LOS ANGELES, CA. On November 15, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) hosts Machine Project Field Guide to LACMA. This event consists of ten hours of performances, readings, workshops, and games that investigate and experiment with the museum's encyclopedic collections, diverse exhibition spaces, and lush grounds. Through the playful interventions and thoughtful observations of contemporary artists and performers, visitors are encouraged to experience LACMA in new ways.
Projects sited throughout the museum from 12–8 pm include a robotic Netsuke head, a glow-in-the-dark unicorn, a man in a suit made of pepper cans, an audio tour of ambient gallery sounds, and a painting reproduced in flowers. The BP Grand Entrance will become a temporary Mission Control Center with electronics workshops and a video feedback installation of the day's events. A bank of elevators will be inhabited by trios of musicians including a gamelan orchestra, a brass trio, and fife and drum core. Visitors can try to solve an interactive murder mystery with clues scattered across the museum grounds. Throughout the day there will also be craft workshops, mobile musical aliens, gallery massages, a handout of invisible performances, replicas made from LACMA's trash, a lost nose, and much more. At 8 pm, the BP Grand Entrance will feature a series of live performances and readings paired with featured videos, 3D glasses included.
Artists participating in the project include: Ambient Force 3000, Jacinto Astiazarán / Fritz Haeg / Flora Wiegmann, Matthew Au, the Barbershop Hum Quartet, Joshua Beckman, Jason Brown, Cheryl Cambras, the Center for Tactical Magic, Ken Ehrlich, Fallen Fruit, the Faraway Places Ensemble, Jim Fetterly, Corey Fogel, Fol Chen, Liz Glynn, Hooliganship, Jessica Hutchins & Dawn Kaspar, Stephanie Hutin & Florencio Zavala, Ing, the Institute for Figuring, Lewis Keller, Walter Kitundu, Emily Lacy, Lasagne Cat, Douglas Lee, Karen Lofgren, Lucky Dragons, Machine Project Elevator Players, Anthony McCann, Monome, Takeshi Murata, Annie O'Malley, Michael O'Malley, Nate Page, Kamau Patton, The Public School, Casey Rentz, Douglas Irving Repetto, Daniel Richert & Mathew Timmons, Phil Ross, Kelly Sears, Laura Steenberge, Robin Sukhadia, Ryan Taber, Jason Torchinsky, Holly Vesecky, and special guests.
Existing to encourage the heroic experiments of the gracefully over-ambitious, Machine Project is a Los Angeles based social experiment which investigates art, technology, natural history, music and poetry through collaboration and conversation. Using their Echo Park location as a home base, Machine creates events and site-specific installations that bridge the intersections between seemingly disparate fields, using hands-on engagement to make rarefied knowledge accessible. Machine Project was founded by Mark Allen and incorporated as an educational nonprofit in 2005.