Machine Project

July 19th – 31st, 2011
at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

Machine will be in Minneapolis for the last two weeks of July 2011 as part of the Walker Museum’s Open Field summer jubilee. We’ll be teaching kids to break into cars, making pickles, screening an opera by and for dogs, playing music in the parking garage, hiding in the closet, running around and passing out on the lawn, and more.

Projects

• The Fol Chen Verbal Algorithm Composer-Free Song Generator
  Workshop: Wednesday, July 27th // 1pm-5pm
  Song Generating: Thursday, July 28th // 2pm-9pm

  Samuel Bing of the band Fol Chen (Asthmatic Kitty) will produce a customized, one-of-a-kind song for each person who participates in the Fol Chen Verbal Algorithm Composer-Free Song Generator. This is a one day event only!

  Come fill out a survey about your experience at the Walker, turn your survey in to Samuel Bing, and receive a CD of your very own custom song minutes later. He will also host a field recording workshop the day before, on Wednesday, July 27th from 1pm-5pm — stop by and borrow a field recorder to tape your own sounds from around the museum, then give them back to Samuel Bing for use in future song-making. At the end of Summer Jubilee, Samuel will release the songs as a digital download Open Field EP.

• Krystal Krunch’s “Never Been To Me” Tour

  Reading Workshop in James Turrell’s Sky Pesher: Thursday, July 21st
  Mini Energy Readings on the Open Field: Friday, July 22nd
  Listen to Krystal Krunch perform a psychic energy reading of the Walker’s spaces every night, July 21st – July 29th, on 88.3FM.

  Krystal Krunch (Asher Hartman and Haruko Tanaka) will be teaching participants how to develop their psychic skills at Turrell’s Sky Pesher on Thursday, then offering individual psychic readings to the public on Friday on the Open Field. This is a safe, non-denominational, fun series of relational events that will help you lift the veil and leave you feeling light as a feather. Magical-mystical attire encouraged.

• Chris may or may not play trumpet at some time and some place possibly. . .
  Throughout the Building: July 21st – July 29th, sometime between 11am-5pm, maybe.

  Chris Kallmyer, experimental musician, may or may not be playing a trumpet for some duration of time as an exploration of the spaces inside the Walker. Spaces could also be outside the Walker. Spaces may not be involved. (Trumpet optional.)
  Who: Chris Kallmyer
  What: maybe trumpet
  When: unknown
  Where: unknown

• Music For Parking Garages
  City of Minneapolis Parking Garage at the Walker Art Center: July 21, 2011 // 3pm – 8pm

  Los Angeles and Minneapolis musicians will partner to create site-specific sound works for the Walker Art Center’s parking garage. These pieces will create a warm ambient environment for visitors as they park their cars, stop in to listen, or even nap to the music. Come pull up a bean bag chair or backseat, and experience the acoustical charm of the parking structure. Instrumentation may or may not include: push mowers, multiple mobile bell choirs, tubas, and prepared car horns.

  Team LA
  Casey Anderson
  Chris Kallmyer

  Team Minneapolis
  Jonathan Zorn
  Jon Davis and Adam Patterson
  Members of Cantus

  Curated by Chris Kallmyer

• Echo Park Film Center: Filmmobile Screening (at night) and youth workshop (during the day)
  Youth workshop at the FlatPak House: Thursday, July 28th // 3-6pm
  Film Pickling Workshop on the Open Field: Thursday, July 28sth // 6pm-7pm
  Screening on the Open Field: Thursday, July 28th // 9pm

  Join Los Angeles’ Echo Park Film Center at the FlatPak House for hands-on workshops in filmmaking and film pickling, and stay for a screening in the evening. Creating equal and affordable community access to film and video resources since 2001, the EPFC are taking their show on the road this summer in a big blue bus that has been transformed into the EPFC Filmmobile: a full-service, eco-friendly screening and educational facility on wheels. They are stopping in Minneapolis at the Walker for one night only — make sure to catch the bus!

  [www.echoparkfilmcenter.org // www.filmmobile.org// www.filmmobile.org/about.html]

• Tragedy on the Sea Nymph
  Screening on the Walker Open Field: Thursday July 21st // 9:45pm-10pm

  Tragedy on the Sea Nymph is a filmed 10-minute operetta depicting the romance and tragedy of clandestine lovers shipwrecked at sea. Starring an all-dog cast accompanied by live human singers and musicians, this piece explores the remarkable connections between the affectations of operas and the lives of dogs — marked by focused, myopic attentions; yearning; love, and loss. Dogs and humans welcome to attend, BYO water bowls and hankies. Written by Elizabeth Cline with music by Lewis Pesacov.

• Cowboys and Angels
  Occurs Daily at Different Locations: Tuesday, July 19th- Friday, 29th // Beginning at 2pm each day

  Join musician Emily Lacy for a twelve-day world tour of the Walker Art Center. Starting every day from a different location on the Walker campus, she’ll be creating improvised music in reaction to each different space, with an ear towards wistful country songs and vocal electronica. Each performance begins at 2pm; length of each performance will vary.

• Car Theft for Kids
  Open Field: Wednesday, July 20th // 1pm-3pm, Thursday July 21st // 1pm-3pm and 4pm-6pm

  Join us for a hands on workshop for parents, children and teens where participants will learn to break into a car, hotwire it, and escape from its trunk.

  For most kids (and adults), modern cars are simply these gleaming, aggressive-faced jellybeans that house air-conditioning units and MP3 players while they idle in traffic. But underneath their shiny surface lurks all manner of exciting machinery that needs some demystification. That’s where we come in. In this class, we’ll focus on a few key aspects of cars, and our interactions with them, while learning a bit about the physics and mechanics behind how it all works. This is a hands-on workshop, with an actual car to break in and out of. Taught by car historian and inventor Jason Torchinsky, who has already successfully guided at least six children in Los Angeles towards future grand theft auto. Pre-registration required; call 612-375-7610.

• Apple II Beeptacular Spectacular
  FlatPak House: Friday, July 22nd // 1pm-5pm

  We are gathering as many Apple II computers as possible together in the FlatPak House for what can only be called a “Beeptacular Spectacular” concert using vintage computers as an orchestra.

  As a grand “musical” experiment, Jason Torchinsky has written a crude 16-tone sequencer for the Apple II, and will try and gather up as many Apple IIs as possible to perform a live, dynamic sort-of concert/musical event. Machine Project’s resident music guru, Chris Kallmyer, will be on hand to discuss the nature of music, and generally help make things somewhat listenable. Who knows what the end result will sound like? A chorus of angels, poking at touch-tone phones? All the computers from the background of every sci-fi movie from the 50-80s going off at once? A serenade by a truckload of R2-D2s? You’ll have to come and listen for yourselves. Please bring your own Apple II if you’ve got one!

• Poetry Phone
  Different Locations Daily: Tuesday, July 19th-Friday July 29th // 11am-5pm

  Look around the Walker for the black rotary dial phone on a fake rock. When the phone rings, pick up! There is probably a poet on the line waiting to read to you. The poetry phone offers mobile personal poetry performances, given via telephone by a variety of poets. Readings take place throughout the day in a variety of locations across the Walker campus. Poetry curated by Joshua Beckman, who is a poet himself, and enjoys the occasional phone call.

• Opera Listens to You
  Location TBD: Friday, July 22nd and Saturday July 23rd // 11am-1pm and 2-4pm

  After some 400 years of one-sided communication, and an endless series of heartbreaks, tragedies and injustices wailed into any available ear…finally Opera is ready to listen to you. Joined by small chorus of singers, Juliana Snapper, a longtime mouthpiece for opera, will act as Opera’s ear. They will employ a three-step “active listening” process developed through clinical research to (re-)establish a healthy connection in partners who have – like Opera and her audience – become gradually estranged. We invite you to join us in a journey into operatic re-connection. Come and sit for a bit, share your feelings, tell Opera what happened — and have the experience of truly being heard.

• Composition for Photoelectric Array and Ambient Light
  Open Field: Thursday, July 28th // 5pm-9pm

  Sound artist Kamau performs live on the Open Field using the sun’s rays. Via solar panels and a light-to-frequency converter, you’ll be able to listen to sounds composed by measuring the rays of the sun as the light changes throughout the day. As a favor to Kamau, please refrain from doing any raindances until at least Friday July 29th.

• Electric Melon Workshop
  Open Field: Thursday, July 28th // 2-4pm

  Make your own amplified melon! All you need are simple soldering skills we will teach you, and one small melon, which we can provide while supplies last. In one afternoon you will:

  1) build your own contact microphone
  2) combine your mic with a melon to make an amplified melon
  3) join our amplified electric melon drum circle
  4) eat your melon when you’re done and/or take your melon rinds to the World of Pickling at the Walker Open Field and pickle your rinds.

  All participants will be able to borrow soldering materials. No advanced registration required. Drum circle or previous electric melon experience also not required.

• Andre you forgot about the fire
  Wednesday, July 27th // 9am – 1pm Oven Building, 1pm – 5pm Oven Firing, 5pm – 7pm Pizza Party

  Come help build a brick pizza oven from scratch in one day, then enjoy a dinnertime pizza party with the Walker Art Center’s staff and artists from Machine Project! Extra slices will be given to anyone who sticks around afterwards to help take the oven apart at the end of the night.

  “Andre you forgot about the fire” is a project by sculptor Michael O’Malley. It is a gesture that remakes one of Carl Andre’s now iconic firebrick pieces, Equivalent. The remaking serves as both remembrance and prelude; once completed, the piece becomes source material for the making of a temporary pizza oven. This shift marks a further extension into the use of everyday material to include conversations about the built environment, DIY, and vernacular culture as artistic practice. It also produces some of the best-tasting pizza you’ll ever have, and creates a hands-on workshop setting for learning how to build your own brick oven. RSVP requested — please contact the Walker Art Center if you’d like to participate.

• Meet the Earbees [or] Games for Ears
  Open Field: Thursday, July 28th // 11:30am-12:30pm, 2-3pm, 4:30-5:30pm, and maybe even 7-8pm

  Join artist Sara Roberts for sound-based group participatory activities using Earbees.

  What are Earbees?

  Earbees look a lot like transistor radios, but instead of playing top 40 they record whatever you like and play it back looped. They can be placed somewhere particular, hidden, stacked, gambled with, buried, and thrown, there are lots of possibilities. The inventor of Earbees, Sara Roberts, will lead some favorite activities and we’ll see if you come up with some more. Make noise, make more noise, make better noise!

• the american lawn, and ways to cut it
  Thursday, July 28th // 6-8 pm, with a grand finale featuring bells and push mowers starting at 7 pm

  Join us for Machine Project’s grand finale event: a three-part exploration of the American lawn and ways to cut it, via goats, choreographed gasoline-powered ride-on-mowers with mounted oscillators tuned to the drone of their engines, and push mowers. Come help us examine the sonic nature of the Walker’s Open Field, while giving the lawn a much-needed trim. Choreographed by Chris Kallmyer.

• Invisible Performances pamphlets
  Available for pick-up at Visitor Services during open hours, Tuesday, July 19th through Friday, July 29th

  Adam Overton suggests private actions you can perform yourself, should you choose to do so. Written specifically for the Walker Art Center.