Sent: 2008-09-24 20:18:35 (PST)
Subject: Ignatz, Junk Guitars and more
Hello all! Here’s another noisy update. Quick version: come to the DUMBO Art Festival this weekend, and sign up for the next junk guitar workshop October 14!
Happy news - Walter Kitundu, a musician, photographer, and builder of unique musical instruments, has been awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. As a photographer and instrument-maker myself, I call this a good precedent! I got the chance to work with Walter Kitundu during my residency at the Exploratorium this Spring– his work is amazing.
As for me — my apartment is full of fumes because I’ve been painting stuff for my installation at this weekend’s DUMBO Art Festival in Brooklyn. The installation is named Ignatz (after Krazy Kat’s lover-nemesis); you’ll find it in the water directly under the Manhattan Bridge; and it’s all about bricks. Please come– there’s lots of great stuff going on at the festival! I’m gonna go see the dance group Kunst-Stoff at 9pm Friday at the Dumbo Dance Festival.
My junk guitar workshop at Etsy Labs in July went well — it sold out, people had fun, and you can see and hear the results in this video! So we’re doing it again on October 14th! Please spread the word to people who might be interested. You can sign up here.
Governors Island is still open and free to visit every weekend for another month or so, and you can see some of my photos of the Figment Festival in the Voyeur Photo Show in Governors Island’s Building 14– weekends until Oct 12. The free artist-built mini-golf course is still open too!
On November 15th, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore is holding a day long Music and the Brain Salon, and they’ve asked me to put on a family workshop on homemade musical instruments. It’ll be fun and noisy!
My favorite weirdo arts group, Flux Factory, is holding a fund-raising auction on December 5th, and I’ve contributed a painting to the auction. Flux Factory is losing their building in Queens and looking for a new home, so save up all your money and spend it on art for a good cause! I’ve been involved with Flux Factory for less than three years but in that time they’ve mixed me up in all sorts of crazy projects and even taken me to Budapest! Please tell all your rich friends about them.
As always, if you want to stop receiving these emails, just drop me a line or visit moonmilk.com and click the mailing list link. Or you can get all your friends to sign up at that same link! And please let me know what you’re up to…
–Ranjit
Links for those of you who like your email in plain-text form:
Walter Kitundu - http://www.kitundu.com/
Kitundu’s page at MacArthur Foundation - http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4537271/
DUMBO Art Festival - http://www.dumboartfestival.org//2008_festival.html
DUMBO Dance Festival - http://www.whitewavedance.com/#S26
Video of July’s junk guitar workshop - http://vimeo.com/1451693
Sign up for the October 14th junk guitar workshop - http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14660045
Visiting Governors Island - http://www.govisland.com/Visit_the_Island/directions.asp
Voyeur Photo Exhibit - http://www.figmentnyc.org/2008/projects/voyeur.html
American Visionary Art Museum - http://avam.org/
Flux Factory - http://www.fluxfactory.org
Flux Factory projects I’ve been involved in -
* http://www.fluxfactory.org/everything-must-go/
* http://www.fluxfactory.org/response-to-tatlins-monument-to-the-third-international-conceived-in-the-mood-of-ambivalence/
* http://www.fluxfactory.org/works-on-paper/
* http://www.fluxfactory.org/fluxbox
* http://www.fluxfactory.org/sziget
Sent: 2008-07-17 19:06:58 (PST)
Subject: Junk guitars and other noise
Hello! Thanks to everyone who came out to the Figment Festival last month. Here’s some of my photos from the festival, and lots more at figmentnyc.org. I was happy that my little sound sculpture on the waterfront actually survived two thunderstorms and three days of salty waves!
It’s hot and sticky in New York, and that means it’s time to make electric guitars out of garbage. I’ll be teaching a workshop at Etsy Labs in Brooklyn on the evening of Wednesday July 30th in which we’ll wind our own guitar pickups and build junk guitars. If you’re interested, please sign up at etsylabs.etsy.com — space is limited. (See and hear some junk guitars over at moonmilk.com)
Coming up in a few months, I’ll have an installation in the 12th Annual DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival, September 26–28. My piece will be literally right under the Manhattan Bridge, at the little beach that’s mostly made of old bricks, and it’ll be kind of silly. Its name is Ignatz.
Next week I’ll be speaking at the Sketching in Hardware conference at the Rhode Island School of Design. Got any Providence restaurant recommendations?
More stuff you should see! My friend Jiyoun Lee, an amazing painter and illustrator, is in a group show opening tomorrow night (7/18, 7-9PM) at APW gallery, 195 Chrystie Street Suite 200. The show runs through the 26th. And Raylene Gorum’s showing her tape paintings of London, San Francisco, and New York on August 8th and 9th at Shetler Studios, details here.
I’m still scouting around for a December exhibition space for my Parsons students’ work, so please email me if you have any suggestions.
– Ranjit
Sent: 2008-06-24 19:37:50 (PST)
Subject: Figment Festival this weekend - and more!
Hello! This coming weekend is the Figment Festival on Governors Island in NYC. It’ll be three days of art, performance, and installations, including some wind powered sound sculptures that I’m working on right now. The island is beautiful, one of Olafur Eliasson’s waterfalls will be right there, and my piece will be on the waterfront near Castle Williams, the round fort at the northwest corner of the island (take a right from the ferry landing). Please join me if you can for a potluck picnic on the castle lawn, Saturday at 1:00 (Sunday if Sat. is rainy). I’ll be at the festival for the whole weekend– please let me know if you plan to attend!
The ferry [schedule and directions] is fast and free– catch it right around the corner from the Staten Island Ferry, near Whitehall and South Ferry stations. While you’re there, go right next door to David Byrne’s fun installation, Playing the Building.
Here’s some other news and upcoming events:
It’s time for Handmade Music Night again on Sunday, July 8 at 7pm at Etsy Labs, 325 Gold St, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn. Share your homemade musical instruments and synthesizers, and see what other people have made. It’s free and fun! I’ll be bringing my Figment sound sculptures if they survive the island. Here’s some coverage of previous events. Oh yeah, and here’s a video piece about it from Current TV where you can see me making a fool of myself on camera!
In late July I’ll be teaching a workshop at Etsy Labs about making simple electric guitars out of junk. It’s an expansion of a workshop I did at The Tank a few months ago. (Here’s a photo.)
I’ll be teaching a studio class on sound sculpture at Parsons School of Design this fall. The goal of the class is to put together an orchestra of networked sound machines that play in concert with each other. I’m looking for a gallery or performance space that would be willing to host the final installation for a weekend or up to a week or two in early to mid-December, so please let me know if you have any leads!
Earlier this month I had the opportunity to do a short residency at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, messing around with handmade musical instruments with the people of the Playful Invention and Exploration Institute. It was a lot of fun and a dream come true for me, since I developed my love of science-with-art attending this strangest and most interesting of science museums as a child. I hope to do more work there soon!
As always, you can see more of what I’m up to at my web site moonmilk.com (a bit neglected right now, but I’ll try to update it soon) and my flickr page.
–ranjit
Links:
Figment Festival- http://figmentnyc.org/2008/event2008.html
Ferry information - http://www.govisland.com/Visit_the_Island/directions.asp
Handmade Music Night - http://www.moonmilk.com/2007/09/20/handmade-music-night/
…and video - http://current.com/items/88937639_handmade_music_makers
Photo from junk guitar workshop - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/2398027966/
My department at Parsons - http://cdt.parsons.edu/
The Exploratorium - http://www.exploratorium.edu/
My website - http://www.moonmilk.com/
…and flickr page - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ranjit/
p.s. I put this links section here in case any of you are reading this in plain text instead of HTML. Was this useful? Let me know!
p.p.s. I apologize if you get two copies of this. I blame Dreamhost!