2013 Practicum Descriptions

Chloë Bass

is learning how to telescope space (and/or place)
I am working with my partner and collaborator, Mitch McEwen, on a telescopic living space* investigating the relationship between a new contemporary art museum and an old Soviet housing project in Zagreb, Croatia. We will be transitioning the project to a direct social mode of working in September, when we arrive in Zagreb. This summer is for research (both intellectual and experiential) and perhaps the construction of a few larger project frames (both physical and metaphorical). My ideal mentee will be curious about the relationship between architecture and performance, public space, and everyday behavior. I’m looking for someone who can assist with video shooting and editing, web and graphic design, and event production. There is some possibility for longer term remote collaboration (between mentee’s location and Zagreb), particularly with relation to online media and an eventual publication, if the summer work pleases both involved parties (you and me!). This Practicum will start in mid-June (on or around June 15th), and run through August 31st, with some interruptions for mentor travel (as yet unspecified).

* You will also help us to shape what “telescopic space” means. I’m excited.

Brendan Fernandes

is making a video about a conversation between two elephants.
I am working on a video about a dialogue between two elephants, one Asian and the other African. The conversation will explore the dynamics of a gay relationship, while questioning post-colonial power struggles. I am looking for a mentee who can work with me through pre and post production of this work. I am looking for someone with animation, filming and editing skills. Practicum will start before the June 10 start date (as early in May as participant can do). I will be travelling in June, and we will resume for part of July.

Sara Greenberger Rafferty

will be working on a variety of things this summer.
This will give potential mentees a good cross-section of the activities of an artist studio. She would love to work with someone who is interested in working on a variety of different tasks from week to week, including archiving and organizing, working with Filemaker Pro databases, formatting images and files for the web, researching, artwork fabrication, etc. Projects going on in the studio include: working toward a gallery exhibition, a collaborative project using the assembly line concept exercised with NYAP students last year; and various publication projects in anticipation of the New York Art Book Fair, Fall 2013. The schedule will likely be 2 days per week during the program however flexibility is ideal (e.g. working independently for a week or doubling up one week with dispensation another).

Claudia Hart

is voguing with avatars. 
Claudia Hart is playing a game of Exquisite Corpse with 20 artists, each creating an avatar identity  capable of showing cultural difference while at the same time breaking it down, permitting differences to meld together into a single universal hyper body. These avatars originate in virtual worlds but will be presented in a real life runway setting for a voguing dance battle. The project will be workshopped in June and July at IMC Lab and Gallery in Chelsea, for eventual presentations at Bitforms Gallery during the Armory Show, 2014. Claudia is looking for videographers, photographers, augmented reality and 3D animation visualizers, seamstresses, materialists who can work comfortably with fabrics, lighting and stage set designers.

Pablo Helguera

is making work for a solo show in New York City, and several biennials.
Pablo Helguera is looking for assistance for a number of exhibitions and socially-engaged projects currently being developed for a number of museums and biennials as well for a solo exhibition in New York in september. Knowledge of Italian and/or Spanish would be preferred. Knowing Illustrator/Photoshop as well as some video editing would be preferred. Knowing a bit of architectural rendering would be incredible. The idea candidate would be interested in both socially engaged art and museums, and would be willing to do research and work independently. The studio is located at the EFA center in Hell’s Kitchen. working hours and times are flexible but most work should be done mostly during the week.

David Horvitz

is working on a lot of things. A lot.
Most likely during the summer I will have a summer residency in Manhattan. This is not confirmed yet, which is why I’m not saying where. But this most likely will happen, in which case the apprenticeship will take place on mostly in Manhattan. Since the project is not yet public, I must refrain from details. The participant will be mostly working on one major project for the duration, as well as many little things that may pop up. I will be in Basel at the beginning of June, so this will start when I get back, most likely the second week. My lifestyle is pretty sporadic so the partipant must be ready for this. I travel a lot, spontaneous projects pop up all the time, etc… I do not require any technical skills except commitment. If you want to work with me, we can figure out what you can do. But please list things you can do with regards to: design; photography; driving capability; computer skills; cooking; how many hours a night you sleep; etc… I do not normally have a solid work schedule, things are improvised day by day, week by week.. But since the residency will happen, which will require myself to commit time, we can choose between a schedule that is more structured or loose.

Marisa Jahn/REV-

are looking for mentees looking to join their team.
We are seeking mentees interested in conducting research, project support, outreach, design and multimedia production, day-to-day archiving/administration, and more. Our team is small – we all wear many hats and we don’t delegate anything that we ourselves don’t do. That said, we all share the fun work and the grunt work. We are looking for mentees with strong written and oral communication skills. We also are interested in working with folks who are detail-oriented, organized, and motivated. A background in art, design or previous experience working with community organizations is highly desirable.

Here are a couple of projects that mentees could potentially contribute to:
(a) LullaBOOM! is an interactive media project where the public can listen or share a lullaby through the web or by calling in using even the most basic mobile phone.
(b) Video Slink Uganda is a multi-part project of curated short-form experimental videos by contemporary African / African-American artists that will be burned onto pirated DVDs that play before the main feature film. In keeping with local traditions of viewership, a handful of VJs translate these shorts before burning them onto commercially pirated DVDs. REV- seeks help in organizing exhibition and documentary components of the project. See videoslink.org

Jen Liu

is interested in ideas.
I will work on several projects over the summer. Some are very public, some more private. All come from the same place: to look at the present and future of our world, and make proposals for social & ecological solutions that seem absurd at first, then yield an earnest attempt to deal with intractable problems. Public projects to launch around that time: a private billboard commission in Times Square based on a 70s porn poster, and an NYC-funded commission for a banner project on the Brooklyn Bridge, involving a video of farm animals eating watermelon carved into mandalas. Less-public projects will be editing of & animation into HD video footage shot in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Penfield house, blurring the line between Broadacre (FLW’s vision of an exurban utopia) and Green Acres / Hee Haw (late 60s redneck TV comedy). And then there will be many, many paintings of “fantasy plumbing” to do, as well as sculptures made of fiber laxative. In short, there will be many types of work to be done, and I’m looking for someone who is willing to spread themselves out re: method, but most of all, is interested in engaging with ideas of survival, sustainability, and satire.

Kristin Lucas & Joe McKay

will be working collaboratively, and independently, on a variety of interactive mobile viewing objects during their Summer residency at Eyebeam.
Their mentee will spend a majority of time working with them at Eyebeam in Manhattan and take an occasional commuter train to their home in Beacon (with hiking and swimming nearby). Kristin and Joe are seeking a mentee to assist with a variety of tasks that are likely to change from week to week, including formatting images, sound, and video for web, locative media, and mobile media devices, object construction, outdoor video shoots, playtesting, and documenting projects. Therefore basic computer skills are a real plus. Beyond this, they invited their mentee to take on an independent project that they can provide feedback on.

Kristen’s past projects include projects for mobile phone users such as Yard Sale in the Sky, an augmented reality project and Barcode Cinema, a locative media project in Manhattan.

Joe’s past projects include games with custom-designed interfaces. Light Wave uses mallets and pressure sensors to light up an array of floor lamps and Swatter uses a fly swatter as its interface.

Josh MacPhee/Interference Archive

are looking for detail-oriented political graphics lovers.
Interference is an archive of social movement culture, and we’ve got tens of thousands of amazing political posters, prints, and publications that need sorting, cataloging, researching, photographing, and annotating. We’re not sure what state our cataloging project will be in come summer, but we most definitely will need help with some or all of the above. One of us is a professional archivist, the rest are ambitious amateurs, but we are all looking for partners in making this treasure trove of rare and radical culture more accessible to a broader public. We are flexible and open for collaboration from June through August, but some of us will be coming and going over the summer months, so specific dates will have to be worked out.

Brad Troemel

will be Jogging and keeping shop on Etsy.
Brad Troemel continues to produce, catalog, document, and ship items from his Etsy store. Additionally, Troemel maintains Jogging, and will be implementing and installing upcoming Jogging-related events and exhibitions. The ideal mentee is proficient at Photoshop and has a background in photography and/or graphic design. This is a three month practicum.

Penelope Umbrico

is completing a number of projects and developing new ones.
This summer Penelope Umbrico will be completing a “Percent for Art” project in a public school in NYC; an outdoor billboard installation in Switzerland, finishing up an Artist Research Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, preparing for a couple of exhibitions, and developing a few new projects. Knowledge of Adobe CS 5 (or 6); basic video and sound recording/editing; web design, social networks would be ideal … also, someone who can help me figure out how to best organize and archive millions of image files would be very appreciated!

The ability to travel to DC to help with my Smithsonian projects would be good. And I will need to travel a bit so some flexibility in terms of days/weeks at my studio will be important.

Andrew Norman Wilson

will continue to explore globalization through its forms and flows.
I would like to learn from you and hope that you will learn from me. I have a number of diverse projects and shows to prepare involving live octopi, producing professional grade stock media, creating large booths/kiosks in the style of corporate-psychedelia, and researching mass retail corporations in Europe. I am open to adapting my working relationship to you based on your skills and interests. The work I am doing requres reserach: the ability to find information and resources quickly. We will be working extensively with Adobe Creative Suite (After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator), and doing professional grade video production. Architectural modeling software proficiency is also useful – Google Sketchup is fine. I would also appreciate it if you could question my bad ideas and idiosyncrasies.

Caroline Woolard

will be running a radical cafe and interactive learning space about non-monetary exchange in MoMA’s Education and Research Building.
As part of Artists Experiment, Caroline Woolard is organizing and producing a series of events and workshops about exchange. From May 24th through June 30th in MoMA’s Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building, members of the public will be encouraged to discuss the voluntary, reciprocal exchange goods and services for mutual benefit. Her ideal mentee is interested in “alternative” economies and has experience hosting events, serving food, organizing groups, and making a wide range of people feel welcome in a new space. Caroline would love to work with someone who wants to collaborate on a website, video, or publication about barter, exchange, property, agency, and communication. Ideally, this person can start working before May 18th, when install begins. In exchange for this work, Caroline is willing to barter transparency about her lifestyle and practice in exchange for help and technical support on this project. She can offer access to her financial history, wisdown about running 2 LLCs, introductions to her contacts, failed and successful grant/residency applications, and direct experience with group-work and collective decision making.

Kevin Zucker

will be curating a novel, developing drawings, and running the air conditioner. 
I’m primarily going to be working on two projects over the summer. The first is a curated novel with a large number of participants from the visual art and literary worlds. The book has a structure that allows for the unpredictability of many authors contributing independently while still producing a cohesive narrative experience for the reader. The logistics around this are pretty complicated, and someone who has a tolerance for administrative stuff but also like literature and is interested in its overlaps with visual art would be a tremendous help and a great potential collaborator. Writing for publication is a strong possibility if you’re interested. I’ll also be working on a solo show of drawings that, like the paintings I’ve been making, use a combination of digital, mechanical, and manual approaches to describe fictional spaces composited from online resources and 3D models, so someone interested in digital output technology and its intersection with object-making would also be great. I’m not so worried about a skill set, I just want people around who are interested and curious. There are opportunities to have an impact on the direction of things in the studio, and for someone who’s developing a practice that lovingly but skeptically engages the conventions of frameworks like painting and the novel, this could be a useful look at some of the possibilities and realities. I’m going to have to travel a bit over the summer, so some amount of scheduling flexibility will be necessary, but to figure it’ll average out to two days a week.