event horizon

The term "event horizon," it turns out, refers to many things. It's the title of a 1997 movie directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (which I initially read as, possibly, the strange but super-talented duo of Paul Thomas Anderson and Wes Anderson), about a spaceship that returns after having disappeared into a black hole. It's also the interdisciplinary journal of sciences and humanities at Rutgers University. You can even play this free, online game with the title. And of course, in the theory of general relativity, it refers to the area around a black hole, "beyond which," according to Wikipedia, "events cannot affect an outside observer."


I'm not sure what that description entails for the public art event of the same name, organized by Jenn Schmidt, happening this Saturday, April 12th, and next Wednesday, April 16th. Barring rain on Saturday (currently forecasting a 60% chance of showers), a group of artists from the class I'm TAing, as well as a handful of outside artists from the SMFA community (myself included) and beyond, will be hanging out for the day in Somerville's Davis and Union Squares, doing various things running the entire continuum of "performative" and engaging the public in lots of different ways. Sunday may be a possible rain day, and the weather's looking good for day two of the event on Wednesday next week. For more information, check out the event's website.

In addition to these two events, examples of the printed ephemera artists have created in connection to their projects is on view in SMFA's Project Space Gallery. Here's an installation shot from yesterday:


And here's a shot inside the space, in a corner already jam-packed with posters. For this project and event, knowing I'd be strapped for time, I chose to revisit The Lost Object Project. My humble contribution, inspired by the classifieds section of a newspaper (like the "lost and found" section...without the found part), is in red.


For the more "performative" part of the project, I plan to create a more tangible version of this map, pinpointing locations where lost objects were last seen, and hopefully adding to the ongoing archive. I'm not sure exactly how I plan to engage the public. I don't want it to feel like I'm selling Proactiv at the mall, but I don't just want to sit there either. If you're local, come to the events on Saturday and Wednesday to find out what I decide to do. If you're not so local, stay tuned for more documentation, post-events.