Off the Record: A New Downtown Art Commission

Sunday, September 17, 2006; 9:30AM - 5PM

LMCC's 15 Nassau (corner of Pine St.)

Ours is an age of record-keeping. We are ushered in and out with certificates. Our lives are registered daily with credit card swipes, internet log-ins, security checks, and surveillance cameras. No longer is memory jogged with the occasional souvenir, aide-mémoire or pressed flower. Every moment is registered for the future by photographs, credit and debit cards, blogs, internet cookies, fingerprints, passports, and caller IDs. To be undocumented is effectively to disappear. If our everyday life is now an archive, how can we forget anymore?

What does is mean to be off the record? Six artists respond.

A jury will recommend three of the following projects for the commission to Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Click here for more information about this commission.

Living Off the Record
Phillip Buehler
A video installation derived from the daily ritual of a homeless person who “lives off the record”.  200,000 of the nation’s 600,000 homeless are severely mentally ill.  They don’t carry credit cards, they have no telephone, no ban account, not ATM card, no utility bills, no address and no e-mail.  They live in plain view yet they are unnoticed. Their shopping carts are a sort of wagon train that represents home.
Discussant: Lorie Novak

One Million Forgotten Moments
Yehuda Duenyas
A series of storefront windows become jewel-box theatres where the public is invited to sit inside and watch the city streets. As the curtain rises, we reveal to the audience the street, traffic, pedestrians, deliveries, shopping, commerce – the chance encounters and moments that make up the majority of our lives.
Discussant: Ivan Talijancic  

Tactical Urban Communication Kit
Graffiti Research Lab
DIY urban communication kits for the production of uncurated large-scale texts, images and animations that could be displayed or non-permanently installed in urban environments. “We want to create technology, give it away for free, teach everyday New Yorkers to use it and allow the city to tell its story.”
Discussant: Paul Carter

Imagi-mart
Patrick Killoran
The Imagi-Mart is an innovative retail concept that sells nothing to the consumer but generates the highest imaginary profits.  By providing nothing, the customers’ selection is limited only by their imagination.
Discussant: Ann Carlson

Off the Record on the Platform
Jill Magid
A series of works in the subway station, based on the experience of working the night-shift with a police officer.  These works will be unofficially permanent or appear to disappear. The exchange – security training for art – is the project’s underlying structure.   
Discussant: Koan Jeff Baysa

The Defeat of Urban Renewal
Damon Rich
A mobile kiosk for distributing a series of magazines (produced in consultation with organizations working on built environment issues) about the recent history of the architectural environment.
Discussant: Jim Fleming

 

Jury:
Charlotte Cohen, Regional Fine Arts Manager, General Services Administration
Anne Frederick, Executive Director, Hester Street Collaborative
Jeffrey Mousseau, Theatre director and performance curator