FLOAT
Press
Release
Schedule
Project Descriptions
A presentation
of site-specific, temporary, and ephemeral performance and video works
Saturdays and Sundays, August 13 - 28, 2005, 3-9 PM
Socrates Sculpture Park is pleased to announce the 2005 edition of Float, a biennial series taking place in the Park on Saturdays and Sundays in August. Launched in 2003, the series was first organized in response to Socrates Sculpture Park's location on the East River waterfront. This year, Float continues to address the environment of the Park, enabling participating artists to test the limits of performative and site-specific practice through a variety of media and formats. Float presents a new selection of temporary artworks that will be installed, performed, activated, and screened throughout the Park on weekends from August 13 through August 28.
Float includes artworks by Soledad Arias, Kabir Carter, Monika
Goetz, Sabrina Gschwandtner, Ryan Humphrey, Akiko Ichikawa, Claudia Joskowicz,
Trong G. Nguyen, Michelle Rosenberg, Chrysanne Stathacos, vydavy sindikat,
and Douglas Weathersby.
Projects by Soledad Arias, Claudia Joskowicz, and vydavy sindikat use collective narratives as their subject matter. On August 13th and 14th, vydavy sindikat (a Brooklyn-based group experiment) will hold participatory public gatherings in the Park, examining how notions of public and community are spontaneously formed. Claudia Joskowicz continues her ongoing Two-Second Love Stories, creating and distributing fotonovela t-shirts based on imagery and dialogue found within and around the Park. Soledad Arias’ who what where is a text-based installation that poetically questions social and political agency.
Akiko Ichikawa and Chrysanne Stathacos present performative works that underscore the complexity of cultural translation. Stathacos will install a photographic piece entitled On Nature depicting global actions on nature, which invites visitors to contribute materials in gestures of wishing. Ichikawa will be producing customized t-shirts that translate cliché American t-shirt texts like “Life’s not a garden so stop being a hoe” into the recently trendy kanji and katakana characters.
Monika Goetz, Ryan Humphrey, and Trong G. Nguyen respond to the physical and architectural landscape of site, through installation, performance, and intervention. Goetz deals with the waterfront’s changeability by proposing a series of glaciers that refuse to melt. Humphrey approaches the surface of the Park as the launch for a series of BMX bike performances. Nguyen inserts a temporary architectural floor plan that will disappear over the course of the series, momentarily overlaying an alternate use in the Park’s footprint.
Making reference to the Park’s previous function as a dumpsite, Sabrina Gschwandtner and Douglas Weathersby create works using material excess. Weathersby will demonstrate his Environmental Services on the first weekend of the series, cleaning an area of his choosing within the Park, while offering promotional giveaways. On all three weekends Gschwandtner will make available a dumpster full of found film, video, and other footage that the public is invited to assemble into films and videos for evening screenings on the 20th and 27th.
Investigating the soundscape of the Park, Kabir Carter and Michelle Rosenberg filter noise through varied technological means. Carter is producing a performance that captures and modulates available radio transmissions, while Rosenberg’s mobile listening devices isolate ambient noise found within Socrates.
This program has been curated by Sara Reisman. Performances and screenings will be held from 3-9pm at Socrates Sculpture Park. Admission is free.
FLOAT Schedule
All programming
is scheduled to take place from 3-9 PM. unless otherwise noted. Events
are
subject to change.
Soledad Arias
who what where, 2005
Text installation on pennants
Originally produced for a group of neighborhoods in Montreal, who
what where is a poetic text posing questions around the collective
possibilities of identity, place, and mobility. Adapted for Float, Arias
has reproduced the work in aesthetic harmony with the site. On each weekend
of Float, the first through third lines of the poem will be individually
paired with the last line. In its entirety, it reads, Who would I
be if I could be/Where would I go if I could go/What would I say if I
had a voice/Where would you go now that you know.
Kabir Carter
Decontrolled, 2005
Sound performance and installation
Decontrolled is an ongoing investigation of the formatting and
modulation of acoustic information in radio broadcasts. Largely informed
by the similarities between electronic music making and broadcasting radiophony,
Decontrolled includes a range of electronic manipulations, like
analog wave shaping and modulation. Decontrolled's sound sources
consist of live and recorded radio broadcasts like airchecks and ancillary
sounds found between allocated frequencies, and any other prerecorded
sound materials relevant to radio production. Decontrolled is
partially supported by a grant from the Experimental Television Center
Finishing Fund.
Monika Goetz
Sunrise, 2005
Color video
Each day of Float, Goetz is producing a video of the sunrise
that is then screened on the Park’s video wall at sunset. The screening
of the morning’s sunrise at sunset collapses the time gap between dawn
and dusk, and conceptually links the location of the Park with other time
zones as well.
Sabrina Gschwandtner
Found Footage Dumpster, 2005
Film, videotape, and slides
Conceived as a community resource, Gschwandtner has filled her Found
Footage Dumpster with found film, video, and slide materials that
the public is invited to construct into found footage artworks. On the
20th and 27th, Gschwandtner will hold evening screenings of work made
onsite, alongside found footage works by Dara Birnbaum, Matthew Buckingham,
and Lana Lin, among others.
Ryan Humphrey
Ghost Ride, 2005
BMX bike performance
Often exhibited as paintings and installations, Humphrey’s artwork is
activated at Socrates in a two-part BMX bike performance. Collecting cheaply
made BMX bikes, Humphrey will launch them into the landscape of the Park,
inspired by “Ghost Rider,” a super hero with a flaming head, Evel Knievel,
and the Hell’s Angels’ motorcycle burnings.
Akiko Ichikawa
Limited Limited Edition, 2005
Ichikawa will be customizing t-shirts with translations of cliché
American texts like, “Life’s not a garden so stop being a hoe” into the
recently trendy kanji and katakana characters. Limited Limited Edition
playfully questions how language and culture are often misrecognized through
the distribution of mass-produced goods.
Claudia Joskowicz
Two-Second Love Stories, 2005
Limited edition of fotonovela t-shirts
An ongoing project, Two-Second
Love Stories is a limited edition of t-shirts customized for the
neighborhood surrounding Socrates. Using a fotonovela format,
Joskowicz combines photo-based imagery with text captions that she’s drawn
from life in and around the Park. The t-shirts are available each day
of Float, and the narrative of the Long Island City neighborhood
travels as the shirts are worn over time.
Trong G. Nguyen
Floor Plans, 2005
Lawn intervention
Floor Plans was produced by mowing an architectural floor plan
into the lawn of Socrates. Initially making a clear and decisive mark
on the territory of the Park, Nguyen’s proposal for a building project
suggests other possibilities for how the real estate of the site might
be used. Over course of Float, the imprint will disappear as
the grass grows, articulating the fleeting nature of architectural planning.
Michelle Rosenberg
Auricle, 2005
Interactive listening device
Named for the medical term referring to the outer part of the ear, Auricle
is a mobile listening station semi-spheres and a headphone. Auricle
enables its users to acoustically focus on whatever sounds the Auricle
extensions are pointed towards. The giant ears highlight the intricacies
of the soundscape of the natural and social environments of the Park that
might include voices, wind, waves, and human movement.
Chrysanne Stathacos
Tower of Babel–On Nature, 2005
Interactive photographic installation
Stathacos’ ongoing project On Nature consists of a series of
photographs documenting gestures of wishing like pujas by the Ganges,
9/11 memorials in New York City, fire festivals in Japan, among others.
Wrapped around the branches of a tree, the horizontal design of a photograph
with images culled from around the world plays on the idea of travel and
motion and will be installed to invite viewers to contribute their own
gestures of wishing using materials available at the Park during Float.
vydavy sindikat
Public Gatherings #3 and #4, 2005
vydavy sindikat, a Brooklyn-based group experiment, extends an open invitation
for participation in their Public Gathering project. The first
stage of the project involves a series of performances in which a group
photograph is taken to examine how community is spontaneously formed in
the public realm. Earlier this year, Public Gatherings were held
in two locations in Brooklyn. The third and forth group photo shoots are
being held on the first weekend of Float. On Saturday August
13, participants of Gathering #2 will receive a photograph
taken at the Riegelman Boardwalk in Brighton Beach; the group photo taken
on the 13th of August will be given out on the 14th; and the photo taken
on the 14th will be available to its participants at the time of the next
Gathering.
Douglas Weathersby: Environmental
Services, 2005
Performance and promotional display
Weathersby's Environmental Services is an ongoing tribute to
every day acts like cleaning and domestic repair. His performances result
in ephemeral installations that are reflective of the spaces where he
has worked. At Socrates, Weathersby will clean an area in the Park of
his choosing, while giving away fresh squeezed lemonade at the Environmental
Services promotional kiosk.