Yet another awesome community-building art project..

Just look...

Turning Empty Spaces into...

What would you do with an emply storefront? It's rent free, for up to three months.

Take a look at UK's biggest "slack space" project- Brixton Village indoor market. Damn...why don't I live in the UK?

Making Performance Space into Pulic Space

Yesterday in my Producing class we were talking about the open-door policy of S.L.A.M, which is the rehearsal/performance space for STREB. I love this idea of making a performance space into a public space. Anyone can literally walk in the door, watch a rehearsal, take a class, eat their lunch, and use their wifi. How cool is that?

I've been thinking of ways that public spaces could be used as performance spaces, but this is sometimes difficult for dancers. Our dancing environment needs to support our bodies...and concrete floors hurt after awhile. So...how can a space that is funcional for dancing and movment be useful to the public? 

Here's a rehearsal video providing a sneak preview of the "whizzing gizmo."

Penninsula

An ongoing programme of artists' commissions, investigating and interrogating the Greenwich Peninsula as the area undergoes a huge transformation.

 These projects are so neat!

Again, we have social spaces, community involvement, and art. What a delicious culture sandwich that makes.

Street with a view

We all know what Google Street View is...those mildly creepy photos of your street when you are probably not there.

What if you had control over how your street was seen?
Check out this project by Robin Hewlett and Ben Kingsley, called Street With A View.

This project is really interesting, especially how they involved the people that live in that neighborhood. So, we've got site-specificity, community involvement, and social spaces...

I'm seeing connections here.

I'm writing a paper!

Yes, that's right, I'm writing a paper. A professional paper. (Now say that in a British accent..." A professional paper!")

The main ideas I am thinking about are:

• performances in social, public spaces
• developing a community within physical social spaces and virtual social spaces (like this one!) through the engagement in a public performance
  

I just stumbled across this video of Professor David Gauntlett's inaugural lecture, 'Participation culture, creativity, and social change', from November 12, 2008. It's pretty rockin'.  After watching it I feel like there is some common  language used in his talk and in my head. For instance: MAKING and DOING. How do we put more opportunities to make and to do in the social, public sphere? How can performance do that?

This may be a bit tangential...but there's something there. I'm just not sure what yet.

A little excerpt from Saturday night...