Machine Project

We are unofficially open most days between 11am and 6pm, but sometimes we’re closed or out eating lunch. If there is an event, we are open at least 1 hour before the event starts. Feel free to call us at 213–483–8761 and verify someone is here if you want to come visit, or email machine@machineproject.com to set up an appointment. We have cookies.

Most events take place at 8:00pm. On Sundays we sometimes have early events at 5pm, and some weekends we do morning shows at 11am. But as a general rule, 8pm. Seating is limited, so we recommend coming 5–10 minutes early if you want to sit in the front row, and by 8pm if you want to get into the gallery for a popular event.

Seating for free events is on a first come, first served basis.

Events, exhibitions, readings, and lectures in the storefront are almost always free at machine project. Yay! Shows in the theatre are usually ticketed between $10-$25. Workshops cost approximately $20 a contact hour, materials included. We also hope you will consider supporting our programming by making a donation either via our pneumatic cash machine or on-line. Machine Project is a 501c3 non-profit relying on YOU.

We are in Echo Park, just North West of downtown Los Angeles, at the intersection of Sunset Blvd and Alvarado Street, in a big blue building on the North East Corner on Alvarado.

Our phone number is 213 483 8761.

Regular Buses

The 2 and 4 buses both run down Sunset. If you’re near Santa Monica, Sunset or Hollywood Blvds, you can get on any of these buses and end up at Machine, just get off at Alvarado. The 704 is a good express “Rapid” bus you can take from can take from Union Station getting off the red line, gold line, or LAX Flyaway bus.

Red Line Subway

If you’re near the Red Line (or your can connect to it from the Gold or Blue lines), the closest stops to Machine are: Westlake/MacArthur Park, Santa Monica/Vermont, and Sunset/Vermont.

From MacArthur Park, take the 200 bus north about a mile and a half to Sunset (but watch out because this bus might not run very late at night). The park is far less “edgy” than it used to be (more expensive art lofts, no floating bodies), but walking this route in the dark should still be undertaken in the jaunty spirit of adventure.

From Santa Monica/Vermont or Sunset/Vermont, pretty much any bus going east should go to Sunset and Alvarado. (The walk is longish. The bike ride, an exhilarating car dodge.)

Note: Bikes are allowed on the trains, outside of rush hours.

Express Buses from the West

Take the 720 Wilshire Rapid Bus to Alvarado, in MacArthur Park

There’s also a Santa Monica Big Blue Bus which has a “freeway express” (the #10) to downtown LA, at which point, biking, MTA bus or subway+bus become reasonable options.

Note: Santa Monica and MTA are totally unrelated transit systems — waving the pass of the wrong one at your driver will get you frowned at.

From points east and south of Echo Park: The 704 “Rapid” is a great bus you can take from Union Station as you get off the red line, gold line, or LAX Flyaway bus.

Metrolink/Union Station

If you’re not in LA proper, there’s Metrolink trains to Union Station. From there take the 704 express going West to Santa Monica

By bike from Union Station, take Caeser Chavez west, which quickly becomes Sunset. Keep going 3 miles. Turn right at Alvarado

Honestly, if you’re not too far away, the best way to get there for evening events is bike. Riding Sunset is easy; there’s a bike lane (watch out for doors). Just make sure to bring a real u-lock, not some cabled gadget, because bike theft is rampant in Echo Park.

Street parking is available on Alvarado and nearby streets. Avoid parking on Alvarado from 4pm–7pm on weekdays though, because they will tow you. You can also valet park around the corner on at TAIX Restaurant (1911 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90026) for $5. They are open until 2 am.

Please!

No. We attempt to keep our future page updated, but honestly our attempts often fall short of our ambitions. We highly recommend subscribing to our email list [link to email list] which sends out weekly programming updates, or our various social media presences if you enjoy confusing photography, being asked about helping us with events, loaning us your car on short notice, etc.

Twitter
Facebook
Instagram

Ok!

Amateur documentation is always welcome, as long as it remains unobtrusive (no extra lights, flashes, tripods, giant cameras, film crews). We’d be grateful if you can tag photos machineprojectartjamz on instagram and elsewhere so we can see them as well.

Past the gallery, through the office, and to the left. Do not go down the stairs – there is no bathroom in the basement.

Short answer – maybe.

Long answer – if the gallery is full of sitting people, no. If the gallery is not full of sitting people, yes.

Longer answer – even though our events are often full beyond our capacity, we have a secret insecurity that no-one will come to tonight’s event, even though we believe completely that tonight’s event will be magical and all the people who don’t come would really regret it if they knew how great it was going to be. Therefore, we’ve only put out half our chairs, so that it will look full even if not that many people turn up. Then when people do turn up, we realize there aren’t enough chairs so we rush downstairs and upstairs and try and find more chairs. So that can take a while.

It’s right there, that big blackish plastic trash bin! During events it’s often parked right outside the front door, or towards the back of the storefront. Please put your recycling in the blue recycling bin next to the water cooler.

It should be next to the water cooler. If it’s not, look around for the blue recycling bin. If it’s not anywhere visible just leave your empty recyclables next to the wall on the floor and we’ll pick them up later when we find the recycling bin.

Cold water is on the left/front of the water cooler with a label that says “Press Here for Cold Water” , press it in. You may want to print this out and bring it as a reference.

We have a fine selection of Machine Project books, posters, memorabilia and weird drawing by Mark Allen for sale at our online store. A Machine Project membership or gift certificate is the perfect gift for yourself, a loved one or a complete stranger.

Either:

a. a milkshake maker
b. a parking ticket
c. a handmade recycled musical instrument
d. an epiphyte

Classes are repeated on a semi-regular basis according to demand. If you are interested in a class email us at machine@machineproject.com and we can place you on a waitlist. This ensures that you’ll be notified first and lets us know when we have enough people to offer a class.

We are most interested in teaching emerging technologies or engineering staples such as programming, robotics, electronics and sewing. In general we try to teach niche topics that are not supported by other educational institutions in the Los Angeles area.
Here are some of our favorite institutions that also teach workshops:

Echo Park Film Center
Women’s Center for Creative Work
Public School

If you still aren’t finding what you’re looking for, email us at machine@machineproject.com with your suggestions for classes, and we will try and create a class for you.

Machine Project is an informal, non-profit, educational institution located in a storefront space in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles and a group of people working together to create, study and share new forms of culture and ways of living. We collaborate with artists, thinkers and local communities to produce non-commercial projects that investigate art, performance, technology, science, music, literature and new ideas for creative engagement. We believe an organization can be a machine for thinking together.

Machine Project began with the desire to create an informal community space in which people could gather around different kinds of ideas, from poetry and experimental music to technology and food. We soon found that an engineer and a poet talking about noise music was even more interesting than a group of poets talking about poetry or group of scientists discussing science.

a) Because we love you.
b) This is how we’re trying to understand the world, and we think if we keep doing this long enough it’s all going to make sense one day.

The Machine Project ribbon cutting ceremony was held on November 15th, 2003. Machine Project incorporated as a non-profit in the state of California on May 17, 2005 and received our Federal EIN # (75–3193159) on June 13, 2005.

Mark Allen is Machine’s Executive Director and Founder. Meldia Yesayan is Managing Director,and Camila Sobral is Operations Manager: they actually make everything happen. Our board of directors is Mark Allen, Ken Bensinger, Ava Bromberg, Mary Fagot, Jimmy Fusil, Kerry Hannawell, Tatiana Hernandez, Thas Nasseemuddeen, and Sarah Schultz. Diego Palacios is our Builder Laureate (formerly Nic Gaby, we will miss you!) Various other folks do other various things.

Machine Project is an educational arts non-profit organization. Machine keeps the door open with the generous support of community members like you and local and national granting organizations these fine foundations. Tuition from Machine’s extensive list of workshops also goes directly to supporting programs.

Because we’re most interested in the intersections between different fields of knowledge, our programming covers a wider range of subjects than many other institutions. We also exist in more than one format — Machine Project functions as a storefront and venue for art and cultural projects in Echo Park, as an organization producing public art and performance, and as a collective of artists working with other cultural institutions.

Drop by anytime for a free audio tour of the secret inner workings, or read what other people have written about us on our press page.

We’re hugely appreciative of the diversity of Echo Park and its residents. From the Time Travel Mart to the Saturday pupusa ladies to our favorite local taco truck and the Echo Park Film Center, we are inspired by how many different cultural institutions exist together to make up this neighborhood. We consider this neighborhood our home base, and for an organization like ours that is interested in looking at the full range of human activities, obsessions and interactions, it’s hard to imagine a better fit.

LA is special because its diversity and scale gives us a lot to feed off of, but this also seems like a cultural moment when people are willing more than before to work together and create new and hybrid forms of culture. This is something we see happening in other parts of the world, not just in Los Angeles.

If you look around wherever you’re sitting there’s a large percentage of things whose workings are totally mysterious: the cellphone, the tape dispenser, the refrigerator, the computer. We are surrounded by a material culture where most people remain unaware of how everything that surrounds them is made. Machine Project exists to provide an opportunity for people to understand their built environment, to create a space in which accessibility to knowledge and hands-on, DIY learning experiences can happen right in our own neighborhood.

When we started we decided to let Machine be about absolutely anything we were personally interested in, and we’re interested in a lot of stuff. Most everything that is presented by Machine is something that someone on our staff or among our core group of collaborators is working on, researching, inspired by, obsessed with, or otherwise freaked out about.

Yes. We feel a need to rebuild, from the ground up and in a grassroots way, an infrastructure for spaces and communities that allow people to come together around a life of ideas. Machine Project has always been about encouraging people like you or me, or even drastically unlike you or me, to make culture for themselves and encourage them to want to experience it together.

Our propensity for cutting larger and larger holes into the floor and ceiling.

Yes!

We don’t accept proposals, especially thick envelopes full of slides, or lengthy artist statements. That said, if you believe that what you do fits into our program feel free to send us a casual email at machine@machineproject.com describing what you do with links to some kind of documentation – images, audio files, video clips etc. We may or may not reply to your email but we promise we will look at what you send.

Please note that as a rule we don’t show painting, drawing, photography or anything else we feel is adequately supported by the many fine other art galleries in Los Angeles.

Our artist in residences are selected from people who we’ve already worked with in the past that are invited to stay with us and develop larger scale projects, typically combining teaching, curating, and performing or exhibiting. We do not accept applications for the artist in residence program.

Short answer – no.
Longer answer – if we had the money, maybe.

We do! We offer 1 to 2 unpaid part time internships during the fall and spring academic semester for academic credit and/or the satisfaction of a confusing yet convivial job well done. Candidates must be willing to work 15–20 hours a week. Interested parties please email machine@machineproject.com. Most summers we were able to offer a full time paid internship through the Getty Multicultural Internship program. We’re hoping to offer that again next summer.

Yes! Gathering people together for absurd non-fiscally remunerative project activities is a significant part of what we do. Please email machine@machineproject.com if you’d like to volunteer for future adventures.

Great question! Our web animation was designed by the wonderful Tiffany Tran, and sound by the wonderful Paul Fraser!

1) Have you noticed a monthly withdrawal from your PayPal or credit card account with our name on it?

2) Have you made a donation in some dollar amount in the last 12 months?

3) Do you have a Machine Project membership card?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you are probably a current Machine member. Thanks for that! If you’re not sure, we can check for you — just send an email to machine@machineproject.com with the subject line [am i a member or what?]

12 months plus however long it takes for us to update our database to realize that your membership expired three years ago.

Our members receive discounts on all classes and workshops, advance access to tickets of popular events that are likely to sell out, and invitations to exclusive VIP membership events. Also, our eternal gratitude and the knowledge that you help us keep our doors open. Do we have you hooked yet? If so, click here to become a member! 

Yes! Machine Project does not discriminate against horses, Westsiders, or people who don’t live anywhere near Machine Project. If you fall under one of those categories and are interested in becoming a member, check out our niche membership page.

No. When we first got a phone number, Machine/Mark somehow got listed as an art appraiser and now we can’t figure out how to change it. We don’t appraise art and art doesn’t appraise us.

Possibly, but it’s more likely you want to be at the Echo Park Film Center (our beloved next door neighbors). You’ll find them next door.

No, they are next door.

No, they are other next door.

Not so much. we are interested in technology, but no more than we are interested in art, poetry, music, social experiments, food, natural history and tropical plants.

When we opened Machine Project, we liked the idea that a space could be a machine for producing culture. We feed in ideas, people, resources, and through the social and philosophical mechanism that is machine project we produce art, experiences, and ways to understand the world. We view what we do as an alternative to the traditional art space, which serves primarily as a container for art produced externally. But you know, we also teach electronics and computers and such so it’s not surprising that people get confused. Even we’re confused.

No, no, no. This is a business.

Yes!

No.

Because of the busy schedule of our programming and classes we cannot accommodate the use of the space for filming or other non-Machine Project purposes. Also, we like leaving the gallery comfortably cluttered and we’d have to clean up for you and we don’t want to do that.

No, no, a thousand times no. Information on the environmentally sound method for disposing of electronic waste can be read about waste disposal in LA: here.

Can be seen here.

We also have a 3D sketchup model of the gallery available here (thanks to Anne Hars).

We are happy to help you install and consider that a big part of our job, but please let us know in advance what’s involved so we can adjust our schedules.

We have a semi-permanently installed sound system consisting of a Mackie 1642-VLZ3 mixer and two JBL Eon (10 inch woofer) PAs, mounted on the ceiling, facing into the gallery.

We may also have the following microphones available for use:

AKG / C–1000S
AKG / D60S
MCA / SP1
HEIL / PR40
(2) SHURE / BETA 58A
SHURE / SM57

We also have three boom microphone stands.

We are overjoyed to talk about what we do at excessive length. Please email machine@machineproject.com to set up interviews.

Our press kit with a bunch of photos suitable for publication, articles, and additional helpful information can be downloaded here.

Photography is welcome, as long as it remains unobtrusive (no extra lights, flashes, tripods, giant cameras, film crews). Please contact machine@machineproject.com if you need to do something more elaborate.

Sound recording is almost always ok. Let us know ahead of time if you have extensive equipment, but feel free to use handheld recording devices as you please.

All video and television requests must be cleared ahead of time, contact machine@machineproject.com to discuss.