Creative Time: Consuming Places : Press Release

Press Release : July 2, 2002

Creative Time Presents Pioneering Exhibition, Consuming Places
Outdoor and Indoor Installations by Architects, Artists, and Designers Along the Historic DUMBO Waterfront

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Creative Time is pleased to announce the opening of its annual summer exhibition on August 14, 2002. From an installation of sound artifacts collected from the Brooklyn Bridge to telescopes that reveal personal messages inscribed on the City skyline, the artworks in Creative Time's summer exhibition, Consuming Places, span virtual, physical, and social realms and connect our City's historic character with the ephemeral nature of new technologies. Internationally acclaimed architects, artists, and designers: Asymptote, Bill Fontana, Greyworld, Marjetica Potrc, and 212box, have created site-specific works visualizing spaces that defy typical physical boundaries and examining the emerging virtual and physical spaces that are radically changing our experiences of the urban environment. Consuming Places was originally conceived for the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, but was redesigned for a remarkable waterfront block in DUMBO, situated between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges with vistas of Lower Manhattan. The exhibition will be located on Water Street, between Main and Dock Streets in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), Brooklyn, and will be open to the public August 15 - October 27, 2002, Thursday through Sunday, 1 - 6 p.m. For Consuming Places' online component, go to www.creativetime.org, where current scheduling for upcoming public programs, music, and performances will be available.

Transition from Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage to DUMBO Waterfront

Consuming Places was originally conceived for Creative Time's nineteenth year in the magical Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, which is unavailable this summer due to national security concerns. Though we were disappointed by the loss of the Anchorage, we are eager to build upon our legacy of programming in those Romanesque chambers with a groundbreaking presentation in another landmark DUMBO site. The architects, artists, and designers in Consuming Places were specifically commissioned to activate a block of majestic nineteenth-century structures along the waterfront. Situated in three structures between Water Street and the newly renovated Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park- the Tobacco Warehouse (Bill Fontana), Empire Stores (Greyworld), and the Stable at 16 Main Street (Asymptote, Marjetica Potrc, and 212box)-Consuming Places furthers Creative Time's thirty-year mission of invigorating unusual and neglected public sites with fresh artistic visions.

Consuming Places

The architecture and design communities are debating and experimenting with the recent explosion of wireless networks, peer-to-peer software, and the extra-urban skin of media display on our City's buildings-elements of our technologically sophisticated culture which increasingly shape everyday life and experimental artistic practice. From private dwellings to public arenas, intimate personal exchanges to mass media marketing messages that dominate the urban landscape, the overlap of our public and private spheres continues to intensify. This provocative territory has resulted in a creative convergence of artistic fields and a shared language of production, both of which are facilitated by new software, rendering technologies, and network communications. With works that defy discrete disciplinary boundaries, the participants in Consuming Places embrace the pleasure and possibilities of new technologies while calling for deeper reflection and critical awareness. Exhibition design by Lana Hum, graphic design by Firefly Studio, and lighting design by Pat Dignan transform the installations along the waterfront block into a dynamic and fluid exhibition onsite, offsite, and online.

Asymptote Architecture is a New York-based collaboration established in 1989 by Lise Anne Couture and Hani Rashid. Asymptote's work explores the interplay between virtual and real space, experiments with, and expands traditional fields of architecture. Their projects range from computer-generated environments to building design and urban planning. Examples of Asymptote projects include a large-scale computer-generated environment for the New York Stock Exchange with an accompanying physical "theatre of operations," the design and implementation of the Guggenheim Virtual Museum (a fully interactive multi-dimensional digital architecture), and the continuation of their M{otion}scape series for Documenta XI. Asymptote views architecture as an "active" part of a constant interaction between virtual and real space, which responds to and changes in accordance with the movement and action of its users.

For Consuming Places Asymptote continues their exploration of physical and virtual motion in the urban landscape with Flux 4.0:Ascape. Creating a visualization of velocity, the work projects complex computer-generated animations onto forms cast from molds of the 1960's Cobra race car. The projected graphics animate the static shapes of the cars, producing a visually saturated environment that proposes a deeper relationship between the speed of digital communication networks and our experience of the city. Flux 4.0:Ascape is the final installment of Asymptote's Flux environments, the most recent of which was installed this summer in Kassel, Germany for Documenta XI and will be presented in the darkened space of the Stable at 16 Main Street.

Bill Fontana is internationally known for his experimental work in sound. He has worked since the late 60s in developing his unique art form and realizing numerous sonic sculptures, radio projects, and sound installations for natural science museums. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Japan U.S. Friendship Commission. His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, and the Art and Natural History Museums in Vienna. Fontana's recent work includes "Acoustical Visions of Venice," commissioned for the 48th Venice Biennale, 1999.

For Consuming Places Fontana designed a sound installation, Falling Echoes, which the public will experience from inside the Tobacco Warehouse, a roofless structure of brick walls, punctuated with dozens of open-aired arches and reminiscent of a Roman aqueduct. Using recordings captured in 1983, the centennial of the Brooklyn Bridge and Creative Time's first year in the Anchorage, Falling Echoes transports ambient sounds of traffic patterns and other sonic artifacts to the Tobacco Warehouse through a series of Meyer Sound SB-1 parabolic speakers mounted on the surrounding architecture. By transmitting the recordings on land with the Bridge in sight, Fontana offers listeners an intensified aural experience of local, familiar sounds. Experiencing the Bridge recordings from within the context of the Tobacco Warehouse reveals nuances in the sounds, such as an organic hive-like quality in recordings of cars traversing the Brooklyn Bridge or the subtle interplay between the flowing Hudson River in view and the invisible momentum of Falling Echoes.

Greyworld is an artist collective based in Britain which creates public artwork in urban environments. Founded in 1993 by sound artist Andrew Shoben, Greyworld's goal is to create works that allow for self-expression in areas of the city that people see and interact with every day, but normally ignore. Greyworld has exhibited their work around the world and has permanent installations in London, New York, Berlin, Paris, and Cape Town, among other locations. In January 2002, Greyworld created the highly acclaimed Colour Stops (1,2) installation, a permanent work for five bus stops in Bradford, UK, for which they won a prestigious award from the Royal Society of Arts. This year they will unveil new installations in Liverpool, New York, and Chicago.

Greyworld's Telescape I, II, which will be located on Water Street between Dock and Main Streets, is an interactive installation that uses geographical mapping technology to overlay voicemail and email messages onto the surrounding landscape. Connecting virtual networks with the DUMBO landscape and public with private spheres, visitors will be able to hear personalized messages, left for them via email and voicemail, by directing custom-built telescopes towards specific geographical points in the surrounding area (for example, the top of the Brooklyn Bridge or a near-by lamp post). Each night, new messages will be synced with the telescopes, so that the project will evolve and grow during the course of the exhibition.

Marjetica Potrc is an internationally exhibited Slovenian artist and architect whose work addresses the shifting terrain of contemporary cities and the continual adjustment of their inhabitants. In 2000, Potrc received the Hugo Boss Prize from the Guggenheim for Kagis: Skeleton House, an examination of subsidized housing models provided by the South African government. Potrc represented Slovenia at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and has participated in group exhibitions, such as the Bienal Internacional de Sao Paulo (1996); Skulptur Projekte in Munster (1997); Do It, SKUC Gallery, Ljubljana (1998); Urban Visions, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts (1999); and Manifesta 3, Ljubljana (2000.) Most recently, Potrc's solo exhibition at the Max Protetch gallery in New York City examined the vernacular architecture of India's Barefoot College.

As a part of Consuming Places, Creative Time will host a website dedicated to Urban Independent, an investigation of sustainable, participatory architecture in both developing and developed nations. Using the virtual space of the web as a meeting place, she will lead a conversation between the creators and architects of innovative, and often temporary, physical spaces from across the globe, including India, Australia, and the Netherlands. These participants are currently exploring and implementing projects that rely on networks of knowledge and expertise, which bypass traditional power structures and bureaucratic formalities. Their structures express a high level of local self-sufficiency in planning, construction, and relationship to infrastructure, and are responsive to contemporary situations. Each week Potrc will post a new question on the website that applies to the themes of temporary architecture, alternative energy use, and alternative thinking regarding the spaces all cultures inhabit. Each participant will contribute their answer and discuss how it relates to their own work.

On September 28th, the discussion and themes generated in the online forum of Urban Independent will inform a one-day public panel, in which she and local New York participants, as well as one of the international architects, will explore in more depth participatory architecture and its implications for both New York and other developed or developing communities cited in the online discussion.

212box, LLC is a New York City collaboration, formed by Eric Clough, Erik L'Heureux, and Heather Bensko. Their projects include residential and commercial architecture, product design, and graphic design for clients in New York City, Chicago, and Georgia. Ongoing projects include commercial offices in New York and Chicago and multiple corporate identity and graphics packages.

Combining the continued and increasing need for rental and advertising space, 212box, LLC presents ***box in the Stable at 16 Main Street. ***box is a three dimensional inhabitable space that expands the notion of a billboard into a tenant accommodation, wrapped in advertising surface. Designed to be marketed and leased above existing parking lots in downtown urban locations, ***box is a utilitarian statement on the parasitic relationship between media-scapes of advertising and urban architecture, as well as a commentary on the increasing premium of living space in cities. ***box will also serve as the stage for Creative Time's fall performance series in the Stable.

Creative Time For nearly thirty years, Creative Time has commissioned and presented adventurous public arts projects of all disciplines. From the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage, Grand Central Terminal, and Times Square to milk cartons, billboards, and skywriting over New York City, Creative Time has a long and distinguished history of invigorating our City's unusual public spaces, providing free public access to cutting edge artwork, and supporting artists in developing their artistic practice. www.creativetime.org.

Exhibition Supporters

This exhibition has been made possible largely, in part, by the generous support of the Walentas family, Two Trees Management and the New York State Parks Department.

Information

For more information on Consuming Places please visit our website at www.creativetime.org or call 212-206-6674. Press Contact: Sarah Bacon, 212-206-6674 x 205 or sarahb@creativetime.org.

Stay Tuned for Creative Time's Upcoming Programs

- October 15, 2002: Coinciding with the reopening of the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center, and presented in cooperation with the World Financial Center's Arts & Events program, Creative Time presents Sonic Garden, a two-month installation of sonic works in the atrium of the Winter Garden. Artists include Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Marina Rosenfeld, and Ben Rubin.

- October 15, 2002: Creative Time unveils Snowman, a sculpture by Gary Hume and the second installation in Art on the Plaza, a long-term sculpture series at the Ritz-Carlton New York, Battery Park.

- Check out our website, www.creativetime.org, for the next 59th Minute video on the Times Square Astrovision and additional information on upcoming Creative Time projects.