Installation 22-27 May
Performances 25, 26 May at 8pm, 27 May at 7pm
Closing reception 27 May
tickets: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/244080

“If first we can think about war as a machine of progress - it absolutely moves us forward in terms of technology, resource accumulation and territorial expansion - we see that war is an abuse of nature, first through its fundamental belief in technology (not necessarily opposing nature, but certainly questioning nature as bankrupt, or inadequate), and secondly through the covert agenda of resource accumulation (also a further fueling of technology).

The question of gender roles in relation to war in these terms is tricky. If we acknowledge that war is a primary trope of masculinity, and that during wartime, normative gender roles are re-inscribed, then perhaps the technological dimension of war preserves nature in a romantic and pastoral vision - as a site to conquer. If progress is a function of conflict, then nature would have to be fixed in an ideological position of inferiority and incompetence, something to conflict against and over-rule. War fuels progress in terms of technological development and capital accumulation - at the expense of the natural. Proponents of technology say that there is no such thing as the natural, which is akin to saying the slave is merely property.......”
Artist Arjuna Neuman

Artist Arjuna Neuman will present a gallery installation in response to an original text conceived by Kestrel Burley that explores the relationship between war, sexuality and pornography. A series of vignettes devised from the same text using post-dramatic performance techniques will take place during the exhibit, whereby performers will work to incorporate the environmental elements as “characters” in their performance. Audio and visual textures will transform the installation from a purgatorial space with the threat of action - into a theatrical space - a place of action.

It was of interest to both parties to operate outside of the theatrical norm, where a set designer generally operates in service to the vision of the director. Instead, Neuman would independently create an installation in response to the themes of the text, and would operate with an almost absolute degree of autonomy. In this way, he would participate in the project as almost a “co-writer” through his intuitive, visual interpretations of the text. The performances would take place in the final days of the exhibition, when the ensemble had spent time rehearsing in the installationand absorbing Neuman’s environmental elements.

Neuman naturally works with specificity and thoughtful attention to detail, going to great lengths to obtain materials that have relevant meaning, each object containing a story within itself. Theatre, by contrast, naturally uses bold visual strokes that depend on the suspension of reality to create illusion. Installation work is also experiential and environmental, whereas performance is most often experienced at a distance through a presentational format. The challenge of negotiating these approaches - of Neuman forced to consider the theatrical potential of his work while theatre is forced to acknowledge the present, the real, through object - has fostered a unique and multi-layered dialogue on the show’s themes.

Website: www.breakingandenteringla.com

Opening reception FRIDAY MAY 18th 6-9 PM

Exhibition continues Saturday May 19th from 12-10 pm.

Participating Artists:
Max Wortman, Anais Hinojosa, Nina Arsenian, Andrew Becerra, Sam Hinsvark, Jacob Small, Val Koziak, Alisa Cacho-Sousa, and Finn West

Teenage Wasteland of the Arts is an artist collective for teens aged 14-19. The collective was founded by both teens and adults in September of 2011. Since January this year , members of the collective have met once a week for 2 hours at a time, at Human Resources, preparing work for this show.  All the work in the show is made by teen members of the collective.

We are currently in the middle of a fundraiser for the program –please check out our KICKSTARTER PAGE:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1373562771/twa-dogma-2012

Our goal as an art collective is to create an inspiring, philosophical environment for teen artists to express their fears, dreams and nightmares, their hopes, angst and oppression, in a positive and safe way.  This February, members of Teenage Wasteland of the Arts wrote their own artist dogma, aptly named TWA DOGMA 2012, which has served as inspirational guidelines to frame the work made by the collective this spring.

For more information on the collective please visit our website:

www.wastelandofthearts.com

TWA DOGMA 2012

Every piece must have an element of collage

Work made under the dogma must be a time-based piece

Work must be explicit

Everyone must accept everyone else’s opinon/pages

Everyone is a real fascist

Art is not a means but an end

Art is not one or the other

DIT (do it together)

Binary thinking is prohibited

There is no sexuality

All rules must be broken

Art goes to museums to die – Art cannot breathe under glass

The process of meandering is necessary

We are post-post-modern

May 4th, 5th, 11th, 12th.

Los Angeles, CA -

UBIKETAL perform Frozen Music/Pink Noise, May 4th, 5th, 11th, &12th at 7:30.

Frozen Music/Pink Noise combines hypnosis, performance art, authentic movement and butoh, with the goal of interrogating interior states of being through movement and vocalizations, which reveal to the audience a \"negative space of an invisible architecture.\" The title Frozen Music refers to the quote: \"Ich nenne Architektur gefrorene Musik\" by Goethe that suggests architecture is frozen music. Ubik et al ask: What are the acoustics of that invisible building, where in the performers listen and move while in various states of hypnotic trance.

Frozen Music/Pink Noise a performance in 12 parts: foundation/ excavation/ ascension/ undergirding/ cantilever/ sheer/ reflection/ absorption/ sustain/ attack/ release/ decay; It is a new original work derived from workshops in a special process of improvisation while in trance. The ensemble of performers and designers developed this special process over a month long period of collaboration and it will be realized for the first time in the gallery before the audience. The principle creative artists of UBIKETAL (meaning: ubiquitous et al or: everywhere and everyone) include: Alan Tollefson, Michelle Lai, and Sarah Day, Max Baumgarten, Amara Gyulai, Jeff Worden, Dana Murphy, and Pearl Merril. Sound Design and accompaniment by Andy Sykora and Lighting design by Cameron Mock. Audience/performer separation will be minimal in this show as in environmental theatre with even some audience performer interaction. The setting will be the open space of the white cube/black box double with some scenic elements designed by Alan Tollefson.

The common denominator of the team UBIKETAL is intersubjective performance. Exploring ideas such as, witnessing, responsibility, language and embodiment. Performing in a trance achieved through a pre-performance ritual and guided visualization, in which each performer is prompted to find a specific personal interior location, or to begin a spontaneous dialogue with the unconscious through movement.

PinkNoise/Frozen Music is an intervention against habitual ways thinking and being. UBIKETAL hope to reintroduce the audience to a state of continual questioning while the unfamiliar unfolds.

After moving to Southern California Alan Tollefson was hired by the University of La Verne to teach Performance Art, Stage Craft and to be the Technical Director in the theatre arts department. Tollefson’s interest in theatre and construction has led to co-developing an experimental research group UBIKETAL that conceives projects in the rapidly growing field of Performative Architecture. Performative architecture explores the freedoms and limitations imposed on the individual by the built environment by testing performance through space design to gain a better understanding of how the body moves in space and how subjectivities are actualized. Performative architecture draws from the phenomenology of theatre and the physics of construction to develop a better understanding of embodied architecture and architectural metaphors that we live every day. Performative architecture uses the language of these metaphors to explore this system with both inside and outside, to redistribute power in system where subjectivities are situated within the built environment.

UBIKETAL is theorizing and realizing self-studying spaces as digitally reactive environments that use feedback systems to identify emergent behaviors. We are launching this endeavor with this project that galvanizes performance theorists and practitioners around the study of the unconscious as the archive of our embodied architecture. Our program Frozen Music/Pink Noise is a demonstration of our imagination let loose in the unconscious architectonic field.

humanresourcesla.com

May 1, 2012
Today marks the two year anniversary of Human Resources' first official event, a May Day celebration at our former space on Bernard Street. Although so much has happened since then, it seems like just yesterday that Kathleen Kim wrote our institutional love letter; Corey Fogel performed Justin Timberlake's Dead and Gone solo on drum set and glockenspiel for 25 minutes and we all ended up singing along; My Barbarian burned cedar to cleanse the space; and Fritz Haeg introduced Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) with a letter written by Hollis Frampton to MoMA in 1973...

Since then, we have continued to vacillate between the popular and the obscure, the scholarly and the salacious, and to hold ourselves out as an institution while operating as the most informal cooperative. We told ourselves that it was only worth doing if we loved doing it. Along the way, we became a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and moved into the great hall on Cottage Home Street.

Thanks to all of the friends, artists, volunteers and participants that have helped Human Resourcesto find a home within the Los Angeles arts community.

On this occasion, we are very pleased to announce the addition of four new directing members toHuman Resources: Grant Capes, Jennifer Doyle, Chiara Giovando, and Catherine Taft.  Working alongside founding members Dawn Kasper, Eric Kim, Kathleen Kim, Devin McNulty, and Giles Miller, these additional members will bring new ideas, new networks, and new energy to the collective. With a core group of nine directing members, reflecting a broad range of interests and experience, Human Resources will more effectively organize its programming efforts, revisit its commitment to documentation and archiving, and continue to explore how an arts organization might most effectively serve … you.

About the new members:

Grant Capes works in post production for film and television, as well as live sound for performances. He formerly co-ran the Echo Park Art Gallery and Curiosity Shop (aka Echo Curio).

Jennifer Doyle is a Professor of English at UC Riverside. She works in performance and gender studies, and is the author of Sex Objects: Art and the Dialectics of Desire and the forthcoming Hold It Against Me: Difficulty and Emotion in Contemporary Art. 

Chiara Giovando is an artist and curator. She has produced film and performance works for REDCAT Gallery, Tate Modern and the Whitney Museum. She was co-director of Hi Zero Festival of experimental music from 2005 – 2008 and part of the founding of Tarantula Hill in Baltimore MD.  She has records out on Ehse Records, Holy Mountain and Ecstatic Peace.  She performs her music both solo and in Duo with Daniel Higgs and Jenny Graf (Metalux). Her two short films, Proud Flesh and Archaic Smile have screened both nationally and internationally.

Catherine Taft is a critic, curator, and project specialist at the Getty Research Institute. Her writing appears regularly in publications including Artforum, ArtReview, Modern Painters, Metropolis-M, Mousse, and in exhibition catalogs in the U.S. and abroad. She is co-editor of the forthcoming book Double Issue: A Document of the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival (Fall 2012).

As part of our new structure, Human Resources will develop a new process for accepting, reviewing, and approving proposals for events and installations. Going forward, Human Resources will only consider proposals for installations that have been sponsored by a directing member.  If approved, that directing member will serve as a stakeholder during the life of the installation, acting as a bridge between the artists involved in the installation and the overall commitments and mission at Human Resources.  The same with events of all kinds—we encourage you to contact one of Human Resources’ directing members.

We look forward to many exciting developments as our new directing members continue to make their mark on our community and on HR.

About Human Resources:
Human Resources was founded by a team of creative individuals who seek to broaden engagement with contemporary and conceptual art, with an emphasis on performative and underexposed modes of expression. Human Resources is not-for-profit and seeks to foster widespread public appreciation of the performative arts by encouraging maximum community access. Human Resources also serves as a point of convergence for diverse and disparate art communities to engage in conversation and idea-sharing promoting the sustainability of non-traditional art forms.

Contact HR at:

info@humanresourcesla.com  
213-290-4752
humanresourcesla.com
410 Cottage Home St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

May 4th, 5th, 11th, 12th.

Los Angeles, CA -

UBIKETAL perform Frozen Music/Pink Noise, May 4th, 5th, 11th, &12th at 7:30.

Frozen Music/Pink Noise combines hypnosis, performance art, authentic movement and butoh, with the goal of interrogating interior states of being through movement and vocalizations, which reveal to the audience a \"negative space of an invisible architecture.\" The title Frozen Music refers to the quote: \"Ich nenne Architektur gefrorene Musik\" by Goethe that suggests architecture is frozen music. Ubik et al ask: What are the acoustics of that invisible building, where in the performers listen and move while in various states of hypnotic trance.

Frozen Music/Pink Noise a performance in 12 parts: foundation/ excavation/ ascension/ undergirding/ cantilever/ sheer/ reflection/ absorption/ sustain/ attack/ release/ decay; It is a new original work derived from workshops in a special process of improvisation while in trance. The ensemble of performers and designers developed this special process over a month long period of collaboration and it will be realized for the first time in the gallery before the audience. The principle creative artists of UBIKETAL (meaning: ubiquitous et al or: everywhere and everyone) include: Alan Tollefson, Michelle Lai, and Sarah Day, Max Baumgarten, Amara Gyulai, Jeff Worden, Dana Murphy, and Pearl Merril. Sound Design and accompaniment by Andy Sykora and Lighting design by Cameron Mock. Audience/performer separation will be minimal in this show as in environmental theatre with even some audience performer interaction. The setting will be the open space of the white cube/black box double with some scenic elements designed by Alan Tollefson.

The common denominator of the team UBIKETAL is intersubjective performance. Exploring ideas such as, witnessing, responsibility, language and embodiment. Performing in a trance achieved through a pre-performance ritual and guided visualization, in which each performer is prompted to find a specific personal interior location, or to begin a spontaneous dialogue with the unconscious through movement.

PinkNoise/Frozen Music is an intervention against habitual ways thinking and being. UBIKETAL hope to reintroduce the audience to a state of continual questioning while the unfamiliar unfolds.

After moving to Southern California Alan Tollefson was hired by the University of La Verne to teach Performance Art, Stage Craft and to be the Technical Director in the theatre arts department. Tollefson’s interest in theatre and construction has led to co-developing an experimental research group UBIKETAL that conceives projects in the rapidly growing field of Performative Architecture. Performative architecture explores the freedoms and limitations imposed on the individual by the built environment by testing performance through space design to gain a better understanding of how the body moves in space and how subjectivities are actualized. Performative architecture draws from the phenomenology of theatre and the physics of construction to develop a better understanding of embodied architecture and architectural metaphors that we live every day. Performative architecture uses the language of these metaphors to explore this system with both inside and outside, to redistribute power in system where subjectivities are situated within the built environment.

UBIKETAL is theorizing and realizing self-studying spaces as digitally reactive environments that use feedback systems to identify emergent behaviors. We are launching this endeavor with this project that galvanizes performance theorists and practitioners around the study of the unconscious as the archive of our embodied architecture. Our program Frozen Music/Pink Noise is a demonstration of our imagination let loose in the unconscious architectonic field.

humanresourcesla.com

This Saturday! $5 at 9pm