focuses on textural effects and free-form techniques. Hart will give a brief talk on her work, lead students through the basics of hand embroidery, review tools, share techniques for transferring original designs to fabric and “doodling” in embroidery. Students will leave with a new understanding of hand embroidery and the ability to experiment with it in their own work.

Registration is $60 for the general public / $45 for Machine Project members. Sign up at the following link: http://machineproject.com/archive/classwork/2013/03/03/embroidery-for-artists/

posted: Tue, 26 Feb 2013 |

Machine This Weekend: February 22nd – 24th

EVENT : Cliff Hengst
Friday, February 22nd at 8pm
Artist Cliff Hengst is visiting us from San Francisco. You may remember Cliff from our video of his uphill performance during the Southern Machine Exposure Project last summer. We’re still not exactly sure what Cliff has in store for us on Friday but he promises four performances whose keywords may include: Balloon Limbo, the metal band Venom, silent reenactments, Dave Eggers and personalized one-liners about audience members.

WORKSHOP : “You Will Be My Music” with Fol Chen
Saturday, February 23rd : One hour sessions from 4 to 8pm
FOR MACHINE PROJECT MEMBERS ONLY
Fol Chen will invite non-musicians into a mobile studio, where over the course of an hour-long session the band will help participants to literally “cover” a favorite pop song, assisting them to record their own sounds and vocals on top of a track from their personal music collection. At the end of the hour, the original song will be deleted from the multi-track Pro Tools session, leaving only the sounds we recorded, which will then be mixed down into a kind of ghost image of the original. Meanwhile, Rosten Woo will work with participants to create album artwork through a similar process.

WORKSHOPS : Workshops from the Workshop on Workshops
Sunday, February 24th. Morning Section: 10 to noon. Afternoon section: 2 to 5pm
FOR MACHINE PROJECT MEMBERS ONLY
We just did a workshop on teaching workshops with a dozen brilliant UCLA grad students, out of which came a bunch of one hour educational experiments. There will be two sessions: the morning session is from 10am-noon and covers Getting Started With Inflatables and Household Hardware Hacking. The afternoon session is from 2 to 5pm and covers Microbial Aesthetics, Casual Circuits, and Video Mapping.

More details are available here: http://machineproject.com/archive/classwork/2013/02/24/workshops-from-the-workshop-on-workshops

posted: Thu, 21 Feb 2013 |

Machine This Week: February 15th – 16th

EVENT : The Forgotten Ephemera of Genius
Friday, February 15th at 8pm
Join us as Noah Sneider explores the origins and development of Russian animation. Noah will discuss a pair of early pioneers, Alexander Shiryaev and Wladyslaw Starewicz, whose story features highly flammable film stock, shin-shattering folk dance and stop-motion beetles. Additional topics of interest include the Soviet version of Winnie-the-Pooh, Interplanetary Revolution and philosophically-minded hedgehogs. The talk will include screenings of rare films from Russian and Soviet animators.

EVENT : 2nd Sober & Lonely Synchronised Running Club Run
Saturday, February 16th at 6:30am
Following the Inaugural Sober & Lonely Synchronised Running Club Run in Los Angeles and Johannesburg in August 2012, we invite you to join us for the 2nd Sober & Lonely Synchronised Running Club Run this February. The route will be a short but hilly 3.45 mile loop along Marathon Street in Echo Park/Silver Lake leaving from Machine Project at 7am on Saturday February 16th. The Johannesburg run will start from the Ithuba Arts Gallery at 5pm on Saturday, February 16th as part of An Experiment to Test the Destiny of the World. The route will be a short but hilly 5.56 kilometre loop.

Open to everyone who likes running early in the morning, at the same time as a bunch of strangers on the other side of the world. Please email lauren@soberandlonely.org with the subject line [This hill is actually more steep than I thought it was] and let us know if you will be participating. Doors will open at 6.30am with the run starting promptly at 7am.

posted: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 |

Machine This Week: February 7th – 9th

Workshop : Lie Detector Workshop
Thursday, February 7th at 8pm
Having doubts about someone’s motives or trustworthiness? Allow technology to put your suspicions to rest! This is a hands on electronics and soldering workshop where participants will build a primitive lie detector in the form of a galvanic skin response meter. This device is then yours to take home and interrogate all the shifty individuals in your life.

Registration is $40 for members / $50 for non-members. Sign up at the following link: http://machineproject.com/archive/classwork/2013/02/07/lie-detector-workshop

WORKSHOP : Intro to Arduino
Saturday, February 9th / Sunday, February 10th / Saturday, February 16th &
Sunday, February 17th 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/2013/02/09/intro-to-arduino-3

posted: Mon, 04 Feb 2013 |

Machine This Week: February 1st – 3rd

EVENT : Concert of Field Recordings
Friday, February 1st at 8pm
Our recent field recording workshop will conclude with a concert of workshop participant works and two very special performances and presentations by Tom Erbe and Patrick Farmer. Tom Erbe will perform his version of John Cage’s Williams Mix (twice!) and will talk about his process for realizing the score. Patrick Farmer will perform an excerpt from a newly created work and will talk about his work on the the Compost and Height web site.

WORKSHOP : Mind Reading Workshop
Sunday, February 3rd : Noon – 3pm
Watch your intuitive powers magically grow! Marvel as you instantly connect with human beings! Join artist intuitive duo Krystal Krunch in an intensive workshop that will guide you to tap into your intuitive gifts to “see” and speak to another person. When looking at another through one’s inner vision, we are able to bypass language to grasp another’s “essence.” Practically, you will be playing with and tuning your senses to see without eyes, sense through “knowing,” and hear expansively to connect with other human beings directly.

$40 for members / $50 for non-members. Click here for further details & registration.

posted: Wed, 30 Jan 2013 |

Paris at Machine Project!

Saturday, January 26th
5 – 10pm

5pm : Davide Balula

“Analog Heart”

In this performance certified instructor Kevin Kinnon will demonstrate CPR (réanimation Cardio-Vasculaire) techniques and procedures while musicians illustrate the sounds of the body fluids and heartbeats via analogue synthesizers. Featuring heartbeat synthesizers: Wyatt Penn Keusch, James Lake, Dan Letourneau, Raphael Arar.

Attention: Although you are welcome to come by and enjoy the corporeal sounds of the analog synthesizers, a ticket is required to participate in the CPR class. Tickets are $15 for members (discount code = MEMBER) / $20 for non-members and can be purchased here:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5336609944

7pm : Dominique Gilliot

“Approximately Twenty-five Minutes of Metaphilosophical Poetry Exemplified”

When you are standing inside Machine Project and you start looking onto the street, through the windows, on the opposite wall, you can see a sign painted directly on the surface. It reads Printing, and just below Imprenta. This second sign has begun to erase from the bottom. This is the starting point. Then comes the sun, the clouds, a bird that forgot about singing, the magic of it all, a hole in the lavatory that lets you see a watering can and a plant, a potato, a puppy, a pet, a pilot, a piranha, people, partly penetrated by so many potentialities, before, after, meanwhile, a question mark, and that will be all for tonight, thank you very much for attending, this is such a wonderful audience, I can’t believe it.

8pm : Nicolas Boulard

“Specific Cheeses”

Come for a lecture accompanied by wine and cheese. Nicolas Boulard will be speaking about his project “Specific Cheeses”, where he made 12 cheese molds from drawings by Sol LeWitt: Forms Derived from a 12 Cube (1982). Taste the 12 Specific Cheeses made in the molds by Cowgirlcreamery in San Francisco.

7 – 10pm : Dominique Blais

Dominique Blais will present photographs from his journeys around Los Angeles. Images of the solar cycle, beginning with sunrise in the eastern neighborhoods of LA and finishing with sunset on the westside, will be projected in the gallery throughout the night.

11:11pm : Fayçal Baghriche

at the home of Jen Hofer and Rob Ray

Saturday night January 26 is the last night before Paris Chez Los Angeles returns to Paris Chez Paris.
Jen was born at 12:25 a.m. on January 27 (some years ago).
French artist Fayçal Baghriche invites you to a birthday party.

French music PLAYLIST.
Bring friends.
Bring beers or other drinks.
Bring treats if you want treats.

RSVP here for address:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5337001114#

Please allow up to 24 hours to receive event address. If you don’t receive the address within 24 hours please email machine@machineproject.com.

posted: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 |

Paris At Your Home!

Machine Project and Paris-based Mains d’Œuvres have paired up for Los Angeles Chez Vous! / Paris at Your Home!, an artist and gallery exchange program of public performances in private homes.

This week Mains d’Œuvres have brought six French artists to Los Angeles, and in May 2013, Machine Project will bring six Los Angeles artists to Paris. In both locations the artists will create work in response to and situated in the private residences of their host homes.

Paris Artists :
Fayçal Baghriche, Davide Balula, Julien Berthier, Dominique Blais, Nicolas Boulard, Dominique Gilliot

L.A. Hosts :
Lara Bank, Elizabeth Cline, Chris Colthart, Jen Hofer, Lyn Kienholz, Sara Roberts, Adam Overton

L.A. Artists :
Liz Glynn, Emily Joyce, Dawn Kasper, Emily Lacy, Lucky Dragons, Nate Page

Paris Hosts :
Fayçal Baghriche, Cécile Bourne-Farrell, Stéphanie Cottin, Albertine De Galbert, Dominique Blais and Anne-Lou Vicente

The Los Angeles home events will take place January 19-20 and the final event at Machine on January 26.
Space is limited! RSVP for LA household events below. Event location details will be emailed to you after RSVP’ing.

Saturday, January 19 at 1pm

Davide Balula

Acting the role of the not quite perfect houseguest, Davide Balula changed the lock of his host’s house while she was at work. Amends will be made via performative lock picking, a sculptural interpretation of the house key, and (should the door be successfully opened) access to previously secured snack treats for the audience.

RSVP here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5253529448

Saturday, January 19 at 4 pm

Nicolas Boulard

Artist Nicolas Boulard presents precise architectural interpretations of food prepared by his host family. The audience is invited to compare visual and gustatory consumption. Light snacking.

RSVP here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5259768108

Sunday, January 20 at 6 am

Julien Berthier

Dawn. Just before the coyotes come dancing at the sound of Lyn’s voice. Cinematic landscape. Imported palm trees that put oaks out of business. Nature becoming property. Fictional construction that really smells like crepes. Fake. The end. Please join Lyn and Julien for a subtle intervention which transposes French history onto California steps.

RSVP here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5259832300

Sunday, January 20 at 1 pm

Dominique Gilliot

After having spent a certain amount of time in a certain given space owned and inhabited by a certain person with a certain spirit, Dominique Gilliot will deliver and perform a certain amount of impressions and various intuitions concerning this very context. All the rest is uncertain. Nevertheless, what can be expected is a certain amount of poetry; a certain somebody trying to produce clever singing; colors; a sad puppy; a whole lot of a bunch of many many questions or worse; a physicality confronted with a shadow coming from the window; Adam Overton; Dominique Gilliot and a cracker. Keep your receipts. Remove your shoes. Thank you.

RSVP here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5259808228

Sunday, January 20 at 4:45 pm

Dominique Blais

During his journey in Los Angeles, Dominique Blais has decided to work with the idea of the solar cycle, beginning with sunrise in the eastern neighborhoods of LA and finishing with sunset on the westside. All the pieces – temporary titled “Ten Hours Stories” – will consist of two photographs of these short but important moments determining the IN-point and the OUT-point of a story he does not narrate.

RSVP here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/5260077032

This project is part of Ceci n’est pas
This project is made possible with the support of l’Institut Français et de Flax Foundation

posted: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 |