Over The Opening

On November 15th and 16th, Over The Opening is pleased to present two new performances of immanence and time by Curt Cloninger 

Pop Mantra #3 (Tonight)

The third in a series of performances where Cloninger perpetually performs a short excerpt from a single pop song for several hours blindfolded.

Excerpt: “tonight / wait, now” from The Ramones song “I Just Wanna Have Something To Do”
Duration: 6 Hours
Media: Electric Guitar, Voice, Black Felt Blindfold, Black Converse All Stars, Time 
Where: Over The Opening, Brooklyn, New York, US.
When: 6pm - 12 midnight, Saturday, November 15, 2008.

In Real Life

Cloninger will spend 12 hours in a booth at the Black Rabbit Bar in Greenpoint Brooklyn eating, drinking, and talking with anyone who comes by to visit him. Please come by. In between visits, Cloninger will read Michael Nyman’s “ExperimentalMusic: Cage and Beyond” and Richard Schechner’s ”Performance Theory.”

Duration: 12 Hours
Media: Food, Guiness, Language, Time
Where: Black Rabbit, 91 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, US.
When: 1pm - 1am, Sunday, November 16, 2008.

(directions to the Black Rabbit)

Curt Cloninger has presented work at The Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. Portland, Maine, [DAM] (Digital Art Museum) Berlin, Germany. Seoul Net Festival. Seoul, Korea. FILE (Electronic Language International Festival). São Paulo, Brazil and Free Manifesta. Brooklyn, New York among others. He lives and works in Asheville, North Carolina.

Cloninger’s online work may be seen at:
http://www.lab404.com/
http://playdamage.org/
http://deepyoung.org/

documentation from this event

Image from the performance “One the puppet of the other” with NicolasFrespech, May 26th 2007, Centre Pompidou Paris.

On October 10, from 7pm to 10 pm, Over The Opening is pleased to present The Big Kiss, a performance installation by Annie Abrahams.

What’s contact in a machine mediated world? What’s the power of the image? How does it feel to kiss without touching? Does the act change because we see it? What does it mean to construct an image with your tongue? And is there still desire? Does the act provoke it? What’s contact in a machine mediated world?

You are invited to participate in the creation of a communal kiss at OTO

Annie Abrahams is a Dutch artist living in France. Her work is featured on her site “Being Human / Etant Humain”: a big interlinked universe that concentrates on the possibilities and limitations of communication and at aabrahams.wordpress.com

documentation from this event

On September 19, from 7pm to 10 pm, Over The Opening is pleased to present Campfire Time, a new installation by Mike Koller. This marks his second exhibition at OTO. .

“… either sitting around a campfire drinking beer and telling lies, or telling lies and drinking beer while sitting around a campfire. But I wasn’t there so I can only guess.”

- from Bigfoot Has a Long, Lively Local History by Guy Barnes

OTO’s one night format provides an excellent forum to examine social situations and the various activities they surround. Koller’s 2007 instalation, “The Holiday Rejects” looked at the holiday season and the awkward obligations of our interactions during these familial events. In this spirit of experiment, “Campfire Time” examines the intimacy and spirituality of the campfire and our fascination with it. An installation featuring animated projections of the west at sunset, fake logs, terrain, a carefully edited mix of sounds, and of course the campfire itself, “Campfire Time” gives the opportunity for the viewer to develop their own ideas on the nature of our interactions around this timeless and supernatural centerpiece.

Drink beer, tell lies, sing songs, converse intimately, tell ghost stories, or quietly enjoy the recorded crackles and pops of a campfire as you sit beneath the projected sky. Stare pensively into the incandescent glow of the campfire, rest your head on a fake log, and bid a fond farewell to summer.

documentation from this event

On September 5 from 7pm to 10pm, OTO kicks off our second season with EcoArtTech’s “Externalities: Wilderness and its Others”

EcoArtTech (Christine Nadir & Cary Peppermint) continue to rethink relations between humans, technics, technology, and the environment with “Externalities: Wilderness and its Others” a networked, video-based performance piece. The performance will examine the conditions of possibility for getting back to “nature”

Co-founded in 2005 by Christine Nadir and Cary Peppermint, EcoArtTech works with digital, networked, and sustainable technologies and contemporary environments to create art about the environmentality of modern life. Drawing on a wide range of literary, artistic, and theoretical fields, our aim is to imagine new, healthy, and sustainable relationships between animals, humans, and their environments and technologies.

ecoarttech.net

documentation from this event

“Play is the exultation of the possible.” - Martin Buber

On July 18th, from 7 to 10pm, OTO is pleased to present a new installation by Dana Strasser and Isabella Bruno.

Strasser and Bruno create a playspace for the adult set using specifically selected, everyday objects in transformative ways. Immerse yourself in a sea of balloons, and let the play happen.

OTO goes on vacation in August and will return in the fall with a new works by Mike Koller, Mike Sarff, Cary Peppermint, Curt Cloningger, Annie Abrahams, and more.

documentation from this event

OTO is pleased to present on Friday June 13th from 7 to 10pm, an new installation by LOSHADKA (http://www.loshadka.org/)

ILIA OVECHKIN
PETRA CORTRIGHT
DAN WICKERHAM
WILL SIMPSON
TRAVESS SMALLEY
JAY PEYTON
BILLY RENNEKAMP
THOMAS GALLOWAY
HAYLEY SILVERMAN
 
SPEED LIL-LIZ_GUY69: HELLO pup
PIXL_lixxard: SUOP SUP SUP SUPSUPS
lil-liz_guy69 of sup: hé foutue attacks you with armed hand where you with for this praise with neon I heard it descends U To the bottom
PIXL_lixxard: spout out some wwtf go to the hell go to your tomb which I do not go anywhere with a witch
lil-liz_guy69: U are dry everywhere of the United States in your shorts of spoils eating a meat pie
PIXL_lixxard69: I hold a cat which I make of drugs and im energy with the swimming pool of stuffing of space
lil-liz_guy69: a good number of drugs and drinks and music and hot hot hot babies in an oil factory functioning for dollar$
PIXL_lixxard: each one there will be sexy AM completely foutu I right or amirite
lil-liz_guy69: honey bee which you know that I am ready with the ready git and obtain pumped
PIXL_lixxard: hehehebreaking all the rules on this ground

documentation from this event
 

On May 9, from 7pm to 10pm, Over The Opening is please to present “Church of the Rough Guide”, a new installation by Nick Lesley and Eben Lillie. “Church of the Rough Guide” continues the themes and characters found in recent their performance “Rough Guide to the Grotesque”.

“Church of the Rough Guide” is devoted to the lessons of the “Rough Guide to the Grotesque” as written by the great travel writer, Boreas. “Rough Guide to the Grotesque” is a tall tale that depicts an idealistic hero whose principles live on in all of us today. On a quest for love and companionship he faced many dangers. He was deceived by a false idol of love and engaged in a battle of sexual appetites with his apparent soul mate, Sophia of the Forest. He died tragically shortly after finding happiness in joining the Caridea tribe; a juicy, fleshy commune. The story contains lessons of love, comradery, lust, and community which are valuable to us all.

The performance of “Rough Guide to the Grotesque” was made possible with the help of the cast, The Living Theatre, Materials for the Arts, and the House of Yes (RIP). The work premiered at The Living Theatre in April of 2008.

Eben grew up in the East Village of New York City. He is an apprentice of the performing arts. His background is in music and he has been composing beats, songs and instrumental music for years. He received his BA in Music from University of New Hampshire. Thanks to the Brooklyn College MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts, and his natural evolution. Eben is also exploring puppetry, acting, writing, dance, theatre, visual art, mythology, folklore, and anthropology.

Nick is a multimedia artist and musician. Much of his work focuses on physical relationships to sound and art experience. He regularly performs improvised music, primarily playing percussion and electronics. Nick has also created interactive sound and video installations as well as music for a number of dance pieces. He will complete his MFA in Performance and Interactive Media Arts from Brooklyn College in the Spring of 2008. He holds a BA from the University of California, San Diego (2001) in Film and Video, Media Arts with a minor in Music Technology. Nick hopes to develop in his work a better fusion of interactive video and music in performance.

rough guide to the grotesque
nicklesley.com
neckandtongue.com

documentation from this event

A contemporary performance art piece by Eva and Franco Mattes (a.k.a. 0100101110101101.ORG) via MTAA.

sur•ro•gate transitive verb: to put in the place of another: to appoint as successor, deputy, or substitute for oneself

On Friday April 11, 2008 as part of its monthly curatorial project, art collective MTAA premiered “The Surrogates,” a performance art piece exploring the nature of perceived identity and representation, credited to European-based art collective 0100101110101101.ORG (in absentia).

Presented at MTAA’s OTO art space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the two-hour piece began at 7 p.m. with an open bar and velvet rope welcoming attendees in the hallway.

Inside the OTO space proper, two rows of two chairs (numbered 1-4) faced a low stage featuring a 4′x6′ projection screen (center) and a small television monitor (stage right). Attendees entered the darkened room four at a time, their assigned seats facing a slightly delayed projection of themselves. The monitor revealed hallway activity in real time.

(click for a larger image)

The attendees (now participants) were given no explanation of the piece, though they were invited do as they pleased within the space and to leave at their leisure. Re-entry was not permitted however, and those exiting the piece were immediately replaced by those next behind the velvet rope.

“The Surrogates” reaches its 180-degree apex via this text. Please note that while the Mattes (0100101110101101.ORG.) are credited as the authors of this seminal performance, MTAA designed, built and executed this work in its entirety.

The Mattes graciously agreed to lend their identity to “The Surrogates,” and for their essential contribution, receive 50 percent authorship and financial stake in “The Surrogates.”

MTAA, 2008

http://tinajil.com/over_the_opening

http://mteww.com

http:// 0100101110101101.ORG

update: more photos from “The Surrogates”  performance in OTO Flickr set

On April 11, from 7pm to 10pm, Over The Opening is please to present a new video performance work by Eva and Franco Mattes (0100101110101101.org)

surrogate - substitute, proxy, replacement; deputy, representative, stand-in, standby, stopgap, relief, pinch-hitter, understudy.

Eva and Franco Mattes continue their investigations into power, authorship and identity with “The Surrogates” a new performance based video project. Combining elements of theater, video, surveillance, and social interaction, “The Surrogates” transforms OTO into an experimental social space questioning the distinction between the viewer and the viewed.

Eva and Franco Mattes works have been shown internationally including: Collection Lambert, Avignon; Fondazione Pitti Discovery, Florence, Postmasters Gallery, New York; Lentos Museum of Modern Art, Linz; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; ICC, Tokyo; Manifesta4, Frankfurt.

They received the Jerome Commission from the Walker Art Center, and are among the youngest artists to ever participate to the Venice Biennale. In 2006 they received a fellowship from Colombia University, New York.

Mattes’ works are part of several private and public collections such as the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; MEIAC, Spain; MAK, Vienna.

documentation from this event

On Saturday, March 22nd from 7pm to 10 pm, OTO is pleased present the debut live performance of Masolit, a new music project featuring vocalist/producer Margaret Jameson (also known as tinydiva), mix master/producer Phil Painson, and guitarist/melodist extraordinaire Tom Jameson. Before forming Masolit, Phil and Margaret performed together at many New York City venues including Bowery Ballroom, Galapagos, Brownie’s, CBGB’s and Fez as members of the downtown ensemble Market. Influenced by a wide spectrum of musical styles embracing hip-hop, funk, old-ass blues, French Impressionism and electro, Masolit seeks to create an innovative original music culture for the masses.

Opening for Masolit will be the Creationists, consisting of Abe Maneri (keyboards) and Tom Jameson (guitar). They will present a set of eclectic preludes comprising both unpremeditated and intelligently designed phases.

Saturday, March 22nd (7pm to 10pm)

7pm The Creationists

8pm Masolit

To hear Masolit’s latest recording “NSA” go to www.myspace.com/masolit or www.masolit.net.

documentation from this event