Northern Spark festival: 200 artists, 100 installations, at various locations, from dusk till dawn
THIS IS WAY TOO MUCH TO TAKE IN AT ONE TIME!
Northern Spark: a nuit blanche
"Northern Spark is a new Minnesota Festival modeled on a nuit blanche or 'white night' festival-a dusk to dawn participatory art event along the Mississippi and surrounding areas.
It will take place the evening of June 4 (sunset 8:55 pm) till the morning of June 5, 2011 (sunrise 5:28 am)."
Just a random sampling of the upcoming events that will be happening this weekend during the Northern Spark festival in Minneapolis-St. Paul:
Egg & Sperm Ride :: Hide & Seek
"Egg & Sperm Ride is an adult hide-and-seek game that will be repeated throughout the night. Six members of the public per rotation are invited to wear glowing Sperm helmets and count while a large Egg rolls to a hiding location. When the Sperm find the Egg and lay hands on it, it lights. They usher the Egg back to the start point. This project plays with the metaphor of contact, creating it through electricity and through the human body...
The Egg & Sperm project is inspired by the lack of romance in the tundra of Minnesota. Its attention to corporeality hopes to inspire participating individuals to unplanned acts of contact.
Artist: Janaki Ranpura
Janaki builds nomadic structures for public interactions. As a designer, she values intimacy and mobility. She unites technology with the traditional stagecraft of puppet theater. Projects evolve from her experience as a performer, a community artist, and a designer for parades and stage.
Her sense of space is informed by her training at the Lecoq School in France. She is careful with light because she developed her vision at Larry Reed’s groundbreaking company, Shadowlight Productions. Her desire to include the public has been fanned while working as a parade artist with Heart of the Beast Theatre. Her penchant for movement and tricksterishness comes from her restless roots as the arty daughter of Indian doctors. She studied at Yale University."
The Soap Factory, Laser Tag
"Come and experience Laser Tag: large scale virtual graffiti projected into the night. Join in at The Soap Factory with the chance to tag virtual graffiti on a monumental scale. Volunteers will be on hand to show visitors the ropes. Laser Tag takes place outside of The Soap Factory on the corner of 5th Ave SE and 2nd St SE."
Nightmare
"This is a public video work that creates the illusion of a white horse galloping on the Mississippi, at night, and in slow motion. The horse uses the river as a metaphorical race track creating a spectacular illusion as the horse is unexpectedly spotted in St. Paul.
The illusion is produced by towing a 17′x25′ video screen placed on barge at night. The darkness will conceal the tow boat and barge, while the projected video of a white horse will appear to gallop on the surface of the river.
Artist: Andréa Stanislav
Andréa Stanislav is a contemporary artist whose practice includes: sculpture, collage constructions, video installation and public art. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions around the world. Andréa was born and raised in Chicago IL. She received a MFA from Alfred University and and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Andréa lives and works in Minneapolis, and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN."
A Ping Pong Retrospective: 1500 Photographs by Wing Young Huie
Ping with Wing! See 1500 photos that span 35 years by photographer Wing Young Huie-all in one night while batting glow-in-the-dark balls with friends and strangers. This re-imagines your old-fashioned slide show in the living room coupled with basement-style ping-pong, except the living room-basement is an outdoor lot in the West Bank near the University of Minnesota, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the Twin Cities.
There will be six to eight ping-pong tables, with organized mini-tournaments as well as open tables for spontaneous pick-up games. Card tables will also be available for card or board games. Some food will be available, but all are encouraged to bring a dish for a potluck style picnic!
This unique retrospective is a culmination of more than a dozen projects that document the dizzying everyday socioeconomic and cultural realities of our changing cultural landscape, including the well-known public installations: Frogtown (1995), Lake Street USA (2000) and The University Avenue Project (2010), all of which transformed major urban areas into photographic galleries.
A Ping Pong Retrospective further explores the impacts of revealing the private lives of thousands of citizens in a public, celebratory fashion. This project furthers the participatory concepts of past projects by encouraging playful engagement, redefining an empty urban lot into a communal space that is part theater, town square, and rec room...
Artist: Wing Young Huie
Wing Young Huie is an award-winning photographer who has received international attention for his many projects that document the changing cultural landscape of his home state Minnesota. Whether in epic public installations or major museum exhibitions, Wing creates up-to-the-minute societal mirrors of who we are, seeking to reveal not only what is hidden, but also what is plainly visible and seldom noticed. His most recent work is 'The University Avenue Project: The Language of Urbanism-A Six-Mile Photographic Inquiry.'"
The Notion Collective: Station Identification
Station Identification is an interactive exploration of the Twin Cities’ radio landscape, which will be broadcasting (and receiving) live from the observation deck of The Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis during Northern Spark.
An important but often overlooked part of our connection to the geography of modern cities comes not from maps or road signs, but from the radio dial. Whether an individual grows up listening to a particular cityʼs radio stations or is simply in transit and scanning for listening material, a regionʼs radio stations can have a deep and sometimes very emotional connection to place.
Station Identification explores this landscape by transforming the Foshay Tower’s observation deck into a radio compass. Guests walking through the space - an open air deck encircling the tower’s peak - will have the experience of scanning the radio dial with their feet. Radio receivers encircling the observation deck will be placed according to the cardinal direction of their corresponding broadcasting tower (i.e. radio stations with transmitters to the south will be located on the southern end of the observation deck).
Additionally, Station Identification allows visitors to respond to their experience via a temporary Internet radio station located in the Foshay Tower."
ARTISTS: The Notion Collective
- Source: www.northernspark.org
Northern Spark: a nuit blanche
"Northern Spark is a new Minnesota Festival modeled on a nuit blanche or 'white night' festival-a dusk to dawn participatory art event along the Mississippi and surrounding areas.
It will take place the evening of June 4 (sunset 8:55 pm) till the morning of June 5, 2011 (sunrise 5:28 am)."
Just a random sampling of the upcoming events that will be happening this weekend during the Northern Spark festival in Minneapolis-St. Paul:
Egg & Sperm Ride :: Hide & Seek
"Egg & Sperm Ride is an adult hide-and-seek game that will be repeated throughout the night. Six members of the public per rotation are invited to wear glowing Sperm helmets and count while a large Egg rolls to a hiding location. When the Sperm find the Egg and lay hands on it, it lights. They usher the Egg back to the start point. This project plays with the metaphor of contact, creating it through electricity and through the human body...
The Egg & Sperm project is inspired by the lack of romance in the tundra of Minnesota. Its attention to corporeality hopes to inspire participating individuals to unplanned acts of contact.
Artist: Janaki Ranpura
Janaki builds nomadic structures for public interactions. As a designer, she values intimacy and mobility. She unites technology with the traditional stagecraft of puppet theater. Projects evolve from her experience as a performer, a community artist, and a designer for parades and stage.
Her sense of space is informed by her training at the Lecoq School in France. She is careful with light because she developed her vision at Larry Reed’s groundbreaking company, Shadowlight Productions. Her desire to include the public has been fanned while working as a parade artist with Heart of the Beast Theatre. Her penchant for movement and tricksterishness comes from her restless roots as the arty daughter of Indian doctors. She studied at Yale University."
The Soap Factory, Laser Tag
"Come and experience Laser Tag: large scale virtual graffiti projected into the night. Join in at The Soap Factory with the chance to tag virtual graffiti on a monumental scale. Volunteers will be on hand to show visitors the ropes. Laser Tag takes place outside of The Soap Factory on the corner of 5th Ave SE and 2nd St SE."
Nightmare
"This is a public video work that creates the illusion of a white horse galloping on the Mississippi, at night, and in slow motion. The horse uses the river as a metaphorical race track creating a spectacular illusion as the horse is unexpectedly spotted in St. Paul.
The illusion is produced by towing a 17′x25′ video screen placed on barge at night. The darkness will conceal the tow boat and barge, while the projected video of a white horse will appear to gallop on the surface of the river.
Artist: Andréa Stanislav
Andréa Stanislav is a contemporary artist whose practice includes: sculpture, collage constructions, video installation and public art. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions around the world. Andréa was born and raised in Chicago IL. She received a MFA from Alfred University and and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Andréa lives and works in Minneapolis, and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN."
A Ping Pong Retrospective: 1500 Photographs by Wing Young Huie
Ping with Wing! See 1500 photos that span 35 years by photographer Wing Young Huie-all in one night while batting glow-in-the-dark balls with friends and strangers. This re-imagines your old-fashioned slide show in the living room coupled with basement-style ping-pong, except the living room-basement is an outdoor lot in the West Bank near the University of Minnesota, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the Twin Cities.
There will be six to eight ping-pong tables, with organized mini-tournaments as well as open tables for spontaneous pick-up games. Card tables will also be available for card or board games. Some food will be available, but all are encouraged to bring a dish for a potluck style picnic!
This unique retrospective is a culmination of more than a dozen projects that document the dizzying everyday socioeconomic and cultural realities of our changing cultural landscape, including the well-known public installations: Frogtown (1995), Lake Street USA (2000) and The University Avenue Project (2010), all of which transformed major urban areas into photographic galleries.
A Ping Pong Retrospective further explores the impacts of revealing the private lives of thousands of citizens in a public, celebratory fashion. This project furthers the participatory concepts of past projects by encouraging playful engagement, redefining an empty urban lot into a communal space that is part theater, town square, and rec room...
Artist: Wing Young Huie
Wing Young Huie is an award-winning photographer who has received international attention for his many projects that document the changing cultural landscape of his home state Minnesota. Whether in epic public installations or major museum exhibitions, Wing creates up-to-the-minute societal mirrors of who we are, seeking to reveal not only what is hidden, but also what is plainly visible and seldom noticed. His most recent work is 'The University Avenue Project: The Language of Urbanism-A Six-Mile Photographic Inquiry.'"
The Notion Collective: Station Identification
Station Identification is an interactive exploration of the Twin Cities’ radio landscape, which will be broadcasting (and receiving) live from the observation deck of The Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis during Northern Spark.
An important but often overlooked part of our connection to the geography of modern cities comes not from maps or road signs, but from the radio dial. Whether an individual grows up listening to a particular cityʼs radio stations or is simply in transit and scanning for listening material, a regionʼs radio stations can have a deep and sometimes very emotional connection to place.
Station Identification explores this landscape by transforming the Foshay Tower’s observation deck into a radio compass. Guests walking through the space - an open air deck encircling the tower’s peak - will have the experience of scanning the radio dial with their feet. Radio receivers encircling the observation deck will be placed according to the cardinal direction of their corresponding broadcasting tower (i.e. radio stations with transmitters to the south will be located on the southern end of the observation deck).
Additionally, Station Identification allows visitors to respond to their experience via a temporary Internet radio station located in the Foshay Tower."
ARTISTS: The Notion Collective
- Source: www.northernspark.org