From the Desk of Sarah Seely is a company of professional dancers, actors and artists all of whom work 9-5 desk jobs assisting executives. Rehearsals and performance opportunities are scheduled and created around this. The company’s work is a blend of theater and dance, a celebration of present-day concerns and campy vintageaesthetics, topped off with the frustration of being artists in day jobs. Read More
Episode #23 – Patently Silly
Everyone has at one point had a ridiculous idea that they thought would make them millions. Some of those people went on to patent those ridiculous ideas. Some of them got made, some of them changed history, and some of them remain forgotten documents. These patents make up the content of Patently Silly, a website, book and animation series. We talk to Read More
Episode #22 – Red Light Properties
Originally trained as a filmmaker, graphic novelist and writer Dan Goldman has developed a unique approach to his work process, something that he’s taken to new lengths in the creation of the online graphic novel series Red Light Properties, a tropical horror set in the post-mortgage-crash real estate landscape of Miami. While creating the fictional world for his real estate agent / exorcist protagonists Read More
Episode #21 – Tape and Mirrors
When artist Aakash Nihalani moved from the suburbs to NYC he was compelled by its symmetry. As an organic response he started laying down tape on the streets and on buildings, creating brightly colored sticker tape boxes framing aspects of the city he wanted to show people, creating tableaus from real life. Both uncomfortable at potentially defacing property Read More
Episode #20 – Poetry Brothel
Believing that Poets undervalue themselves in the creative marketplace, The Madame, and right-hand man Tennessee Pink, set up the Poetry Brothel in order to confirm in writers the literal monetary value of their work, and also to present Poetry in its more natural form – intimate and sensual over the more standard formal and jilted reading. Read More
Episode #19 – MakerBot
The sign on the door reads MakerBot industries. Inside, boxes line the floors and there is a flurry of activity. A light humming sound fills the air. Machines buzz as they print physical objects that merely minutes before were 3D renderings on a computer screen. This is Bre Pattis’ ‘Botcave’ and within its walls resides a startup Read More
Episode #18 – Google Maps Road Trip
Whether it’s stretching 1500ft of extension cords from his kitchen to a park to make coffee for passers-by, spending a year dining with strangers across the US, or helping others run errands with the use of a mule to cheer them up, Marc Horowitz’s work revolves around culture jamming, social practice… Read More
Episode #17 – Waterpod
Artist Mary Mattingly uses any medium to realize an idea, whether it’s photography, video, fashion or installation. With a specialization in interactive architecture and an interest in nomad culture, human conditioning and sustainable living, Mary worked with a team of volunteer Read More
Episode #16 – Missed Connections
Illustrator Sophie Blackall has read thousands of missed connections posts. A self confessed addict of these intimate, fleeting moments described in haste and posted in public, she trawls through them daily to find the most visual, humorous, lyrical or wierd confessions or pleas, before creating a similarly Read More
Episode #15 – Art Battles
Sean Bono set up Art Battles as a way to correct a system he saw flawed. With artist friends getting arrested for graffiti, others loosing their individuality in mundane graphic design jobs, and more laboring unrecognized in galleries, he started painting battles in his canvas Read More
Episode #14 – Honey I Shrunk Redhook
When curator Laura Arena approached MIT’s Luis Blackaller & Andy Cavatorta, her brief was simple: create something that initiates interaction between the inhabitants of the neighborhood. From the Portuguese fisherman to the Projects, to the artists and hipsters, to a new influx of people, Lucky Gallery Read More
Episode #13 – Undetermined Measurements
Undetermined Measurements is an ongoing performance and documentation project by artists Sean Hovendick and John Wesley Mannion. On a warm fall day ten people dressed in stark white “clean suits” and masks disperse amongst picnickers, inspecting the ground in sunny Central Park. Heads turn, unsure, and people start asking questions. During each phase of the interventionist series volunteers gather, dress in
Read More
Episode #12 – Bambi Killers
Meghan, Dawn & Tanya are the Bambi Killers, a genre-defying creative troupe that meld performance art, music, role play, costume design, audio soundscapes and circus freakery into a series of short live acts that deal with themes as wide-ranging as alien invasion, conspiracy theories, government brainwashing and the representation of women in movies.
Read More
Episode #11 – Color Me Katie
Katie Sokoler AKA Color Me Katie is a specialist at working with strangers. Inspired by a college project in which the then shy Katie was forced to photograph 100 strangers in 5 hours, she has since eschewed using models to stage shoots, preferring instead to promote human interaction through her work and capture the results of humans in their natural habitat
Read More
Episode #10 – newmindspace
Kevin Bracken is a modern day Peter Pan. From his Bushwick warehouse -the appropriately named Refuge- he works with teams of volunteers to create and stage free, fun, participatory events across America that enable strangers to interact publicly in a natural carefree way, uninhibited by monetary transactions. Read More
EPISODE #09 – Matt Held’s Facebook Portraits
Matt Held, a fine artist with a specialization in portraiture, was blocked. After upping sticks from Seattle to NYC in his late thirties, young family in tow, as a last chance at ‘making it’, he became a stay at home Dad with the couple’s new child. Nothing he did worked. Until, as an exercise in skintone, he painted his wife’s facebook profile photo. Shortly after, the “I’ll have my portrait painted by Matt Held” facebook group was born, Read More
EPISODE #08 – Dr Sketchys
Four years ago, as a broke art school drop-out Molly Crabapple set up Dr Sketchys, the anti-art school, as a social gathering in Brooklyn. Now a sought after fine artist, comics creator and illustrator in her own right, Molly has spread Dr Sketchy’s to over 80 cities, and the concept has grown from an event to a movement.
Read More
EPISODE #07 – Eclectic Method
Motown loved what they did, and hired them. U2 loved what they did, and hired them. Eclectic Method (Jonny Wilson-Brooklyn, Ian Edgar-LA, Geoff Gamlen-London) create AV (Audio/Video) pieces from found footage, for online consumption, and as VDJs live at dance parties around the world. Read More
EPISODE #06 – Cut&Paste
Design has not normally been thought of as a performance art, but Cut&Paste are looking to change that. For the last two years John Fiorelli and his team have been traveling the globe, taking the concept of live digital design to more and more communities. Now, in 16 cities across the world, Read More
EPISODE #05 – SLAM Theater
While evenings of spontaneous, timed creativity are becoming more and more popular in NYC, only one brings together actors, writers and directors for evenings of in-house collaboration in a completely inclusive environment. At SLAM Theater anyone can walk through the door to perform, or with a script, or simply to be entertained. Read More
EPISODE #04 – Universal Record Database
What do ‘Most money destroyed for profit’, the ‘Longest shhh’ and ‘Most flaxseed cracker people created in one minute’ have in common? They are all records held on Dan Rollman and Corey Henderson’s Universal Record Database, otherwise known as the ‘definitive site for human achievement’. The founders take us through the thinking behind their project, while
Read More
EPISODE #03 – Cassette from my Ex
When Jason Bitner (FOUND magazine) discovered a mixtape in his mother’s basement from teenage love, Kate, he realized there must have been a reason he’d held onto the tape for so long. The reason? Memories. Realizing there were more stories of teen heartbreak and discovery from the cassette generation to be found, Jason wrote his, asked friends to contribute
Read More
EPISODE #02 – I Eat Pandas
During the day, Eliza Skinner works on Wall Street and Glennis McMurray teaches and appears in commercials, but at night they bound on stage as the critically acclaimed I Eat Pandas. In regular performances across the US, including the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in LA and NYC, they create shows that consist of three completely different
Read More
EPISODE #01 – Next-Door Neighbor
We all have a next-door neighbor and a next-door neighbor story. With this realization in mind, comic book artist, Harvey Pekar collaborator, and founder of webcomix collective ACT-I-VATE, Dean Haspiel, approached storytelling site SMITH magazine Read More
