Machine Project

We’re lucky to be joined this week by Hanna Rose Shell, who is creating a week of events around the history and practice of camouflage.

Saturday June 28 at 8pm we are presenting Animal Mimicry and the Media of Reconnaissance This event explores the “mixed-media” foundations of modern camouflage. Artist and historian Hanna Rose Shell focuses the story on artist, naturalist and media innovator Abbott Handerson Thayer (1854-1921). In 1896, he first articulated his laws of “obliterative coloration” and “disruptive patterning.” Over the next fifteen years, Thayer attempted scientific proof of his laws through the production, dissemination, and demonstration of three-dimensional models and stencils. He incorporated media (including photographs, films, skins, textiles and paints) into interactive collages and installations. A science and practice of protective concealment was in the making. This event is free.

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Tuesday July 1st at 8pm we have a Disruptive Patterning Collaborative Event w/ Sumi Ink Club. Come participate in the creation of visual models to explore the underlying principles of becoming invisible. Participants are encouraged to experiment with methods of obliterative countershading and disruptive patterning. In addition to reconnoitering for concealed human forms, visitors work together to transform discrete animal shapes into an abstract mass indistinguishable from its background environment. Each line is used to form a field of real and potential illusion, as participants obliterate and decorate, continue and disrupt, reveal and obscure the marks made by others in the interest of creative collaboration. Sumi Ink and brushes will be available for all. Sumi Ink Club, founded in 2005 by Luke Fischbeck and Sarah Anderson, holds regular public meetings in which many hands collaborate to create seamless topsy-turvy drawings using sumi ink. This event is for all ages. This event is free.

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Saturday July 5th from 2-5pm we are having a Ghillie Suit building workshop. Ghillie suits are a type of camouflage clothing designed to resemble heavy foliage. In our “How Not to Be Seen” Ghillie Suit Construction workshop, students will build their own ghillie suits at Machine Project. Materials will be provided, though if you already have foliage you’d like to work with, please let us know! Space is limited to 12 students and we expect this to fill quickly, so register now at the link below to avoid disappointment. Members $45 : Non-members $50.

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Saturday July 5th from 5pm until nighttime we present Camouflage Kinesthetics. In this collaborative performance event, we will talk and think critically about self-concealment, move our bodies and fashion our forms so as to maximize possibilities for environmental immersion – all in relation to real or imagined video surveillance devices. Students from that afternoon’s ghillie suit construction workshop are invited to stay and use their new suits during this performance. This event is free.

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