2011: an audio review

I recently had to get a new computer hard-drive, and lost a big chunk of my organization/files/crap. Mostly this has been almost like a digital rebirth. I’ve called it my Tech Revival. One exciting thing I just found was all these old audio clips I started recording, mostly randomly, on my phone. Listening to them, I’m amazed at how quickly I’m transported right back to that exact moment. I think they provide an incredible reflection on this past year.

1. a recording of the floridian tropical downpour of rain, recorded August 29, 2010 at 9:13pm (ok, not quite part of 2011 but still counts): The rain in Florida is magical and torrential. Powerful like no other rain I’ve seen/felt/heard/been soaked by.

tropical rain

2. an audio note to myself, recorded February 6, 2011, 11:35am. In this clip, I am driving and speaking an audible list to myself. The first part references a to-do that causes me to move to NYC, and end up dedicating a majority of my year to Creative Time – a place where I met amazing people and artists and was really introduced to this whole new world. The other things in the list appropriately encompass almost everything else going on in my life and brain at that time. ending of course with “finish my plan”

list to myself

3. an audio portrait of driving in the nissan maxima, recorded February 25, 2011, 9:00am. I remember recording this clip when I knew that my days of driving on long stretches of sunny sunny highways into the palm tree sunsets were numbered. I wanted to capture the sounds of the windows all down, the car making horrendous noises that are surely signaling its slow breaking down, and the one CD that was stuck in the radio that I didn’t mind at all playing over and over on repeat.

driving in the nissan

4. a clip of the mariachi band that was playing in the subway, recorded April 13, 2011, 12:09pm. I was coming back to Manhattan on the 7 train from a Creative Time staff meeting in Corona, Queens at the Immigrant Movement International headquarters. I thought they were very beautiful.

7 train band

5. a clip of a longer interview with Ashley Young of Brown Girl Love, recorded April 20, 2011, 9:34pm. This is a longer interview, which is currently unedited (so don’t listen too critically). Ashley and I had set this up as a blog interview to discuss our blogs and visions and what we cared about in the world. It was a lovely discussion, which I had thought I had lost/erased. Happy to have found it and to edit it soon.

ashley interview clip

6. an audio portrait of the empty (old) Essex Street Market, 80 Essex Street, NYC, recorded October 12, 2011, 3:49pm. This was towards the end of the run of the exhibition (Living as Form) and I realized that I wanted to capture the noises and the feel of walking around this huge space with a life of its own. The street, the cars, the people walking by, the windows creaking, the lights buzzing.

inside the essex street market

7. a sampling of the musical offerings at the third night of Hanukkah, recorded December 21, 2011, 6:00pm. I went to the public celebration of Hanukkah put on by Chabad of Brooklyn at Grand Army Plaza near my house. Not only was there this rockin’ techno-version of vaguely Jewish tunes, but there was a giant 45 foot tall menorah (and a rabbi in a cherry picker to light it!), hot latkes passed around, at least 4 mini-vans with menorahs strapped to their roofs, and a million identically dressed Jewish children running around. It was so festive I couldn’t even suppress my festive spirit.

techno hanukkah

8. the draft voice-over for PEAK Technical marketing animation I’m working on, recorded December 22, 2011, 9:42pm. I’m almost embarrassed to include this one, but I think I need in order to complete the 2011 audio compilation. This is me reading through the voice-over script for the marketing animation I’ve been working on. These are kinda bizarre animations that our clients just keep loving and asking for more — no matter how many weird rainbows and flying text and flowers with money signs we throw in!

Aliya PEAK voice-over draft

9. the reverberations of the bells at Riverside Church, Harlem, NYC, recorded December 25, 2011, 12:23pm: we went on a mini-tour of the historic Riverside Church in Harlem after the Christmas morning service. This was recorded on the 20th floor of the Church tower, and the subtle drone of the bells was beautiful, haunting and ever-present as we looked out on the city.

bells of riverside church

what a beautiful and audible year.

trip to moma ps1: kissing art

Last weekend I took a trip up to Long Island City to MoMA PS1 with the lovely Lily-bean to see, specifically, the Surasi Kusolwong piece “Golden Ghost (The Future Belongs To Ghosts)” that was re-installed from its original installation at Living as Form in September/October. I had to see personally how they had re-imagined (?) the piece – I had been totally incredulous that PS1 even wanted the piece in the first place, and that Surasi had allowed it to be “re-installed”. They used the exact same threadwaste that we had fluffed endlessly for 4 weeks inside of the Essex Street Market.

some images taken by a fellow museum-goer here.

It was an up-to-the-last-minute plan changer during the de-installation of the exhibition — were we going to have to take the threadwaste to the dumpster/recycling center (pay for transportation, pay for dumping per pound, all 7 tons of it), or was MoMA PS1 going to take it, paying for transportation themselves, and re-install it as art. it was a very bizarre art moment for me. They took it! and Surasi made new necklaces! and now even more people love it and play around like it’s a political (but that stuff is easily ignorable) McDonald’s ball-pit.

Surasi himself scampering across the “Threadwaste Landscape” opening weekend. This was the piece at it’s height, in it’s full glory. Also having Surasi there himself made the whole thing just 100x better. and more adorable.

From the run of the exhibition — above is one of the necklace-finders and his sister.

My parents adorably laying in the threadwaste landscape themselves. the first weekend.

Kevin, Leila, and myself putting in some late-nights playing working.

Anyways. It was great to be re-united with pieces of Living as Form. It even smelled the same as it had in the market (ok maybe this is gross?)! But what was more exciting from my visit was discovering Clifford Owens, specifically his body of work Anthology.

Briefly, for Anthology, Owens “asked 26 inter-generational black artists to provide him with scores for performance works which he interpreted in situ during a residency at PS1 last spring.” He was presenting a collection of highly personal interpretations and reflections on “blackness” and performed most of these actions using his body as the medium. There were many pieces that were interesting, and as a whole they told a collective yet individual story and history.

A great interview with the artist (scroll right): http://www.bullettmedia.com/article/cliff-owens-moma-ps1/

The piece that just had me frozen was the performance / instruction submitted by Kara Walker, who instructed Owens (I’m paraphrasing) to “French kiss an audience member and demand sex”. The performance was a room of presumably MoMA PS1 audience members (it might have been the same room in which I had been standing watching the video documentation of this event) standing along the edge of the room. Some had cans of beer in their hands. Owens walked casually around the room, getting closer to people, locking eyes, sometimes touching their shoulder or elbow, and then kissing them, more or less intimately, sometimes a long time sometimes just short. then moving on to someone else in the room.

image from @Ruschka on twitter, http://twitpic.com/7h2bbn. taken november 20, 2011

For me this was the ultimate social art piece. Not ultimate in the best most awesome wow this is what my work should be, but in that it was arresting on so many levels. It was nothing like watching a make-out scene in a movie. it was awkward, it was uncomfortable, it was extremely revealing of human-ness. You watched people — people that may well have been you!! — being awkward, uncomfortable, hands crossed in front of their bodies, maybe thinking about other people, maybe never been kissed before, and then the artist performed a very intimate and “meaningful” act in a context where everyone knows it doesn’t really mean those meanings we add to it. AND THEN on top of that, he is a black body in a room of mostly white museum-goers, bringing in histories and cultural stereotypes about African-American sexuality or force and all the injustices that have resulted from assumptions and institutionalized racism throughout our American history.

AND THEN on top of all that theorizing and history was the looks on the people’s faces, when they gave into the kissing. When most of them became really a part of it, closed their eyes and let their crossed arms down. Everyone knew it was just a performance, but it was still so human to give in, to connect with the person kissing you. It was like watching your bestfriend, yourself, make out with someone. which I’ve never done, but I imagine it would be like watching this video.

Some great articles reviewing Anthology:

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2011/12/artseen/clifford-owens-anthology

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-y-lew/kiss-tell-the-process-of-_b_1102347.html

So, this I consider socially engaged art, or at least engaging art, because it stuck me at my core, and made me uncomfortable, made me feel human, made me feel both connected and alone.

He is doing one more performance this Saturday, I think I will be going. Want to join me?

lil’ lady/big city/yeah i’m ready.

Dear Friends: I’m moving to New York City! The City of Dreams. or at least, that’s what I’m calling it right now.

I got an internship as part of the Programming Team at CreativeTime, a really amazing public art and socially engaged art non-profit organization producing really big exciting thought provoking social art in NYC and beyond. (I’ve blogged about them previously here and here (scroll down to #2) and also here — mostly about Nato Thompson who I didn’t realize at the time but he’s the Chief Curator of CreativeTime). They’ve supported some of my most admired socially engaged artist idols (to name a few) who use art as a medium for addressing big real world problems and conflicts in a personal and inspiring way. This will give me real experience and connections in producing big big events and projects, working with real artisty-social-arty-lets-make-this-happen people!

I know, this blog and this blogger has announced and then rescinded previous announcements of this sort. And while I can’t completely promise this is different, this is different. Since the new year I’ve been feeling big projects and ideas and puzzle pieces falling into place, all with ease and grace. I’ve only had one freakout-panicky crying. I’ve been in action creating that something would come through and make sense. I feel like I’m ready, and it’s time for the Bonar Family Residency to morph and pack and unpack newly. No I’m not moving my blog don’t freak out. I’m moving myself!

I’m scared! what if this isn’t the right thing? what if I’m cutting out all kinds of other opportunities? New York City is too big for Little Aliya! New York City is too expensive for Artist Aliya! What if I’m really cold? What if it’s really time to do this on my own and stop waiting for everything else to decide my life?

I’m excited! So many amazing people I love live in NYC! Not only that — but more are moving there all the dang time! And so many amazing things are happening there — all the time!!! not just that one time when randomly something cool happens! or just during December when there’s a 100 foot fake tree in the downtown ((TRUE STORY: Sam (my brother) was talking with a friend from NYC who was talking about the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. They were bragging how their tree was about 70 feet. Sam says (with true Delray Beach Pride), “Really? That’s nothing. Delray’s tree is 100 feet.” He then realizes that NYC’s tree is REAL, whereas ours is… metal and plastic. but whatevs.))! I get to live in a big real city — not forever, but for a few months! the perfect amount of time! I get to challenge myself in a new way, take it to the next level, expand to fill up this new bigger city, bigger challenge! I get to wear my delicious winter coat.

It’s time!

Time to:

• finish projects
• pack
• sell/get rid of so many things
• find a room and pay my own rent!
• find a part time job balances great with the actual reason I’m moving…
• make more rompers
• practice my “being a cool biker hipster chic” skills
• sew and alter my “i’m totally fashionable and hott 24/7″ outfits
• be a big girl grownup BusinessLady Adventurer!

Some goodbyes I’m already sad about:

• my amazing friends and supports and coaches in the Florida-Jamaica Team Management Leadership Program who have caused me to love being in Florida this past year, and to grow up and step into my bold courageous outrageous leader self.
• the beautiful 24/7 tropical paradise vacation that is living in South Florida. It’s so beautiful here. I never appreciated it until this year.
• reconnecting with old friends and creating new ones; creating new relationships with old friends.
• the awesome if not bizarre and always surprising Bonar Family Residency Refrigerator
• the beach (A 25 MINUTE RUN FROM MY HOUSE, LET ME REMIND YOU.)
• being “home”: knowing the back roads, knowing the histories of each place, knowing the secrets, knowing “how it goes ’round here”
• everyone kissing on the cheek when you meet them/see them
• hearing Spanish everywhere I go (although I’m not sure that will totally change in NYC)
• the snazzy glorified flair of South Florida; the fact that you can wear high-heel rhinestone encrusted flip-flops to the gym and that is normal/ok;
• tank tops and tiny dresses in January
• starfruit trees right in the backyard.
• my tan…
• my parents who have been incredible cheerleaders, stern-talkers, and friends, going to movies and coffee shops, indulging in my photoshoots and bossiness, allowing their house to become a stuffed animal farm/quilted landscape construction zone, loving me and creating me as a powerful lady up to big things — seeing me only as that and not as my little whiny pathetic I’ll never make a difference self I try to be sometimes.

But before I leave (end of February) there is still so much excitement to be had here in Delray Beach at the BFR!!! Upcoming and still just as exciting (if not more):

• having not one but TWO birthday parties in two different states!!! what a luuuuckkkyyy lady!
• going to Israel! on Monday. omg. more later this week on that.
• Haley’s Residency! (the original Washbowl idea has been declined. Luckily, we are going to make something even better happen)
• Not-Fully-Confirmed Juliet’s BusinessLady(tm) Residency! where we will be performing as BusinessLadies(tm) all weekend, empowering each other in seizing our futures, filling out applications, revising artist statements, making lists, wearing blazers, and being friends.
• completing my last quarter with the Florida-Jamaica TMLP team and beginning on the New York City team!!!

HECK YEAH, 2011!!! so far you are TOTALLY ROCKING.

I’m so excited to have you all along with me for this adventure of a magnanimous year. Let’s cross paths soon. Let’s talk on the internet and in real life. Let’s make our dreams come true.

love

ALIYA!

YOUR OCTOBER ALIYA-DIGEST

Presenting: Your Blog Post Table of Contents.

please feel free to refer back to this diagram at any point during your reading, if you need a break, if you are feeling fatigued, if it’s time for a snack, if you forgot where we were going with all this anyways.

I hope to see you at the end of this page. It will be great.

Sincerely,

your trusty author & guide.

1. I’m Not Moving to Dallas (Yet). [September 30]

I found out recently that my position at the bcWORKSHOP has been postponed until Maybe February (no dates yet). funding cuts, bureaucracy, possibly/definitely (but not explicitly said) a federal relief/jobs stimulus bill not being renewed?

Point is i’m not leaving florida until february maybe. They want me, but they can’t pay to send me to the required training. The next training is in maybe February.

This felt like a huge blow. I had even made cute booty shorts inspired by the state I was moving to (see pictures at the end of this post)! Worse was just feeling like I was about to step into something, into a larger context that was going to bring me to the next logical place, and suddenly that stepping stone was moved way far away. i don’t want to wait around for 4 months. i don’t like waiting around ever. i could fill my life with little projects forever, i know. i could sew and putter around and eat fruit in tropical wonderful florida winter for weeks on end but this wasn’t enough. i would be like an empty shell.

so i realized it was time to create something. something super compelling to drive me through the winter and into dallas. i started imagining art on the road. art in a cute adorable trailer. art + friends. art + visiting friends. art + a troupe of friends traveling and making amazing things and communities all over.

this sorta became a different idea once i looked into more logistics. I realized, “what about really just taking on florida, the whole reason / idea i had for this Bonar Family residency in the first place. what if i did sewing workshops, friend making workshops, community art workshops, projects, involvements right now here in delray. and maybe miami too. miami could be like traveling to somewhere new and foreign, and delray can be the familiar try-it-out setting.”

the thing that pulls me in two directions is that i say i want to do this big community art project — and i really do. but it terrifies me. i feel incredibly alone when i talk about this project. it feels like little aliya going up against the world to make this big thing all by myself. fulfilling on a promise i don’t even totally know i can fully accomplish. so the idea of a sewing/altering/creating something great out of old shit workshop seemed like a great plan. but it also seems like a small thing. like little aliya. but is it? isn’t it better to just get started on something already? i need to confidently talk about myself as an artist in the present tense. i am an artist. i am making all the time. i am not waiting. i am moving forward right now. i am a superwoman.

2. Creative Time Summit: Revolutions in Public Practice 2 [October 9-10] featuring appearances by “IDEAS, INSPIRATIONS, FUTURES CREATED!“

so that is the mindset i walked into the nyc creative time revolutions in public practice 2 summit October 9th weekend. i created the possibility of the trip being ridiculous best-friend-ships, partnership, collaboration, connections, community. the possibility of me being courageous and outspoken, fully self expressed and a huge contribution to the world — knowing myself as someone who is a contribution and part of the social engaged art field. I assigned myself the job of a NYC 8th grade book report: ask questions, fully participate, be totally of service to everyone, talk totally self expressed-ly to everyone i meet.

oh, here’s your entrance wristband to get into this blog version of the conference.

Wow! What a great great inspiring conference. Summit. I left feeling inspired, as I had intended and the whole reason for going. As a volunteer, I loved getting to know the people and the organization of Creative Time. They are amazing. I would really like to participate as an intern in their program very soon (foreshadowing).

As a viewer/participant in the summit (I was just a normal summit-goer the first day, and a volunteer the next day), I loved the set up (much better than last year): there were panels who presented, grouped on a theme, and then those people had a panel discussion, mostly led by questions from the audience. That was the real veggie-meat, the best part. Their presentations could make no sense, and then the discussion was where it became a bit more real. I also am constantly amazed at how bad some people are at presenting ideas and having an audience really get it. I mean, obviously I’m still working on that too. But there were so many times when people tried to cram whole years long theories into 8 min presentation, and it was just rushed and confusing and I feel like I understood some parts, but not really where they were going. The keynote speech by community-art-heart-throb Rick Lowe was incredible: he presented his work and the questions and commitments behind his work, but he also touched on the issues and dilemmas of community based work. when it doesn’t work so great. when its hard. when you do everything right and people still end up back in jail.

You can digest the Summit yourself here.

Anyways, here are some quotes/ideas I’m taking away from the discussions (these are all paraphrases):

• “I’m not producing Forms, but experiences.” (surasik usolwong)
• “we continue to be successful as long as someone continues to want our services”
• “art has to be a movement into the world opening out eyes, being of service” (FEAST)
• “we bring these issues into the realm of ART because the question of value is debated in this context. The system of value within our current system needs to be debated” : Within a context of being “art”, these projects get scrutinized and questioned as to the value that they bring — both in what we consider valuable in our normal day to day (capitalist) lives and also beyond that, in what is important for each person to express and declare.
• from rick lowe: “I want to create a space for producing and celebrating culture and neighborhood: talking about pride and community, not poverty and crime. Where is the dignity in neglect? if you give people light they can shine. Wheres the dignity in telling artists there’s no room for them to make a difference in their communities and everyday lives?” (based on idea from John Biggers: take something that is dishonored and honor it, restore its dignity)
• (rick lowe again:) “The work I do I have to think about in terms of social justice — social change is not enough. It’s not change, its peeling back the layers that are already there. It’s not easy, it doesn’t all work. It’s dangerous work, we’re trespassing into people’s lives. Justice is what we have to demand of each other [holding each other to account to produce work that forwards the world & humans in it, not just change it.]
• “artists can be good at map-making/politics of space: we imagine new ways of being and then create spaces for that to exist” (trevor paglen)
• some projects are not necessarily very effective in their goals, but they do open up a conversation to new people, opens up a new kind of dialogue. (dinh q. le)
• “why does everyone living in AnnArbor want to do projects in Detroit?” in reference to a grad school class exploring this idea and divide: reciprocal participation is key in having open and equal exchanges of information and learning across differences. (danielle abrams)
• organizations and art projects want to be a part of a system (for $, recognition, backing, support) but at the same time it is limiting & isolating because of that privilege and backing/support
• there was a lot of questions and discussions about capitalism and commitments to dismantling capitalism, or the school structures, or government structures. in response, at the end of the day, “There is an illusion of artists that we can create new contexts for our art. NO. We rely on the existing contexts and institutions to give meaning and support and existence to our projects and ideas.” (discussion for plausible art worlds)

I don’t know if that is useful to anyone really. those are my scattered notes, and maybe they don’t make sense out of context.

If that list didn’t make sense, then you should definitely read this one:  Here is what I generated in my own head over the weekend, a list of project ideas:

• dinner party art: an entire meal of one-bite dishes beautifully laid out in miniature on a spoon for each guest.
• my room as an installation! color code it, transform the junk into awesome!
• program: “Make Cookies With An Artist” (where you get to make cookies with me. Related “Go On A Date With An Artist” (only a small application fee for that residency, which covers roughly the cost of dinner).
• Backyard BFR Lecture Series!! 15 minute lectures on something you know a lot about. invite everyone i know to play in my backyard.
• ethnography of all the restaurants on “west atlantic” that I consciously/unconsciously have never been to because that’s the “poor part of town”
• have a tropical fruit party exploring all the tropical fruit trees that I find.
• learn spanish really
• meal/research project exploring my food history: “jewish food” and “macrobiotic food”  and where did the “jewish foods” become jewish foods/ why/ and what are the foods that I consider to be foods I grew up on and “my history”
• scan/take photos of all the sentimental stuff i am keeping around. bind it into a book, and then throw away all that stuff.
• make milagro star cards with all the kids at Milagro: a trading card for each kid and on the back it will talk about what they’re really good at and what they love and what they want to contribute to the world.
• a piece in the ocean: 100 floating sculptures.

3. NYC Reunions!! [October 11-12]

Not Pictured!

• Eric Peterson at McSorely’s where we ate way too much cheese and crackers and onions and horseraddish mustard
• Malcolm St. Clair at Upright Citizens Brigade! which was funny because he told me about this place when we were dating a million years ago and I had dreamed of going there with him, and now we were! weird.
• Shoshi Roberts at Cupcake Cafe! which was also funny because we technically just met! and a roundabout/through ex boyfriends way of knowing each other.

4. Bonar Family Tropical Residency Program: Reinvigorated! [October 15ish]

(click on the image to get the full info at my friends Amber and Bobby’s Amazing Network of Domestic Spaces Project)

come visit my tropical residency program!! we will create some magical art together. open for one weekend or week long stays. can’t wait to see your beautiful face

5. Delray Beach Workshops

6. In Action: New Brochure, New Freedom to Talk About My Art!

Since not going to Dallas, I suddenly had a bit more freedom to talk about what I’m up to and make it applicable right here right now (you really). So I created a new brochure! this time striving to be more concrete, more visual, more tangible. Like after reading it, some awesome people and arts organizations are going to say, oh yeah, I can do that. here it is!

I still need a good title/name for my program. Thoughts?

Best is that I’ve been calling people. I need to keep calling them and actually reach them, but I am not terrified of picking up the phone. BUSINESS LADY ALIYA IS IN THE HOUSE!

7. 10×10 Show! [October 21]

Part of that “talking to everyone” thing is that I got in touch with this amazing curator, Kara Walker Tome, who has been making all kinds of incredible art shows in South Florida. Jody Servon from Elsewhere and Steve Bachus from Milagro have both told me to get in touch with her.

I did, it was too late to apply to this show, but I said I wanted to be involved in any way. She responded a week or so later saying, “We have a spot open and I totally love your work!” so I made a proposal and now I’m in! I’m going to be in a real-live established art show in South Florida!!
Here’s my proposal!

10×10 project proposal oct-20-2010

10. QUILTED LANDSCAPES!!

9. Coming Soon: more collaborations with wannamake; Clear Headed Fact-Based Elections discussions;  had a really amazing conversation with fellow Hampshire Alum and Community Artist Kate Browne (who makes COCOONS!!); YOU! at the Bonar Family Tropical Residency Program!!; Rat-Tail Love; Stuffed Animals in the Big Times

PS: check out some cool clothes I’ve been making:

1. 
   

   shirt image designed and drawn for me by mr. Micah Litant

   
   

2. p.p.s. just so you all know, i kinda hated writing this blog post. it was like flossing after not flossing for so long. it sucks. it took me 5 + hours. so i hope you really appreciate it, even the long and make-no-sense lists. All those images! so exciting! relish in the excitement of images and updates from my life!
3. ok. i’m done being bitchy now.