THE RIFT at PORCH PROJECTS

Porch Projects, Le Chien Sauvage, & The Lab for Remixed Knowledge Present:  THE RIFT

The Lab for Remixed Knowledge needs your help.*

On a recent visit to Porch Projects, the Lab discovered a rift in the space-time-meaning continuum. Entering the rift, we encountered a space where nothing was as it should be. Common points of reference were fundamentally altered. Signs dissolved into signal. Things grew wings. Confronted by this proliferation of possibility, we tried to create a map of the rift. But our observations, instead of collapsing the multiple reality-potentials we saw into a single reality, further destabilized the system. Meanings mutated, mated and multiplied. When we came out of the rift, we compared our maps. Each was different. Each provided a different set of coordinates for the psychosemantic phenomena we experienced. And when we re-entered the rift, our maps were no longer accurate, could not guide us deeper, or assure us passage home. We realized we were in over our heads. That one map, or even two, could not provide the path we seek, could not create the sigil that we need to harness the powerful energies that the rift has unleashed. This is a mountain we draw the mountain it is not a mountain. And that is where you come in.

In order to understand the rift, we need a better map. We need a Map of Maps. We need you to enter the rift.

*On Friday, November 4, the Lab will send pairs of volunteers into the rift to help us create this Map of Maps. Please join us by responding to this email, including your name, your partner’s name, and your choice of the following investigation times. Your entry into THE RIFT will thus be reserved.

Investigation times (all are pm): 6:30, 6:45, 7:00, 7:15, 7:30, 7:45, 8:00, 8:15, 8:30

Porch Projects & The Lab for Remixed Knowledge Present:

THE RIFT

November 4, 2011; 6:30-8:30 pm

Email porchprojectsdc@gmail.com to schedule your RIFT entry.

***

ABOUT THE LAB (remixknowledge.com)

The Lab for Remixed Knowledge aims to revolutionize the field of knowledge through the art and science of remixing. Through participatory experiences, performance lectures, training sessions, and artifact production, the Lab aims to train individuals to remix knowledge and hack reality. Lab members Adam Good and Gabe Walsh discovered the rift at Porch Projects, and created the experimental framework for mapping it.

ABOUT ADAM GOOD (therealadamgood.com)

Adam is the founder of the Lab, and its Chief Investigator. Born in Greensboro, NC, and currently residing in Pittsboro, NC, Adam received his B.A. in Literature from American University in 2004. Recent work includes swarm_emerge, for the (e)merge art fair; One Hour Photo, at the Biel/Bienne photography festival, and The Lab for Remixed Knowledge at Washington Project for the Arts. His interdisciplinary practice centers on the ways in which meaning is produced through language. His performances & experiences have also appeared at Pulse Miami, the Transmodern Festival, the Umami Festival, the Phillips Collection, and online.

ABOUT GABRIEL WALSH (earthlyframes.com)

Gabriel Walsh makes movies, music and games. Under the banner of The Earthly Frames, Walsh has created a unique sound and alternate reality story world for his experimental pop performances. His current project, Hoarding 11, continues in this directing combining a short film, card game, fiction creation system as well as many transmedia elements such as faux web sites and road-side billboards. He is the Chief Game Architect for the Lab.

Porch Projects Presents: Open Hours for All in All 10/20, 6-8 pm

Porch Projects will hold Open Hours for viewers to take one last look at the current show All in All, featuring work by Megan Mueller and Annie Albagli.  Please join us from 6:00-8:00 pm on Thursday, October 20, to celebrate the artists’ beautiful works.

Open Hours for All in All

Porch Projects

October 20, 6-8 pm

email porchprojectsdc [at] gmail [dot] com for directions.

And mark your calendars: the next Porch Projects exhibition will take place November 4, featuring The Lab for Remixed Knowledge with chief lab investigator Adam Good and primary games theorist Gabe Walsh.

Porch Projects Interview: Patrick McDonough Talks About [ ]

Q: Can you say more about how this work reflects upon the collaborative process?

PM: I think that it lays bare a number of key issues in artistic production, including those about collaboration. Namely, what do you do when offered an opportunity as an artist? How does that navigation play out? Is there an appropriate level of deference towards alternative spaces that we are somehow violating? Is the artist as trickster/jester a pretty viable model within wider cultural production?

As for concepts of collaboration, I believe that we unpacked concepts of the individual within the collective, how that does and does not get made legible to outside parties, and how collaborative efforts relate to individual artist practices.

Q: Which of you wrote on which wall?

PM: We’d rather not say. But I do think that this points to questions of collaboration posed above. Is there a need on the part of the viewer to try and unpack the roles/personalities within the collaboration? If so, why?

Q: Do you prefer the light to be on, or off?

PM: I like it best with the sunlight coming in through the windows.

Q: “Me Too,” as in, “I second that”?

PM: If you say so.

Q: The language in the two statements doesn’t make sense grammatically. How long did it take you to come up with these statements, and why the disconnect?

PM: We chewed on the ideas for the collaboration for sometime: conceptualizing, negotiating, editing. As for the disconnect, I think that it mediates the combination phrases in some way—individualizes them, makes the relationship less seamless.  Plus, I personally really like ideas of mistakenness in my work, not failure, but just doing things a little wrong.

Q: Did you consider doing something off-site? Is that what you’re doing now?

PM: We thought about lots of potential projects for the space, including outside the gallery space proper. Right now we are in the conceptualization phase for future projects.

Q: Explain in more detail how your work here relates to the space.

PM: I think it, if nothing else, calls attention to the space itself.  From the physical dimensions, to Mariah’s generosity on embarking on the exhibition project, the fact that it is in her home, and even your own body in the gallery. I think that such concepts are usually saved for more institutionalized environments, but we found it more interesting and productive to employ them here.

Q: So, what would you have done with a bigger space? And given that space could be conceived of as a mental and verbal constraint, what does that say about the way you perceive your own work?

PM: I’m not sure what we would have done with a bigger space, we did this project with this space. I am not trying to be dismissive, I just think that it is important to really emphasize that this is what we did. We could have filled the room with jello, installed a home office, hung some paintings, arranged some sculptures, or glued the door shut, but we didn’t do any of those things, we did this piece. Clearly the “If you wanted us to do something….” text suggests this question, but I think that burden of its answering should stay with the viewer.

Q: Lemon = Lemonade. Space = ?

PM: [ ]

Q: What would Malcolm McLaren say?

PM: I think he would tell us to come make a record with him. 

Q: Is it about the question? What is the question?

PM: What will we do next? 

Q: But ultimately, didn’t you do something?

PM: Of course! That is part of the nuance I think. It’s like when Barltelby says he ‘would prefer not to’, he is of course doing something. But I think that that turn of phrase brings up ideas of how much do you need to do, what do you do when someone asks you to do something, if you can do anything which something do you do? 

Q: How do you think this project will influence your individual practices going forward? 

PM: It has already made me think a lot about ideas of brashness, context specificity, and escapism through persona adopting. I also learned a lot through collaborating with Matias and look forward to more such adventures. I’d also like to very much thank Mariah for letting us explore our ideas and being supportive of our experimental attitude towards [ ], which has definitely led to growth for me.