SITEfest 2010

News News: One of Amy's plays, WORD PLAY / PAPER PLAY, will be on display at SITEfest 2010 in a workshop-style, staged reading (so almost fully there, maybe some scripts in hand, minimal technical requirements, etc., etc.).  The play will be produced by BOOMSLANG, the literary/performance enclave of NYC media collective THE GODDAMN COBRAS.  Elizabeth Nolan Brown and Charley Parden will read, Lee Sunday Evans will direct, and Eric will be responsible for the assemble of aesthetic-informing objects (as the play requires an extraordinary amount of old books and the eating of them.).

The play deals with two solitude-addicts who inhabit the top floor of a archive/library and spend night sifting through books.  Thomas makes a decision to be pronounced about his affection, while Clara abstractly questions real life vs. read life and which has a greater kind of place in the world.  It's short--30 minutes, and the conclusion will be interesting--please attend.

The piece will be shown with Katharine Henner's SPEAKING IN STOMACHS, another communication-themed short, with an audience talk back narrated by Claire Epstein, of chat shop infamy.

Details:

Where: 3rd Ward, 195 Morgan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11237

When: Saturday, March 6th, 2010, 1 pm.

Cost: 5 bucks, suggested.

More Image Research, More About the Robots from Japan

Yes, so the Karakuri project is shaping up a bit more--it's a lady piece (all lady robots): I, Amy, was thinking about a Katya Marritz piece of work; in her apartment on a wine night and she's showing me all her old scores.  Photos and stories about things she did younger--there's a great set of photos on a performance piece.  My head's fuzzy right now, but it was a piece where she stood in a slip and kneaded dough and made a kind of dough forest around her counter, a testament to women's labor.

So I told Eric, and I've been thinking a lot about ritual lately, I told him about these kinds of things that we do involving everyday labors for the other, in short, the way women can shape themselves, re-orientate, and maybe to cut off huge chucks of their own arms not sure.  My mother woke up every morning at six to see her loveless marriage off to work safe and sound; she did this for 28 years.  And I think about own morning rituals and where that time is going; it feels safe to me, the practice of it.

Here:

When you research women and ritual this is what you get (above), so that's good at least.

Eric wants to make his robot puppet like little soldiers and we'll see what they can do, a kitchen full of things like this:

And this:

And this:

All the little karakuri will have roles to assemble themselves in -- a little army of robot women waking up every morning and bushing eyebrows till the hairs lay in the same direction.  Cool, eh?

Women's Work.

Arm and El Beau have begun collective work on a new project for the summer as a result of Eric recent Karakuri fetish/fixation. What is a Karakuri, you ask?

"The word 'Karakuri' means a mechanical device to tease, trick, or take a person by surprise. It implies hidden magic, or an element of mystery. In Japanese ‘Ningyo’ is written as two separate characters, meaning person and shape. It loosely translates as puppet, but can also be seen in the context of doll or even effigy." (and all this from Karakuri.info.)

Right now the office is filled with little drawings and motors. And doll parts.