City Passport Photos

Please enter the passport station. Adjust the picture frame to your height by grasping the handle or frame and pulling the pulley in the proper direction. Please do not grab the brush, as it is more of a counterweight than a handle. When the frame is in the proper position, please make your most unattractive face. Your CITY passport should be available within 4-8 months. Expedited copies of your passport can be had in 3-6 weeks for a five button processing fee.

 

Life in the Media Cave

One of the things that has most surprised me about my new job as interim documentarian is the sheer number of photographs that get taken at Elsewhere, and how few of them are available anywhere except on Mimeo (our computer)  inside of the tech cave. I'm a bit obsessed with photos of myself (I mean, who isn't?) because I'm very interested in the way that people use cues, both visual and aural, as openings into their own memories of events. I've been working on a project for a little over a year now that takes the form of monthly playlists, where any song that I hear which strikes a particularly strong emotional chord in me, or one that someone suggests to me, or that I hear during a particularly memorable time, gets placed in a playlist. The only rules are that I don't re-use songs (otherwise the point of recreating a specific moment when I rehear that song would be lost), I try to keep it to one song per group per month (otherwise it would be, yes, I was obsessed with High Violet in May, I knew that), and I don't go out looking for songs to add, they have to come to me.


I think it has actually been quite successful-- I can listen to one of them and remember exactly what event or series of events a song was added after. Some of them actually cue emotional responses in me that have nothing to do with the content of the song, but more to do with what it reminds me of. The memory is very specific, however. For instance, I know that in July, the song "Stars" from Les Miserables is on there in the 2nd slot because on one of my very first weekends here, having consumed the better part of a growler, there was some spontaneous singing of a significant medley of show-tunes in the kitchen. There may be video but I really hope there isn't. I don't have the range for Javert.

Similarly, going through the catalog of photographs on Mimeo has ordered some memories for me in a way that wouldn't have been possible without so many visual aids.

For instance, here I'm about two seconds from getting a massive amount of white latex paint dropped on my face. Some of it's still in the joints of my glasses. I had totally blocked out this happening.

I remember this, it's from my first CITY, when I built a submarine and hunted down squid in the sewers of 608.

However, I don't remember there being a camera in the room when I was building the sub. This reminded me of the original design for the submarine, which I had totally forgotten about. This piece of chair backing was going to be a torpedo launcher at the front of the ship, back when the plans were more like a segway with torpedoes and a periscope.

And these were my first volunteer squid for the evening! Their job was to advertise the squid watching tour business, and they were paid a button for every four customers they brought in. I'm pretty sure they quit before they ever got paid, but it was good for business, having squid mucking about in the building.

PIKA-DON

I got my first copy of my graphic novel in the mail today! Pika-Don is the result of the third year of the Stanford Graphic Novel Project, and the finest to date, if I do say so myself. It's the true story of three days in the life of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a double survivor of the atomic bomb who later became a poet, painter, and activist for world peace, and who passed away last year. Props to all my fellow collaborators on the project, I'm so proud of you all.

Here's a couple stills as a preview, you can also check it out at pika-don.com. We're giving the first run (printed by Stanford) away for free, then all the money from when we (fingers crossed) get it picked up by a comics imprint will go to charity relating to nuclear non-proliferation. If you want to hear more, check out this video from SiCa, the Stanford Arts Initiative.

Elsewhere Summer

I'm spending the summer working as an administrative intern/ educational coordinator/ documentarian/ tech guy at Elsewhere Artist's Collaborative, a living museum and artist's residency program in Greensboro, North Carolina. It's an amazing place, one giant constant game of dress-up and play-acting.

Some highlights include:

CITY: A performance game in which the museum turns into a self-contained city with its own currency, immigration, politics, and so much more. For my first city I built a submarine to conduct naval defense of the city sewers against the menace of squid (visitors could pay a button to turn into a squid, or 4 to try and catch the squid in my submarine).

Playing dress up to serenade a birthday boy at Table 16, a great restaurant next door.

Running a chance procedure drawing game for our first friday event in August.

Collabo mural painting with Camillo and Isaac as part of Isaac and Hannah Nichols' "Gift Shop" installation.

Painting the floor.

Realizing we have rollers and painting the floor much more quickly.

The opening of the gift shop (I bought a hand sewn pillowcase with Isaac's name on it).