Opening Reception Sunday, June 3rd from 5—8PM
Sound Bath with Jamie Bechtold from 8:30—9:30PM (space is limited: to RSVP scroll to the bottom of this post)
Exhibition runs from June 3rd —June 17, 2012
Hours by appointment, please contact summercampprojectproject@gmail.com
Katie Bachler
Jamie Bechtold
Ray Hsu
Tucker Neel
Chad Person
Josh Peters
Jean Robison
Michiko Yao
and Christine Nguyen in Guestroom
Musical Performance by Sea Moon and Friends
Summercamp's ProjectProject presents TELLING THE FUTURES. An outdoor group exhibition placing many different future options into relation—a kind of choose your own adventure of apocryphal psychic visions of political election cycles for survival in a dystopian utopia. History+Present=Futures. Organized by Fatima Hoang, Elonda Billera & Janice Gomez.
Chad Person’s inflatable sculptures, dollar bill collages, and other highly conceptual works – reflect upon the confluence of money and power throughout history, and in particular considers current US attitudes that have filtered down from Westward Expansion and notions of Manifest Destiny. The result is a political and cultural critique that encompasses not only the shifting cultural changes that have taken place within his lifetime but also those throughout US history. Also mining her relationship to history, Michiko Yao investigates the psychology behind the unique social behaviors and fantasies of contemporary Japanese women, and the relationship of two imperialisms, Western and Japanese. Yao’s current body of video and photographic work depicting floral arrangements are inspired by the historical relationships between Dutch and Japanese cultures. During 250 years of Japanese national isolation in the Edo period, the Dutch were the only westerners permitted to come to Japan. These works expose Japanese social stereotypes in both Eastern and Western culture; confront the boundaries of socio-culturally constructed ideas of gender, race, and sexuality and their relation to power.
Canadian writer and artist, Ray Hsu will remotely organize The Future is Laser Tag, in which the bottom of the hill will become a military exercise: an obstacle course for four players. Four gallery-goers become avatars. They will strap cameras to themselves that transmit their first-person views to four remote players. These remote players can see from the first-person views of their avatars. But these remote players can also see in third-person: a camera at the top of the hill, a bird's-eye over the obstacle course. Also using the sky as the limit, Jean Robison traverses an adolescent desire for the end of the world in her group of large drawings, Hell Yeah!. Creating fantasies of apocalypse composed of gold coins, breasts, cola, pizza and weapons on large vinyl banners that can be seen from the sky. Tucker Neel explores the impulse to memorialize individual and collective experiences. Questioning how images, objects and events become memorable and shape nationalist allegiance and individual identity, Neel’s projects directly address the role design, decoration, and artifice, play in shaping political discourse and public opinion. Neel critically examines the way contingent and contested histories are made real by objects, events, and persistent narratives. Through these works he activates a larger discussion about how seemingly innocuous or overlooked objects or experiences contribute to individual and national memorial structures.
Interested in the map and the garden as symbols of being with the land and with ourselves, Katie Bachler deals with the complexities of the human/nature relationship and attempts to reconnect the two through tools for learning about place. By using an education model in her practice, each interaction is new and shifting. For TELLING THE FUTURES, Bachler will create new tools for survival after an apocalypse, and encourage people to use these tools in a special home-made structure. In another futures, Josh Peters’s physical and expressionistic paintings focus on psychologically charged groupings of figures, usually men and women living away from civilized society. The scenes are vaguely cult like- conjuring up a sense of impending violence or spiritual awakening lurking just under the surface.
And as a compliment to TELLING THE FUTURES, Christine Nguyen will be featured in Guestroom. Nguyen’s work draws upon the imagery of science, but it is not limited to technologies of the present. It imagines that the depths of the ocean reach into outer space, that through an organic prism, vision can fluctuate between the micro- and macroscopic. Nguyen’s personal cosmology in which commonalities among species, forms, and environment become visible and expressive, suggests past narratives and possible futures. The forms and environs in her work sometimes migrate into new pieces, establishing new systems. These systems imagine modes of transportation, communication, and regeneration. There are no waste materials in these worlds: vision is a renewable resource. As an extension to her practice, Nguyen will take part in collaborative musical performances as Sea Moon and Friends.
To close the evening (or extend and open...), Summercamp’s ProjectProject will host a Sound Bath with Jamie Bechtold. Bechtold orchestrates improvised concerts uses tuning forks, planetary gongs, crystal bowls, and other instruments, to apply sound directly on or over the body. Sound helps to re-tune the nervous system, which results in a significant decrease in stress, increase in immunity and nervous system functioning, and overall increase in general health and well being of the body and mind. Sound Baths are a great way to release sluggish energy, stress, and physical or emotional issues. The tones create harmony in your body...they assist in relaxation, meditation, and balance your energy. The term "Sound Bath" is used because you are "bathed" in the vibrations of all the instruments used. During a typical Sound Bath participants sit or lie on the floor, relax and allow the sounds to wash over them.
Please BYOB (Bring Your Own Blanket) to sit, lay on or keep you warm. $15 pre-registration fee and $20 at the door. Space is limited for this futures. Please RSVP.
Sign up for the Jamie Bechtold's Sound Bath via PayPal here:
