A special focus on New York City itself, with commissioned projects that explore architecture, design, urban planning, newspapers, media, and public spaces, turning the city into an evolving platform for public engagement and inspiration.
With Performa 09, architecture has been added as a significant part of the Performa biennial. More than twenty architecture related events have been organized, including the first Performa Commission of nOffice in Berlin, for the interior design of the Performa Hub, the fully functioning headquarters for the Performa 09 biennial, open daily from 10 to 8pm. See our website for details of the exciting new architecture program and read below about some of its highlights.
DEXTER SINISTER
THE FIRST/LAST NEWSPAPER
Newspaper office open to the public Nov 3-22 from 12-6 PM
Port Authority, BLANK SL8 (at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 41st Street)
:Please join us tomorrow (Tuesday) from 6-8pm to inagurate THE FIRST/LAST NEWSPAPER by Dexter Sinister as part of Performa09.
We will have a screening FAREWELL, ETAOIN SHRDLU a 1980 documentaryabout technological changes at The New York Times Conceived by Carl Schlesinger and directed by David Loeb. Carl Schlesinger will be present to introduce the film at 7pm at our temporary PORT AUTHORITY/BLANK SL8 workspace, 641 8th Ave at the corner of 41st Street directlyopposite the new New York Times building.
Publishing imprint Dexter Sinister will transform BLANK SL8 (pronounced “Blank Slate”)—a “pop-up” hosting space facing the New York Times building and adjacent to the Port Authority terminal—into a fully-functioning press office, writing, editing, designing, and distributing a broadsheet newspaper across the city. During the three weeks of the biennial, Dexter Sinister will invite writers, artists, and designers including Steve Rushton, Jan Verwoert, Rob Giampietro, Dan Fox, Walead Beshty, Jason Fulford, Sarah Gephart, Tamara Shopsin, Mariana Castillo Deball, and others to collaborate with The First/Last Newspaper, reflecting on the unstable condition of contemporary news and related medias.
Taking the form of a broadsheet—the original, large-format, single sided newspapers first produced in Europe in the 17th century—the six newspapers produced during the project will be distributed both in folded form and as flat sheets for public reading in various locations around the city. Under the editorial supervision of Dexter Sinister and the Performa curatorial team, The First/Last Newspaper office’s site at BLANK SL8 will be transformed into a hub of ongoing activity, including a series of screenings, lectures, and meetings, often related to other material presented as part of the Performa 09 biennial.
The newspaper workshop will act as a transparent, cybernetic model of the production of information and knowledge, allowing passersby to physically encounter the production space.
Curated by Defne Ayas with support from Virginie Bobin. Commissioned by Performa in partnership with the Times Square Alliance and the Fashion Center BID
PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION
The First/Last Newspaper will release 6 issues during the biennial, printing 3000 copies of each and distributing a new issue every Wednesday and Saturday. The newspaper will be distributed at various venues throughout the whole city, including the Performa Hub (at 41 Cooper Square) and select Performa 09 consortium venues.
The First/Last Newspaper will also be displayed on 6 “street readers,” three-sided, 8-foot-high plywood structures that will be placed in public spaces such as the Port Authority Bus Terminal and The Cooper Union School of Art for public reading.
Other issues will be hand-distributed and dispersed throughout the city.
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AN ARCHITEKTUR
TEN DAYS OF OPPOSITIONAL ARCHITECTURE:
TOWARDS POST-CAPITALIST SPACES
Wednesday, November 11 - Saturday, November 21, times vary
Nov 11, 6-8pm (Opening Reception); Nov 12-20, 7-10pm; Nov 21, 12-10pm
Gair Building No 6, 81 Front Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
FREE
The transformation of the urban landscape within the last decades has increasingly been dominated by the demands of capitalist utilization. Due to the current crisis, however, which goes far beyond a mere crisis of the real estate and financial market, these neoliberal politics and attendant forms of production of space have been subject to a loss of legitimation. For this reason, not only do the dominance and promises of the privatization model, the free market and private property have to be questioned, but also the conventions of the space-producing professions that follow and materialize these policies.
In this context the event “Ten Days for Oppositional Architecture” takes up the task of exploring possibilities and conditions of a socially committed architectural practice. Therefore the narrow boundaries of the profession have to be left behind. We hence invite activists, geographers, architects, planners, and economists representing different critical approaches to discuss and develop concepts and practices that not only try to oppose and challenge the capitalist mode of production of space, but also try to go beyond it strategies of de-commodification, re-appropriation and alternative production of space. We will look at already existing spatial actions of resistance as well as search for possibilities to further theorize them: How can these strategies and alternative practices be turned into social and political forces towards post-capitalist spaces?
All events are public. All those interested are welcome.
Free dinner will be served during discussion evenings.
An exhibition and a reading corner will support and document the discussions.
View program schedule here.
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CITY OF TOMORROWS
PRE-ENACTING THE NOW AND FUTURE CITY
Saturday, November 7: Workshop (pre-registration req.): 12pm. Performance/Tour: 3pm
Storefront for Art and Architecture, 97 Kenmare Street
FREE.
A playful tour of the New York City of the future that merges urban geography, science fiction and guerilla street theater. Four short sci-fi scenes about New York City’s political, spatial, and social futures will be produced in an afternoon workshop. The public is invited to follow along and even participate as these utopian and dystopian tomorrows are played out on the streets of lower Manhattan.
Curated by Defne Ayas. Co-presented by Performa and Storefront for Art and Architecture.
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PAUL ELLIMAN
SIRENS TAKEN FOR WONDERS
Friday, November 20 - Saturday, November 21, times vary
Nov. 20, 10pm (field trip) & Nov. 21, 4pm (panel discussion)
Performa Hub at 41 Cooper Square/ Van Alen Institute at 30 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor
FREE
“So they sent their ravishing voices out across the air”
-Homer, “The Odyssey”, translated by Robert Fagles
“Sirens Taken from Wonders” takes the double form of a workshop (Nov. 20, 10 pm) and a panel session with Arline Bronzaft (Chair of Noise Committee, Mayor’s Committee on the Environment of New York City), Laura Kurgan (an architect and artist), and Raviv Ganchrow(architect and sonologist) (Nov 21. 4 pm) to explore the coded languages of sirens and the different connotations we attach to them – from Ulysses’s mythological creatures to New York’s emergency vehicles’ alarms. The workshop will gather experts and amateurs alike for a field-trip throughout the city -- a siren watch -- and learn the observation and audio surveillance techniques of a New York City birding society and a Manhattan department of acoustic environmental analysis, among others, before condensing their different approaches and experiences into a small publication. The radio panel discussion will provide a response to the city’s sound landscape by broadcasting siren imitators and experts to discuss their physics and electronic aspects, their history and their psychological and physiological impact on bodies and cities.
With Sirens Taken from Wonders, Paul Elliman echoes Futurist interests in both typography and sound by extending design and communication in the city to audio signals and the way they affect us.
Curated by Defne Ayas, with support from Virginie Bobin.Commissioned by Performa. Presented by Performa. As part of Performa09, and Public School (for Architecture)
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THE PUBLIC SCHOOL (FOR ARCHITECTURE)
Sunday, November 1 - Sunday, November 22, times vary
Van Alen Institute at 30 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor
FREE
Performa is pleased to collaborate this November with The Public School (for Architecture) New York, a project by Van Alen Institute New York Prize fellows, common room, and Telic Arts Exchange. The Public School (for Architecture) is a self-organizing educational program for which the general public is invited to propose the
curriculum and schedule.
Courses of The Public School (for Architecture) will be taught throughout New York City as itinerant installations during Fall 2009, and the curriculum will be developed through public access to its website. The project locates areas where new ideas are possible, suggests ways that architecture can be engaged with even while financial support is diminishing, and seeks to identify and activate a community of users beyond affiliations to a single organization. In doing so, the school aims to create a public for architecture while opening up architecture for the public.
Enrollment is open to non-architects and architects alike. Visit http://nyc.thepublicschool.org to propose classes, comment on or register in a class already proposed, offer to teach a class, and find out when and where classes will take place.
Public School (for Architecture) Schedule:
October 13-25: Class Session I
November 1-22: Class Session II (in collaboration with Performa, as part of Performa09)
Actions Propaganda, Nov. 7, 11am
Performa teams up with Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, ona workshop laboratory inspired by Actions: What You Can Do With the City, a CCA exhibition with 99 actions that instigate positive change in contemporary cities around the world. Led by design team from Project Projects, the session will use poster and newspaper templates and with a poster intervention where participants will be encouraged to distribute their work in the city. With an introduction by CCA’s Daria Der Kaloustian.
Co-presented by Performa and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. As part of Performa09, and Public School (for Architecture)
Paul Elliman, Nov. 20, 10 pm tour & Nov. 21, 4 pm panel discussion
NOT FOR SALE: Ideal Performance Space, Nov. 22, 11am
What is the ideal performance space for 21st century New York? This session will be dedicated to the discussion and speculation of what defines a performance space. It will examine past examples of performance spaces–whether deliberately designed or spontaneously invaded–and where they have succeeded and or failed. We will look at historical examples of arenas, from the Greek and Roman stages to experimental spaces such as Frederick Kiesler’s flexible theater to contemporary constructs such as Zaha Hadid’s Mobile Art container. The class may also discuss philosophical notions of space conveyed by different artistic movements such as Russian Constructivism or Modernism and how these ideas affected and continue to affect performance spaces and visual arts in general, performance in particular. By utilizing the Public School platform, this session intends to bring together professionals in visual arts, performing arts and architecture to understand the complex issues involved in
ensuring a successful performance. By utilizing the Public School platform, this session intends to bring
together professionals in visual arts, performing arts and architecture including Christian Wassmann, Didier Faustino and Eric Liftin to understand the complex issues involved in ensuring a successful performance.
Feel free to bring photographs, drawings or other visual examples ofpast present or future performance and theater spaces.
Performa Director RoseLee Goldberg and Curator Defne Ayas will be on site and moderate.
December 1-11: Class Session III
For further information: http://www.vanalen.org/fellowship/fellows/03_2009_commonTelic
Administered by Van Alen Institute New York Prize fellows common room and the Telic Arts Exchange, in collaboration with Performa.
Rotating Committee Members (Performa): Defne Ayas, Tairone Bastien, Griffin Frazen
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