Design 21: Social Design Network

Press Release July 28, 2009

VENERATIONS (Applause 1) by: caraballo-farman

A Multi-channel video installation using DVD players, projectors, portable DVD players, televisions, and plexi-see thru mirrors.

August 13th- September 5th 2009 in the Project Room for New Media, Ground Floor of the Chelsea Art Museum

Culled from hundreds of hours of talk shows, late shows, reality shows, celebrity shows, award shows, life-style shows, game shows, and shows about shows, this installation takes TV applause to its logical end: no object or context, just the pure build up and downswing of collective clapping and hooting, an on-going show made up only of the audience. The New Media Project Room is filled with applause, reflected, refracted, repeated, in sound and video. The audience is the performer.

Inciting applause has long been part of the manipulation, or perhaps the making, of an audience. Today’s American TV culture presents applause at its most ritualized, culturally-prevalent and prescriptive mode. ‘Live studio audience’ is an American cultural category, with personnel and staff dedicated to their guidance, to tell them what to do, when to clap, to wave frantically in the front and stir them up over something or other.

The object of applause doesn’t matter as much as the ritual itself, as the self-satisfying burst of euphoria, the self-referential appeal to fame, melting the obsessions of celebration and celebrity into one form, regimented, quasi-pavlovian waves of app...

Pioneer bio and internet artist Eduardo Kac will discuss his work “Reversed Mirror”, on display in Chelsea Art Museum’s Project Room for New Media until August 8. The discussion will be followed by a reception at 7 pm, and is free with museum admission.

"Reversed Mirror" is a seven minute single channel videopoem. The text is a poem written by Kac from which he has created a constant flow and transformation of forms, presenting an ever-changing image of infinity that resonates in the context of the vastness of space. Oscillating particles emerge and evolve into ephemeral words, only to dissolve again and reemerge as new ephemeral words.

Press Release June 27 2009 Iran Inside Out Film Series Curated by Livia Alexander, ArteEast Executive Director Presented in collaboration by Sam Bardaouil, Chelsea Art Museum Curator; Dan Nuxoll, Rooftop Films Program Director; Vali Mahlopuji; and Sara Nodjoumi Every Wednesday July 15 – August 19 at 9 pm $15 general admission / $10 students and seniors / CAM Members free Chelsea Art Museum is proud to present the Iran Inside Out Film Series in collaboration with Rooftop Films and ArteEast. This film series will present brilliant feature and short films as well as documentaries by well-established and emerging Iranian directors that are designed to compliment CAM’s ground-breaking exhibition, Iran Inside Out. The films are organized thematically to match the exhibition’s five pillars: war and politics, gender and sexuality, culture as commodity, reinventing traditional art forms and street culture within Tehran. The screenings will take place every Wednesday at 9 pm from July 15 until August 19 in the Chelsea Art Museum’s magnificent gallery space. A music performance by Electric Black will precede the launch of the series on July 15 at 8 pm. Electric Black elicit a new experimental blues sound, a self-proclaimed “American Gypsy Music”. Iran Inside Out features 35 artists living and working in Iran alongside 21 others living in the Diaspora. The result is a multifarious portrait of 56 contemporary Iranian artists challenging the conventional perceptions of Iran and Iranian ar...

Michael Alan’s Draw-A-Thon Theater “This Is Not Just Drawing… This Is Art Come To Life.”

A 5-hour performance art happening on June 19th, 2009 from 7 PM – 12 AM Tickets: $20, $10 for CAM members Free iced tea provided by Honest Tea

Bring your sketch- books and participate in this spectacular happening! "A rare chance to draw models staged in unusual theatrical poses." -Village Voice

The Chelsea Art Museum is proud to present Michael Alan’s Draw-A-Thon Theater. On June 19th, the museum's entire ground floor will be transformed into 'The Factory", a performance art piece that incorporates music, theatrical performances and the creative process live art making, as well as the viewer. More than twenty performers will use a variety of costumes and props to create this imaginative environment and ground-breaking experience. ‘The Factory’ will be controlled by paint-splattered floor managers, who will dictate and choreograph the repetitious construction Draw-A-Thon Theater is a performance art happening that was started by visual artist Michael Alan in New York in 2005. Draw-A-Thon is a reaction to art school and the tradition of figure drawing, as it restructures the typical context of drawing the nude by creating a naked theater troupe that will push all boundaries and hopefully set a new mark as a drawing subculture.

The Draw-A-Thon Troupe is a collective of artists, musicians, performers, and art models, who collaborate through improvisation...