Float

FLOAT

A presentation of site-specific, temporary, and ephemeral performance and video works
Saturdays and Sundays, August 9 - 31, 2003, 3-9 PM

Socrates Sculpture Park is pleased to announce Float, a new project series taking place in the Park on Saturdays and Sundays in August. Referencing Socrates Sculpture Park's location on the East River waterfront, Float is a series of temporary artworks that will be installed, performed, and screened throughout the Park on weekends from August 9 through August 31. The projects in the series challenge conventions of performance and site-specific practice through a variety of media and formats.

Each weekend features a unique schedule of events including temporary installations by flotsam and Oscar Tuazon that address how public space and the built environment are regulated, while projects by Jesal Kapadia, Alisdair MacRae, and Peter Walsh take up environmental and geopolitical concerns that relate to the urban waterfront. Several installations on view throughout the series include a mural by Mark Gagnon, a project on tourism by Brian O'Connell, and Austin Thomas's Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook.

A video program including works by Ryan Buyssens, Jesal Kapadia, Dylan Lorenz, and Lisa Oppenheim will be presented on Sunday evenings at sunset. Highlighting the transition from day into night, Jon Rubin stages a performance of Floating Cinema in Hallets Cove, while Christopher Ho and Cletus Dalglish-Schommer project subtle moving images in the Park. Float opens with a one-night video program selected by Raimundas Malasauskas and closes with a parade by Marc Robinson.

This program has been organized by Sara Reisman.

Installations and performances begin at 3PM, video screenings at sunset. Admission is free.

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FLOAT Calendar
All programming is scheduled to take place from 3-9 PM. unless otherwise noted; events are
subject to change.

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Saturday, August 9
Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Mural transferred to banner

Raimundas Malasauskas
Field Trip
Video program
Starts at dusk

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation & performance

Oscar Tuazon
City without a Ghetto, 2002
Sculptural and video installation

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Sunday, August 10
Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Mural transferred to banner

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation

Marc Robinson
Parade Float, 2003
Open workshop begins at 4PM

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation, performance

Oscar Tuazon
City without a Ghetto, 2002
Sculptural and video installation

Peter Walsh
Mercernaria mercernaria, 2003
Clambake
5-9 PM, rain date scheduled for August 16

Video Program including The Somerset Collection by Ryan Buyssens, Laughing Club by Jesal Kapadia, Hell Gate by Dylan Lorenz, and Dioptric by Lisa Oppenheim
Begins at dusk

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Saturday, August 16,
flotsam
loit-er (see con-ver-sa-tion), 2003
Sculptural intervention

Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Mural transferred to banner

Jesal Kapadia
Flying Saree, 2003
Sculptural installation

Alisdair McRae
Dinner, Cruise, Raffle, 2003
Installation & performance

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation & performance

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Sunday, August 17
flotsam
loit-er (see con-ver-sa-tion), 2003
Sculptural intervention

Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Mural transferred to banner

Jesal Kapadia
Flying Saree, 2003
Sculptural installation

Alisdair McRae
Dinner, Cruise, Raffle, 2003
Installation & performance

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation

Marc Robinson
Parade Float, 2003
Open workshop begins at 4 PM

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation & performance

Video Program including The Somerset Collection by Ryan Buyssens, Laughing Club by Jesal Kapadia, Hell Gate by Dylan Lorenz, and Dioptric by Lisa Oppenheim
Begins at dusk

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Saturday, August 23
flotsam
loit-er (see con-ver-sa-tion), 2003
Sculptural intervention

Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Mural transferred to banner

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation & performance

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Sunday, August 24
flotsam
loit-er (see con-ver-sa-tion), 2003
Intervention

Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Mural transferred to banner

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation

Marc Robinson
Parade Float, 2003
Open workshop begins at 4 PM

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation & performance

Video Program including The Somerset Collection by Ryan Buyssens, Laughing Club by Jesal Kapadia, Hell Gate by Dylan Lorenz, and Dioptric by Lisa Oppenheim
Starts at dusk

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Saturday, August 30
Cletus Dalglish-Schommer & Christopher Ho
Intercut, 2003
Installation
Appears at dusk

Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Mural transferred to banner

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation

Jon Rubin
Floating Cinema, 2003
Video installation and performance
Starts just after sunset

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation & performance

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Sunday, August 31
Cletus Dalglish-Schommer and Christopher Ho
Intercut, 2003
Installation
Appears at dusk

Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Mural transferred to banner

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation

Jon Rubin
Floating Cinema, 2003
Video installation & performance
Starts just after sunset

Marc Robinson
Parade Float, 2003
Performance beginning at 4 PM, departing from Socrates, traveling to Gantry Park and back

Jon Rubin
Floating Cinema, 2003
Video installation & performance;
Starts just after sunset

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation & performance

Video Program including The Somerset Collection by Ryan Buyssens, Laughing Club by Jesal Kapadia, Hell Gate by Dylan Lorenz, and Dioptric by Lisa Oppenheim
Starts at dusk
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Float Checklist & Schedule

Ryan Buyssens
The Somerset Collection, 2003
Video, color, sound; 30 minutes
Screens on Sundays, August 10, 17, 24, 31 at sunset
Buyssens's video is an experiment with perspectives and points of view of both artist and viewers. The Somerset Collection takes place in a public space, where light and textures of surfaces shimmer and reflect until they are disrupted by changes in the positioning of perspective.

Cletus Dalglish-Schommer & Christopher Ho
Intercut, 2003
Lawn installation
On view on August 30 & 31 from sunset until 9 PM
Intercut is composed of two intersecting lines that meet at Socrates Sculpture Park. Extending from the Park, the lines point to the Park's history that is no longer visibly apparent to its visitors. Intercut emerges as the sun sets and natural light changes.

flotsam
loit-er (see con-ver-sa-tion), 2003
Intervention
Installed on Saturdays & Sundays, August 16, 17, 23, 24, continuously
Installed in Hallets Cove just off Socrates Sculpture Park, loit-er (see con-ver-sa-tion) is a continuation of an ongoing project by flotsam artists Edward Jay Rehm and Holen Kahn. loit-er functions as interventions in public spaces, in this case, it highlights the most regulated space within the Park: its waterfront.

Mark Gagnon
Untitled, 2003
Acrylic painting transferred to 8' x 12' banner
On view Saturdays and Sundays, August 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30, 31, continuously
Gagnon's mural is a reflection on architectural iconography that he has repositioned in the contemplative space of Socrates Sculpture Park. A meditation on the temporality of architecture, Gagnon's mural is a portrait of the Woolworth Building, an anchor of the Manhattan skyline.

Jesal Kapadia
Flying Saree, 2000-2003
Saree, helium balloons, string
On view Saturday and Sunday, August 16 & 17, 3-9 PM
In this installation, a saree tied to helium balloons levitates in mid-air. The saree - a garment worn commonly by most women in India - has almost disappeared from the lifestyle of the Indian immigrant living in the United States. This disembodied saree-figure, uplifted by the helium and the blowing wind, speaks to the immigrant's sense of independence achieved in the flight away from home and attachment to her homeland and her cultural values.

Jesal Kapadia
Laughing Club, 2003.
Video, color; 7 minutes
Screens on Sundays, August 10, 17, 24, 31 at sunset
Laughing Club is the title of Kapadia's video and also refers to a cultural phenomenon first introduced in Mumbai by a medical doctor Madan Kataria, who, inspired by the famous Reader's Digest quote "Laughter is the Best Medicine," promoted laughter as a source of healing and enormous well-being, and a perfect antidote for stress. Club members meet early in the morning on beaches, in parks, schools and offices in India, Europe, Australia, the Far-East, and North America.

Dylan Lorenz
Hell Gate, 2002
Color, film, 10 minutes;
Screens on Sundays, August 10, 17, 24, 31 at sunset
Part document and poem, Hell Gate is a filmic exploration of the Hell Gate channel, originally shot with the idea of three Super-8 rolls as a triptych: the water swirls. the garbage, and the major flows of water north to the Long Island Sound and south to the East River. Lorenz's film shows the Hell Gate as a place of reflection amidst the busy thoroughfare of boat traffic and recreation.

Alisdair MacRae
Dinner, Cruise, Raffle, 2003
Installation & performance
On view on Saturday & Sunday, August 16 & 17, 3-9 PM
For Dinner, Cruise, Raffle, MacRae has organized a list of prizes - both objects and special events - that will be raffled off to benefit an environmentally-oriented waterfront organization. MacRae's raffle is a situationist performance that provides a socially engaging alternative to traditional and expected methods of artistic distribution.

Raimundas Malasauskas
Field Trip, 2003
Screens at on Saturday, August 9 at dusk
Field Trip amplifies and diversifies the experience of going out of town. Malasauskas has programmed a video screening including parts of an ongoing video project called 'pass it on' - a kind of exquisite corpse video - with a 'travelvideo' by Vilnius artist Darius Ziura. Ziura has provided a video camera to his friends going abroad asking them to bring some footage back. The stream of landscapes and traffic in different parts of the world (shot by different people through the window of a vehicle) appears as a seamless flow, offering a virtual excursion into the mind of friends in remote locations.

Brian O'Connell
Untitled, 2003
Sculptural installation
Installed on Saturdays & Sundays, August 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30, 31, 3-9 PM
O'Connell has created a sculptural installation that suggests the arrival and departure of day-tripping tourists viewing art at Socrates Sculpture Park.

Lisa Oppenheim
Dioptric, 2003
Video, color, sound; 10 minutes
Screens on Sundays, August 10, 17, 24, 31 at sunset
Dioptric is a personal narrative that presents points of view from different locations and moments. The video explores the experience of disconnection between personal memory and the present tense, night and day, and that which is internalized and the external world.

Marc Robinson
Parade Float, 2003
Sundays, August 10, 17, 24, 31 at 4 PM
Robinson presents a series of workshops on Sundays at 4 PM on August 10, 17, and 24 that explore the multiple meanings of parades: marching bands, funerary processions, demonstrations of dissent, and victory parades, among others. Parade Float will culminate on August 31 with a literal parade traveling south along the East River from Socrates Sculpture Park to Gantry Plaza State Park and back again.

Jon Rubin
Floating Cinema, 2003
Floating video screening device, color video, sound.
Presented on Saturday & Sunday, August 30 & 31 just after dark
Floating Cinema exists as a transformational gesture inhabiting one of the most emotionally loaded of all public spaces: the water's edge at night. Driven by the impulse to enter the viewer's perceptual field completely without warning, Rubin projects image (video) and sound, while carefully controlling the motion of the floating screen via a radio-control transmitter from shore. Both the silent, electric motors that propel the cinema-craft, and the audio-visual equipment that produces the moving imagery are driven from deep-cycle batteries that are ecologically clean, so it glides across the water, as quietly as a swan.

Austin Thomas
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook, 2003
Sculptural installation & performance
On view on Saturdays and Sundays, August 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24, 30, 31, 3-9 PM
Perchance: A Floating Scenic Overlook is a social platform specially designed to slip into the back of 1973 El Camino. Perchance is like a weekend tailgate in a backyard living room in the back of a car. Artist Austin Thomas invites visitors to "park it and picnic at Socrates every Saturday and Sunday afternoon" from 3 until 9 PM, and to participate in pick-up games of badminton and cards in the evenings. Special thanks to Eyrich Stauffer, fabricator, and Kate Harvey and Mark Ericson, consulting architects.

Oscar Tuazon
City without a Ghetto, 2003
Recycled cardboard geodesic dome and video installation
Installed on Saturday & Sunday, August 9 & 10, 3-9 PM
City without a Ghetto is a mobile project, an elliptical geodesic dome constructed from recycled cardboard. A short documentary video of Illinois domebuilder Dr. Dome is installed inside the dome. City without a Ghetto will visit the Storefront for Art and Architecture this fall.

Peter Walsh
Mercernaria mercernaria, 2003
Waterside clambake
Scheduled for Sunday, August 10, 5-9 PM, rain date on August 17
Mercernaria mercernaria are the hard shell clams that were used to make wampumpeake or "wampum" currency of Algonquin gift economies. Walsh's clambake introduces the reciprocal social obligations between people and groups who participated in the wampumpeake system by bringing together local, artistic, and professional communities that intersect at Socrates Sculpture Park.