Doug Aitken's New Installation on D.C.'s Hirshorn Museum

Washington D.C.'s circular Hirshorn Museum calls to mind a slide carousel, a UFO, a big, white donut, or, according to Ada Louis Huxtable, "a bomb shelter and penitentiary." All architectural criticism aside, it provides the perfect, blank slate for a film projection, and from March 22 - May 13 it will be the site for Doug Aitken's new 360-degree audiovisual installation, "Song 1."

Eleven projectors will run from sunset to midnight, playing what will appear to be a singular wraparound image set to a mash-up of "I Only Have Eyes For You," performed by various artists like Beck and James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. The imagery is set to a slow, 60-beats-per-minute rhythm and will occasionally make the museum appear to lift off the ground. 

You might have seen "Sleepwalkers," Aitken's large-scale, 2007 projection at MoMA, starring Donald Sutherland and Tilda Swinton. It was massive, covering many of the museum's exterior walls, but "Song 1" will mark the very first time Aitken has created a circular projection, forcing viewers to walk around the building to see it in its entirety.  

Kerry Brougher, the Hirshorns' deputy director and chief curator points out the film editing challenges involved in a project like this. 

“It’s creating a whole new set of issues and challenges, in terms of how you edit a film and create a montage. There are all kind of vocabularies that have to be reinvented to...articulate a film on a circular surface this way.”

This might be the only time The Mall will become something of a nighttime destination this year, and if you want to check it out D.C is only a three hour train ride away from New York.

Meanwhile, try and rival Aitken's epic-ness with one of check out one of 3rd Ward's multi-media and audiovisual classes.

-- Perrin Drumm

This Sunday: Joshua Kirsch Fills Art Mana Fest With The Sounds Of 'Sympathetic Resonance'

In 2010 Joshua Kirsch turned the 3rd Ward lobby into an incredible musical instrument with his interactive installation Sympathetic Resonance. We actually asked him to install it again when we curated Wired Magazine's holiday pop up store that winter. So for those that may not have caught his work in our lobby (or those that just want to see it again) Kirsch will be presenting Sympathetic Resonance once more this Sunday as part of the Art Mana Fest in Jersey City.

"I had a blast deciding where all the different marimba key modules would go," Kirsch says of his time with us back in 2010. "The 3rd Ward lobby provided an excellent canvas in which to explore the different possibilities." Since that installation, Kirsch has had the chance to overhaul and refine the piece to improve the functionality and durability of Sympathetic Resonance. "Also, I've added the ability to fine tune the angle of each module to a degree hundreds of times more precise," he says. "This allows me to create installations with perfectly sweeping curves, something which would have been impossible before."

For the Art Mana Fest he will also present Oculus, which features 18 leg-like extensions that can all be manipulated by turning a central hub. "I knew it would work, but I did not know exactly what it would look like until the piece was finished," Kirsch says. "What resulted in the end was something that resembled an 18-legged spider a lot more than I expected, which I really like."

For his exhibition's opening, which takes place this Sunday, March 11 from 1-5pm, Kirsch will perform a three-minute piece that he composed specifically for Sympathetic Resonance, and jazz and classical musicians will also use it in ensemble performances. "Of course, a lot of the afternoon will be left available for guests to try their hand at playing the installation," Kirsch says. "From experience, I can tell you that some 'heart and soul' will definitely make an appearance or two."

Sympathetic Resonance will be on display through April, and musicians can even enter to win a $1000 cash prize by performing their own music on Kirsch's sculpture.

-- John Ruscher

Westward Ho! Brooklyn's Mark Reigelman Stakes a Tiny Claim in California

Mark Reigelman is an artist who likes to call attention to space, though not "outer space," more like our immediate space. Known both for cloaking a room in a dizzying display of black and white stripes to call our attention to architectural lines, as well as transforming stately buildings with huge, white weather balloons. Now Reigelman has declared his own manifest destiny, a pledge to "intrepidly claim and occupy space, regardless of hazard, existing occupants, inconvenience, daunting odds or common sense. Manifest Destiny! is single-minded in its objective: move West, claim territory, build a home." 

The Brooklyn-based artist went as far West as San Francisco, where he teamed up with local architect Jenny Chapman and engineer Paul Endres to build and install a small house on the side of The Hotel des Arts. A solar panel mounted to the roof powers lights inside (see image below) so you know when someone is home and strangers won't--ya know--rob the place. 

Using a 19th-century architectural style and vintage building materials, the structure is both homage to the romantic spirit of the Western Myth and a commentary on the arrogance of Westward expansion.

Interested in making a man-sized birdhouse of your own? Check out our woodworking and welding classes.

Manifest Destiny! will be up until October 2012.

-- Perrin Drumm