“Many other parks in the city once included similar weaponry in their war memorials, but only eight such guns remain. The rest were melted for scrap metal in World War II to make new arms.”

This is a video I made for our BETA Spaces show.

Members of my collaborative Future Archaeology will be showing solo work in a repurposed autobody shop on Grattan St. between Bogart and Morgan. The show is called The Here and Now and focuses on ephemeral work in many media.

It’s a group show of some friends and myself, working under the moniker Future Archaeology. We are interested in a pretty wide variety of things, the 6 of us, but we’ve found common ground in this idea of creating a kind of archaeology for the future, an imagined dystopia (this word is probably debatable) of hybridized artificial life. Much like science fiction writing is often a projection of the time it was written, I see Future Archaeology as being about the group’s shared anxiety about technologies losing track of their connection to human needs, about our collective displacement of the ecological basis for life.

Our projects thus far have been about molding simple electronic circuits into artificial insects. This show will be different than previous iterations (see: Canopy Assemblage, Chrysalis). We will have documentation on hand that gives some context for what the group has been working on, but primarily the show is about presenting our individual art practices in a way that isn’t so tightly bound to the group’s constructed narrative. The show is a momentary consideration of the ephemeral present tense, whether it’s literally what’s happening here & now or explores a more abstract treatment of the idea.

The project I’ll be showing involves photography and a simple obstruction (read: gimmick). During the run of the one-day-only exhibition I will be taking pictures with a set of three digital SLR cameras. The obstruction is that I’ve removed the flash memory from each camera, creating a very limited window for viewing each image in the preview screen of the camera itself. At any given moment two cameras will present a screen-based diptych in the gallery space while I’m out taking the next shot to replace the older of the two images. I will spend the day shooting photos and will have no lasting artifact.

The piece has a kind of unwieldy name that tries to explain precisely what’s going on in the camera’s settings: Shoot w/o card: On, Review time: Hold, Auto power off: Off. I like the directness of the title, but I hope it doesn’t give the impression I’m mainly interested in a kind of mechanical exercise. I’m attempting to provoke a specific kind of reaction in viewers. In denying the longevity of the image, I’m hoping that one might come to appreciate more fully what is happening in the immediate place and time. These are photos deeply rooted in the brief span between their creation and destruction. I will attempt to elevate the sense that our shared circumstances are fleeting and precious. My central challenge will be to work effectively with the small screen size, to create images that might tweak — if even briefly — the relationship to one’s surroundings.

Anyway, come see it happen! It will be part of the Bushwick BETA Spaces festival on Sunday November 14th, from noon until 7pm. Our space is on Grattan Street, very close to the Morgan Ave L train stop. You can find more information on our website.

• Future Archaeology — an installation I collaborated on with some friends, installed in my apartment (check out the video from our first project).
• Photos originally intended to be seen online — a selection of photo prints, curated by Ellie, and a larger selection on display as a screen-based kiosk.
• Web Tech 101 — a big overview of web technologies, from JavaScript to Ruby on Rails.

Update: I had the wrong day for IgniteNYC. It’s tomorrow night!

• On Thursday, March 4th I will be a contestant on geek Jeopardy at IgniteNYC. I’ll be over here brushing up on my “knowledge of the entire internet.” It’s at Galapagos art space in DUMBO, doors open at 6:30pm. The other contestants are Megan MacMurray and Baratunde Thurston, hosted by Gabe as Fake Alex Trebek.

• This weekend is SITE fest! Come out to Bushwick for live music/dance/theater/performance. The program is available as a PDF download. I’ll be at the opening party at Beauty Bar on Friday night.

Friday, February 19

• Triple Canopy at the New Museum
• Flux Factory opening at their new space in LIC
• Bushwick galleries stay open late

Saturday, February 20

• A benefit party for the new home of Triple Canopy, Light Industry, and The Public School
• Homestead exhibition
• PechaKucha #9 with Zach Lieberman’s EyeWriter in the line-up

Sunday, February 21

• Sculpture Space: Utica’s Utopia (My friend Heather did a residency in Utica and there’s a video being screened about it.)
• The Phenomenal Handclap band is playing a free show at Brooklyn Bowl, which I’ll probably miss, but damn $2 Brooklyn lager!

And of course there are a few workshops with space left at Trade School including “Caviar: Demystified,” “Collecting amidst disaster” and “Accidental Pornographies: Developing Underground Health Magazines and Stealth Distribution Models.”