Exhibition runs from Feb 6th, 2010-March 5, 2010. Open Saturdays & Sundays 12pm-4pm, or by appointment. Opening reception Friday February 5th, 2010, 8pm – 10pm
During the month of February, Nate Page will take on Machine Project as a site.
But is it a site? More often than not, the space looks half-empty, and not yet cleaned up: some folding tables, a discarded monster mask, various wires, and a fry-o-lator left about. When something isn’t happening, it’s hard to pin down how the space functions just by looking around. Over the last several years, Mark Allen has moved away from using the space as a gallery to focus on events, performances, and workshops. Nate’s usual approach – using architecture to explore the social function of a space – needed to expand to accommodate the increasingly non-material nature of the Machine Project organism.
Nate began to focus on Mark Allen’s role as it has expanded beyond the physical site, and sought ways to intervene in the social aspects of the space. He began following Mark and other members of the Machine staff as they went about their day-to-day business: meeting with artists, setting up for costume-making workshops with the guy from GWAR and refilling the greenhouse humidifier. The intervention became an act of sheer awkwardness, with no specified end. No one really knew what Nate was up to, and it was unclear whether he was participating or observing.
The resulting installation will take all of the physical stuff from the Machine Project space and transform it into narrative sculptural vignettes. Any remaining supplies will be shrink-wrapped, and the staff will be forced to break through the plastic at any point someone needs anything during the project’s one-month run.
A book project following the installation will document the social interactions that unfolded over the course of Nate’s intervention.
