Farmlab Public SalonMichael Dear, Hector Lucero & Jaime Riuz OtisFriday May 23, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

Tijuana and Los Angeles
OR: Why international boundaries no longer matter in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands

About the Salon

The twin cities along both sides of the international boundary between Southern California and Baja California have always been intimately connected from birth to the present day. Despite current tensions over immigration, the LA-Tijuana metropolis now represents a 'transborder' world.

As one binational citizen observed: "The border has disappeared from my life. I forget which country I am in." Salon participants will examine the history of Baja and Alta California, and how the current explosion of artistic and cultural life in Tijuana reveals a different understanding of future U.S.-Mexico relations.

About the Salon Participants

Michael Dear is a Professor at the University of Southern California.
Hector Lucero works in the Cultural Affairs office, State of Baja California, Mexicali.
Jaime Riuz Otis is an artist based in Tijuana.


Photo captions:

(Top:) View of the new 'primary' fence at San Luis, just south of Yuma. 30-feet high and made of steel plates, the fence's 'doorway' (pictured here) is sealed shut and houses one of the 1892 boundary monuments. There are secondary and tertiary fences as well as the primary. The secondary is also 30-ft high, but made of un-climbable fencing that allows no purchase by fingers and feet; the tertiary fence is simply barbed wire. The extent and magnitude of this new walling has to be seen to be believed!

(Bottom:) The cemetery in Holtville, Imperial County, where unidentified/unclaimed bodies of migrants are buried. There are currently over 1,600 markers.

Photos and text courtesy Michael Dear

Farmlab Public SalonSean Percival, Kristen Rutherford, & Stephen JohnsonFriday, May 16, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

Identity and Virtual Space
(Or, "Are We Our Avatars?")

About the Salon

Join Percival, Rutherford, and Johnson for an examination of the affects of technology on our perceptions of identity and space. Speakers will discuss the meaning of relationships, fame, experiences and community in a virtual world. What does it mean for something to "happen" in a virtual space? Can you "know" a person through his or her avatar?

About the Salon participants

Sean Percival (Sean Voss in world) is the author of “The Second Life Travel Guide" from Que Publishing, a detailed guide to over 100 locations in Second Life. As a child Sean Percival dreamed of flying cars and the immersive technology painted on the big screen by Hollywood. While neither have truly materialized some 20 years later we’ve come just a little closer experiencing both in the form of the virtual world of Second Life. In this world the flying car isn’t even necessary, your avatar can fly just fine without it. In fact why fly when you can simply teleport to your next virtual destination? Second Life provides the platform for users (known as residents) to create their own forms of mixed reality. This of course can take on an infinite amount of experiences, perhaps best described by Eric Rice (a longtime resident) as "Massive Multiplayer Photoshop." The millions of these residents create everything you see in-world, from fantasy landscapes to corporate buildings and virtual art. In a world with few limitations 3D art helps to drive an endless amount of stories and unique experiences. More info: seanpercival.com.



Kristen Rutherford is a writer and actress from New York , so don't be surprised if she asks you how much you pay in rent or mortgage. It's not a rude question in Manhattan. She was the lead actress in ilovebees, one of the most popular and groundbreaking Alternate Reality Games to date, and most of the players - who call themselves "beekeepers," are still convinced that she's a rampant A.I. and are terrified by the sound of her voice. She is still heavily involved in the ARG community and is avidly following The Dark Knight ARG, The Lost Ring ARG, and has launched her own team of "beekeepers" in zeFrank's Colorwar2008. She is currently a staff writer for Attack of the Show! on G4, and the writer and producer of a web series that she's not allowed to talk about, so don't ask. In her spare time she likes to make up fake gang initiation rites and enjoys talking at her husband and their two dogs Dr. Doom and Shenanigans.


Images courtesy Sean Percival (top, bottom) and Kristen Rutherford (middle)

LA Weekly's "LA People 2008" Full of Farmlab Friends

On newsstands and online now, the annual "LA People" edition of the LA Weekly is full of salutes to and from folks with one-degree-of-separation to Farmlab.

This blog is surely forgetting a few people right now -- so apologies in advance. But here's at least a handful of the honorees, with a brief noting of among their Farmlab strands:

Elsa Longhauser and the Santa Monica Museum of Art have collaborated with Farmlab multiple times, including SMMOA's acquisition of Farmlab's Junker Garden #4.

Mojow & The Vibration Army were the house (travelin') band during Agbins on Skid Row delivery day, Saturday, June 16,2007. The LA Weekly write-up begins with a scene of the duo from that date.

Juan Devis produced and filmed this feature for kcet.org.

Joshua White took these photos of the Farmlab wildflowers project and of a junker garden and neon sign. (See first, fourth shots on the page.)

Writer, critic, and curator Holly Myers, who contributed various profiles to this "LA People" issue, wrote this about Farmlab in the Los Angeles Times.

Writer Linda Immediato, who likewise contributed various profiles to this issue, wrote about Farmlab in Angelino magazine's "Best of" issue (no link found).

Writer, critic, and curator Doug Harvey, who, yup, contributed various profiles to the issue, reviewed Not A Cornfield in the Weekly.

Also: Farmlab and NACproject artist Lauren Bon was featured here in the Weekly's 2006 edition.

Farmlab Friends In The News

Various news stories about the work being done by past Farmlab Public Salon speakers have appeared of late. A small sampling of these articles include:

"Saddled With Legacy of Dioxin, Town Considers an Odd Ally: The Mushroom," A New York Times piece about the work of mycologist and 4/13/07 salon presenter Paul Stamets

"Cut the Grass, Plant an Edible," A San Francisco Chronicle about the projects of artist and 12/15/2006 salon presenter Fritz Haeg. Also mentioned in the Chronicle: 5/25/07 salon presenters Fallen Fruit, and, yes, Farmlab.

"Activist Turns L.A.'s Traffic Islands into National Parks." a large, full-color feature about 3/28/08 salon'er, Islands of LA, that ran on the front page of Sunday's Los Angeles Times calendar section.

Tree People founder Andy Lipkis, who spoke at Farmlab on 8/24/07, featured in the Washington Post tale," The Greening of America." And last but not least on this brief round-up,

"X Prize: $100 Million for Clean Fuels," from Business Week, one of a spate of stories about recent competition-based philanthropy work done by the 11/2/07 salon team.

Little Help?Farmlab Seeking Oral Histories, Past Images of Area 'Under Spring'

For an ongoing project, the Farmlab team would like your help.

If you have stories to share about the distant or recent past history of the area underneath the Spring Street Bridge, then please call, email, or stop by and let us know.

The area we're referring to is located directly behind our offices, and adjacent to rail tracks and the L.A. River. We're particularly interested in the area underneath the bridge -- the space we call 'Under Spring.'

As we've previously posted on this blog, we're also still very interested in any video, film, and photos that predate the year 2006.

If you can help, or know anyone or any place that might be able to, please contact the Farmlab office and ask for J.R.

Thank you,
The Farmlab Team





Farmlab photos by Sarah McCabe and James Goodnight; Not A Cornfield Photo Illustration by Steve Rowell

Farmlab Public SalonGoran DjordjevichFriday May 9, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

SITES OF MODERNITY
Antiquario dell Statue and Museum of Modern Art

About the Salon
Join Goran Djordjevich for a preview of his upcoming exhibition, SITES OF MODERNITY: Antiquario dell Statue and Museum of Modern Art. The show will take place this June, at the Oberwelt Gallery in Stuttgart, Germany.

About Sites of Modernity
Some time around the year 1503, Pope Julius II placed the Apollo statue, which was in his possession, into the newly built Vatican garden named Belvedere. Soon after, the Laocoon group was excavated and brought to the garden as well. Then came other statues: Torso, Nile, Cleopatra, Venus, Comodus as Hercules, Tiber, etc. Those had been mostly broken marbles scattered around in various private palaces or buried for many centuries. Now, put on display together in the enclosed garden, they became exhibits, as if in an open-air wonder camera. Unlike the other wonder camera collections, this one was dedicated solely to the statues from ancient times. Those fragments from the past, placed among the orange trees and in specially built niches, emerged as a completely new sight for the contemporaries. This was a sight that had never been seen before. Soon it got the name Antiquario delle Statue, and that was the moment when the Antiquity was born. However, this particular display of the statues from the past became also the new vision of the past. Being the most novel invention of the time, this represents the birth of Modernity as well. Those statues were the first works of art and the first modern works of art. Thus the Belvedere Antiquarium itself was not only the first museum of art, but also the first museum of modern art. Since that moment, the Antiquario dell Statue, directly or indirectly, shaped the concept of art and art institutions throughout the entire Western World, for the next five centuries.

In 1929 The Museum of Modern Art opened in New York. After Pio-Clementino and the Louvre museums, this was the last important offspring of the Belvedere impulse. Being international in scope, the idea of Modern was to collect and exhibit the best and most advanced art of the time. At the 1936 exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art, instead of the dominant 19th century paradigm based on National Schools, the museum's founding director Alfred Barr introduced the idea of International Movements. This completely changed the character of the modern art narrative, and retroactively, the History of Art in general. And this is the narrative that has been shaping the art world ever since.

Today the old Belvedre collection of statues is in the Vatican Museum, while the most important collection of modern art is in the Museum of Modern Art. And today these two museums are both museums of antiquities. The exhibition Sites of Modernity brings together to life the fading memories on these two most important museums of modern art: Belvedere Romanum and Museum of Modern Art. --Goran Djordjevich

About the Salon Presenter
Goran Djordjevich is a former artist in recent years known as the Doorman of the Salon de Fleurus in New York. He was also Technical Assistant at the exhibitions: "Salon de Fleurus" at the 2002 Whitney Biennial, "International Exhibition of Modern Art 2013" at the 2003 Venice Biennale and "Americans 64" at the 2005 Venice Biennale, "50 Ans d'Art aux Etats-Unis"
at the 2007 Biennale de Lyon, and "What is Modern Art?" at the Kunsthaus Bethanien in Berlin 2006.
More info: www.whatismodernart.de



Images of Belvedere (top) and Pope Julius II (bottom) courtesy Goran Diordjevich

Farmlab Public SalonMarco KusumawijayaFriday May 2, 2008 @ NoonFree Admission

Imagining Jakarta

About The Salon

Imagining Jakarta is a collaborative workshop by architects, poet, musician, graphic designer, photographer, and sculptor to reflect and develop alternative visions on some issues and spaces in Jakarta. Through a story of its process (a series of workshops) and product (a visual and audio exhibition), some problems and future possibilities of Jakarta are explored.

About The Salon Presenter

Marco Kusumawijaya, an architect by training, is a professional and activist in the fields of architecture, environment, arts, cultural heritage, urban planning and development with more than 20 years of experiences in places all over Indonesia. He has worked as architectural designer, urban designer and planner, researcher and consultant of urban management and urban governance. He has worked with private sector, governments, international and local NGO’s, international agencies such as the British Council, the World Bank and UNDP.

He also volunteers as a resource person and practical worker on urban issues for a number of NGO’s. He writes frequently for a number of print media in Jakarta, while his opinions are often requested by print and electronic media, as well as by several public institutions and citizens organizations. He contributes to journals and books on urban issues. He lectures in diverse fora: government-related policy formulation fora, training of NGO activists, training of members of parliaments, trainings of Buddhist monks, universities, and community-initiated advocacy and action planning exercises. His special interests include sustainable urbanization, urban studies of Jakarta, city and the arts, and social changes towards sustainability.

In 2001 he started Green Map (www.greenmap.org) in Indonesia. He has published three books on architecture, urban studies, heritage, and citizen movements in Indonesia, and translated one book (David Bornstein, How to Change the World, Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Oxford University Press, 2004) into Indonesian. With the Imagining Jakarta program, he explored the new area of the relationship between culture and urban development with a group of artists and architects. His latest assignment with UPC (Urban Poor Consortium) – UPLINK in Aceh, May-December 2006, was the planning and early stage of reconstruction of 23 villages (with 3,331 houses) in Banda Aceh and nearby coastal subdistricts. He is currently (2006-2009) chair of Jakarta Arts Council (www.dkj.or.id)

Image courtesy Marco Kusumawijaya via he MAK Center