Inside the Breath: INT (In Network Time)
(2017-present/current)
installation image
Created with many collaborators, including Meredith Bove, Kathy Couch, Barbie Diewald, María José Giménez, Karinne Keithley Syers, and the singers of the Network Time Small Human Chorus.
A long project set in INT, the calendar era of our interconnected planetary future. In INT we honor Gloria Anzaldúa’s writings, our distributed multi-species consciousness, and biological systems that cross politically-imposed, artificial borders. Octopuses are important here.
-----
WE DO THE MOLECULAR DANCE OF SPIRITUAL ACTIVISM
HACEMOS LA DANZA MOLECULAR DEL ACTIVISMO ESPIRITUAL
-----
Listen: Future Oral Histories
Listen: One day / Octorun
-----
BRING US A LOWER LOVE
BRING US A LOWER LOVE (support)
BRING US A LOWER LOVE (support)
BRING US A LOWER LOVE (support)
Subjects:
Anzaldúa, Gloria -- Philosophy
Borderlands -- Environmental aspects
Borderlands -- Political aspects
Cooperative societies
Distributed cognition
Geobiology
Host-bacteria relationships
Octopuses
Solidarity
Florence Rice Hitchcock and the Theory of the Soft Earth
(2015-17)
Created with and performed by Candice Salyers.
An exploration of the physics and geologic properties of interconnection and indeterminacy. Also a "nearly true" story about a forgotten nineteenth-century geologist who dedicated her life to deciphering and channelling her prophetic visions into a theory of planetary interdependency. Also a tale of how a valuing of solidity and static measurability can soften into a greater understanding and acceptance of change as the only true constant.
Florence's fictional Soft Earth Theory predicted future scientific understanding (quantum physics, chaos theory, environmental science) and forefronted social responsibility. It was constructed from pieces of spiritual and scientific ideas across cultures and time periods, and stretched from the 4th century forward to meet current understanding of the role of uncertainty in how the universe functions, and the effects of humans on the earth and other species.
Subjects:
Imaginary biography
Quantum cosmology
Social ecology
Chaotic behavior in systems
Causality (Physics)
Geology, Stratigraphic--Anthropocene
Mercy
Florence Rice Hitchcock and the Theory of the Soft Earth
(2015-17)
Created with and performed by Candice Salyers (pictured)
Florence Rice Hitchcock and the Theory of the Soft Earth
(2015-17)
Created with and performed by Candice Salyers (pictured).
Florence Rice Hitchcock and the Theory of the Soft Earth
(2015-17)
artists' book with stereo-viewer reels
An artists' book and stereo-viewer exploration of the physics and geologic properties of interconnection and indeterminacy, based on a "nearly true" story about a forgotten nineteenth-century geologist who dedicated her life to deciphering and channelling her prophetic visions into a theory of planetary interdependency. Also a tale of how a valuing of solidity and static measurability can soften into a greater understanding and acceptance of change as the only true constant.
You Got Eyes
(2016)
Made in collaboration with film & video artist Adam R. Levine
An experiment in movement and single-frame video inspired by photographer Robert Frank’s book The Americans.
Performance by Aretha Aoki and Sara Smith
Subjects:
Frank, Robert, 1924- Américains
Documentary photography
Photography -- Political aspects
United States Population
United States -- Social life and customs -- Pictorial works
You Got Eyes
pictured: Aretha Aoki, Sara Smith
Made in collaboration with film & video artist Adam R. Levine
A Study of the Path of a Small Solar System Body; Or, The Politics of Rejection
(2007-2008)
A read-along performance about the reclassification of Pluto from planet to "dwarf planet" and the political nature of classification systems. Everyone turned the page when the bell rang.
Karinne Keithley Syers was Pluto. Emily Hricko, Goldie Peacock, and Jessamyn Schmidt were Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.
Subjects:
Cataloging
Classification
Developed countries
Developing countries
Discrimination
Group of Eight (Organization)
International Astronomical Union
Planets
Pluto
Taxonomists
What she saw and how it felt
(2011-2012)
Developed with and performed by Sarah Baumert
A performance of episodes based on Sarah Baumert’s experiences during a five month-stay in Paris and my imaginings of those experiences. The making process began when I sent Sarah a series of readings, exercises, and assignments aimed at building familiarity with unfamiliar surroundings.
Subjects:
Americans--France--Paris
Anxiety
Architecture, French
Culture and tourism
French language
Maps
Visual perception
When last we saw our heroines...
(2005-2006)
Created with and performed by Karinne Keithley Syers and Katy Pyle and also performed by Taryn Griggs
A short project about the long arc of history and time travel. Two labor activists are caught up in a time warp. It's 1905, the year in which the IWW is founded, and in which Einstein presents his Theory of Special Relativity, a key component in some models of time travel. This experience compels them to wonder about the nature of time and space, and also to contemplate their own place in history—the impact of their activities, the likelihood that the future will remember them.
Subjects (Library of Congress):
Collective memory
Women social reformers -- History
Special relativity (Physics)
Time travel
Wormholes (Physics)
Works on Paper: a report on imaginary architecture
(2004-2005)
Created with and performed by Taryn Griggs and Karinne Keithley Syers
A dance that began with the Situationist International and the work of architect and artist Constant (Nieuwenhuys). We asked questions about the relationship between political theory, historical research, and art making, and presented a "report" of the artistic results of structural experiments. A dance about (and also not about) architecture.
“Let us be consciously imaginary architects, since we know very well that only social transformation and radical political transformation can create the basis for actual work.”
—Bruno Taut
Subjects:
Book houses
Constant, 1920-2005
Internationale situationniste
Polaroid Land camera
Utopias
Visionary architecture
Reception - Perception - Action (workshop)
An introduction to a research practice rooted in visual perception. We focus on the eye-brain connection as a starting place for greater physical understanding, and the perceptual relationship between imagination and embodiment. We work through a physical warm up and a series of exercises designed to make connections between visual and whole-body receptiveness, and examine how this informs our actions. We ask how we can use this awareness to help us re-approach seeing and moving, and how we can train ourselves to make new choices. Lastly, we focus on the implications of this practice outside the studio, especially the potential of pattern recognition and disruption to lead the way to more effective, ethical, and relational living.
The Candidate is Absent
(July, 2016)
A collaborative project of the Pinecone Finance Reform Party staff:
Bernadine Mellis, Data Visualization Technician
EE Miller, Action Research and Outreach Director
Gina Siepel, Chief Operational Engineer
Sara Smith, Archivist of Revolution Messaging
Frustrated with the state of U.S. electoral politics, we created a pop-up campaign headquarters in the A.P.E. Gallery (Northampton, MA).
From the project website:
"The Pinecone Finance Reform Party is a forest-floor organization inspired by historical desires and disappointments to conduct local action research with a global vision. We are manifesting a candidate who speaks with us, as we imagine a campaign and a world we can build together."
Subjects:
Political campaigns--United States
Elections
Democracy
Dreams
KINEBAGO
A print forum about dance and movement research in New England
(2010-2017)
1: Nell Breyer, Sara Coffey, Krista DeNio, Katherine Ferrier, David Hurwith, Ana Isabel Keilson & Daniel McCusker, Tiffany Rhynard.
2: Romain Bigé, Selene Colburn, Krista DeNio, Arthur Fink, Heidi Henderson, Annie Kloppenberg & Lauren Simpson, Dahlia Nayar, Peter Schumann/Lubberland National Dance Co.
3: Ellen Smith Ahern, Chris Aiken, Lorraine Chapman The Company, Hannah Dennison, Cassie Peterson.
4: Kathy Couch, Cookie Harrist, Kinodance, Adele Myers, Cassie Peterson.
5: Deborah Goffe, Eliza Larson, Candice Salyers, Sandra Wieser/The Living Library.
6: Billbob Brown, Katja Kolcio, Polly Motley, David R. White.
7: Charlotte Brathwaite, Christopher-Rasheem McMillan, Kelly Silliman, Wendy Woodson.
Tell me a story from someone else's life
(ongoing)
A collaborative project with known and unknown collaborators. The collection of 35mm slides I have found at yard sales and thrift stores over many years is the base for slide-show performances of imagined personal and historical narratives with accompanying sound scores. Many of these orphaned images are sets, carefully labeled and organized by their original owner-creators. I try to honor that care with the project. Some stories I write, and some are contributed.
Subjects:
Audio-visual archives
Found objects (Art)
Imaginary biography
Projection art
Slides (Photography)
Stories & storytellers