For the past two weeks The Walker Art Center has welcomed the L.A. collective Machine Project to Open Field. Whether investigating art, technology, natural history, music, literature, food, or any of a wide span of interests, Machine Project approaches everything they do with a curiosity and enthusiasm that’s infectious. That has ranged from Dog Operas to Apple II Orchestras; Parking Garage Concerts to Traveling Musical performances; Spontaneous Trumpet Soundtracks to Polygraph tests.
We invite you to the second, and final Summer Jubilee moment this Thursday, July 28th for an entire day of melons, music, movies and mowers on the Open Field. So grab a friend and plot your day from the packed schedule below. There is truly something for everyone.
Thursday, July 28: Summer Jubilee Field Day
11:30 am–12:30 pm, 2–3 pm, 4:30–5:30 pm, and even 7–8 pm
Meet the Earbees or Games for Ears: Earbees look a lot like transistor radios, but instead of playing top 40 they record whatever you like and play it back looped. They can be placed somewhere particular, hidden, stacked, gambled with, buried, and thrown, there are lots of possibilities. The inventor of Earbees, Sara Roberts, will lead some favorite activities and we’ll see if you come up with some more. Make noise, make more noise, make better noise.
12:30 pm and 3pm
Composition for Photoelectric Array and Ambient Light: Sound artist Kamau performs live on the Open Field using the sun’s rays. Via solar panels and a light-to-frequency converter, you’ll be able to listen to sounds composed by measuring the rays of the sun as the light changes throughout the day. As a favor to Kamau, please refrain from doing any raindances until at least Friday, July 29.
2pm
Cowboys and Angels: Join musician Emily Lacy for a twelve-day world tour of the Walker Art Center. Starting every day from a different location on the Walker campus, she’ll be creating improvised music in reaction to each different space, with an ear towards wistful country songs and vocal electronica. Length of each performance will vary.
2-4pm
Electric Melon Workshop: Make your own amplified melon! All you need are simple soldering skills we will teach you, and one small melon, which we can provide while supplies last. In one afternoon you will:
1) build your own contact microphone
2) combine your mic with a melon to make an amplified melon
3) join our amplified electric melon drum circle
4) eat your melon when you’re done and/or take your melon rinds to the World of Pickling at the Walker Open Field and pickle your rinds.
All participants will be able to borrow soldering materials. No advanced registration required. Drum circle or previous electric melon experience also not required.
2–7 pm
The Fol Chen Verbal Algorithm Composer-Free Song Generator: Samuel Bing and Sinosa Loa of the band Fol Chen (Asthmatic Kitty) will produce a customized, one-of-a-kind song for each person who participates in the Fol Chen Verbal Algorithm Composer-Free Song Generator. This is a one-day event only! Come fill out a survey about your experience at the Walker, turn your survey in to Bing and Sinosa Loa, and receive a CD of your very own custom song minutes later. At the end of Summer Jubilee, they will release the songs as a digital download Open Field EP.
3–10 pm
Echo Park Film Center: Filmmobile: Join Los Angeles’ Echo Park Film Center at the FlatPak House for hands-on workshops in filmmaking and stay for a screening of the workshop films in the evening. Between the workshop and the screening Walker curator Dean Otto leads a film pickling workshop. Creating equal and affordable community access to film and video resources since 2001, the EPFC are taking their show on the road this summer in a big blue bus that has been transformed into the EPFC Filmmobile: a full-service, eco-friendly screening and educational facility on wheels. They are stopping at the Walker for one night only—make sure to catch the bus!
EPFC Filmmaking Workshop: 3–6 pm, FlatPak House
Film Pickling Workshop: 6–7 pm, Walker Open Field
EPFC Film Screening: 9 pm, Walker Open Field
4–7 pm
World of Pickling: What’s summer without pickles? Come and partake in the wonderful world of pickling on the Walker’s Open Field. Watch in awe with a growling stomach as local chefs and brothers, Chris and Rhett Roberts demo the art of melon rind pickling and surprise the crowd with pickling some unexpected objects. Taunt your palate further as chef-farmer Nick Schneider makes sauerkraut and introduces you to the world of lacto-fermentation. Providing a glimpse into what it takes to win a State Fair Blue Ribbon, pickling and canning expert Barb Schaller will be in conversation with local writer Andy Sturdevant. Bring a jar from your own pantry to have it signed by Schaller. Strike a pose with either your favorite jar of pickles or with Dilly, the Gedney Pickle, as a caricature artist commemorates the moment. To round out the pickling panoply, draw a pickle still life at Drawing Club then pickle film with the Walker’s own Associate Curator of Film/Video, Dean Otto.
7–7:30 pm
the american lawn, and ways to cut it: Join us for Machine Project’s grand finale event: a three-part exploration of the American lawn and ways to cut it, via sheep, choreographed gasoline-powered ride-on-mowers with mounted oscillators tuned to the drone of their engines, and push mowers. Come help us examine the sonic nature of the Walker’s Open Field, while giving the lawn a much-needed trim.
11 am–9 pm
Invisible & Subtle Performances Pamphlets, Adam Overton suggests private actions you can perform yourself, should you choose to do so. Written specifically for the Walker Art Center.
11 am-5pm
Poetry Phone, Look around the Walker for the black rotary dial phone on a fake rock. When the phone rings, pick up! There is probably a poet on the line waiting to read to you. The poetry phone offers mobile personal poetry performances, given via telephone by a variety of poets. Readings take place throughout the day in a variety of locations across the Walker campus. Poetry curated by Joshua Beckman, who is a poet himself, and enjoys the occasional phone call.
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