The sun is shining, the birds are flying, and just when we thought winter would never end – summer is here and Bureau for Open Culture is kicking it off at MASS MoCA with Beer Garden!

Beer Garden? That sounds pretty great!…Well it is. And it’s happening THURSDAY MAY 27 and FRIDAY MAY 28 alongside the Hoosic River at MASS MoCA.  It is a platform for conversation, community, and beer.  Join us for discussions and local brews.

Don’t worry.  We’re not going to forget the amazing season we had this Winter/Spring.  Let’s review the Best Of’s for the 2011 Winter/Spring Season!

Best Way to Work Up a Sweat in January: Free Day and Bhangra Funk Dance Party

Best Icicle: The One on Geometric Death Frquency: 141

Best Use of the Audience: Rory Scovel

Best Opportunity to Watch Someone Sleep: Habit

Best Picture of Our Crew: This One. (by Danelle Cheney)

Best Double-Take Performance: The Low Anthem

(Club B10. March 5)

(Hunter Center. April 16)

Best Use of Leather: Tragedy

Best Before and After: Nari Ward Sub Mirgae Lignum

Best Sold Out Performance: Iron & Wine

So get out those tank tops. Slip into those flip-flops. And let’s get this party started THIS WEEKEND with Beer Garden, The Workers Opening Reception, and Rosanne Cash!

The best is yet to come…

MASS MoCA’s galleries are currently undergoing ANOTHER transformation. On May 29 a new exibition called, The Workers, will open at MASS MoCA: a previous industrial site.  The show will explore work and labor. How the laborer relates to work. And how work is presented in contemporary art.

The show will feature photos, videos, paintings, and sculptures from about 30 artists.  We will be tracking the progress of this show for you on the blog!

Luckily for our readers – we bumped into Joe Thompson, MASS MoCA’s director, and got to pick his brain about this upcoming exhibition.

Joe is particularly intrigued with the installation by Camel Collective.  The artists are installing a 30ft long chain-link fence that will hold messages to reference a previous struggle.

This is a representation of a very similar chain-link fence that previously controlled the access to Sprague Electric.  “Many locals will remember that the fence was an odd shade of lime green,” said Joe Thompson.

The fence was installed in 1971 during a strike at Sprague.  The strike was against the current wage negotiations as prices for electric capacitors went down along the Pacific Rim and oil prices began to rise.  The employees of Sprague would insert paper coffee cups into the holes of the chain-link fence to display messages.

This is a piece that “picks at an old wound” and “evokes a particular moment of the strike,” said Joe.

“When MASS MoCA removed the fence in ’98, you could feel almost a sigh of relief through the town as a stark symbol of a really bleak chapter was removed,” said Joe.

The Workers will include many thought provoking pieces that will definitely be worth a visit! Keep checking the blog for more updates about different pieces!

When you view contemporary art do you sometimes feel like there’s something that you’re missing? It’s probably all of the background information on the concept, the development of the idea, the process of installation, and access to the artist’s brain. Here at MASS MoCA, we’re dedicated to providing you with all the tools to get the most out of your viewing experience. If you’re coming to the opening of Federico Díaz’s Geometric Death Frequency 141 this Saturday, October 23, or plan on visiting the museum in the near future, here are some things you should know before you come face-to-face with the long-term installation located in the museum’s entrance courtyard.

In brief, the site-specific data sculpture is an extremely abstract and complex technological breakdown of the transformation of matter to energy and back to matter again. Díaz used the principle of reverse transcription, working off of a photograph of the MASS MoCA courtyard. The 2D image was broken down into digital bits and pixels that were then robotically and technologically reconstructed as 3D black spheres to create a densely sculpted black wave form that while static, seems to contain a reverberating internal energy that simulates fluid movement.

CONCEPT

One of the phenomenons that Díaz considered in the early stages of this project was the evolution of the communication landscape and how society has come to rely on the transfer of information. In the not-so-far past information was transferred verbally, but in modernity communication rituals have shifted. Díaz applies these contemporary technological methods in his approach to gathering and presenting data to viewers.

“When you look at a photograph, it is flat. In the same way, when you start off with a sculpture, it is flat. Here we are reconstituting a 3D space from a 2D surface according to an algorithm: the intensity of light of a pixel defines the position and velocity of a point, a “voxel�, which is then represented by a small black sphere in the sculpture. The assembled spheres create a wave. At least that was the first idea, but I thought that was too simple, that there would be too much of the photograph still visible in it; so I decided to add in more turbulence, more fluid movement: our world is created from turbulence and is full of fluid movement. To do that, I applied to the photographic data a simulated model of fluid motion. Each light particle, as represented by sphere, was treated as if it were a water molecule, and then “shaken“. I added this fluid dynamic action one bit at a time, interpolated, frame by frame, second by second. It was in frame 141 of the simulation that the photograph disappeared in the wave, and that’s the moment I froze it.�

Also central to Díaz’s project is the idea of death and resurrection. The moment that has been documented via photograph is dead in time and space. By using recorded data to recreate that moment anew in the form of sculpture, Díaz gives it a second life. He rediscovers the original molecular energy that existed and allows it to subsist once again, almost paralleling the Law of Conservation of Energy, which states that “energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.�

TECHNOLOGY

According to Díaz, “every space sends out some geometric parameters�. In his sculpture, he extracts data (from the site) that is intangible without the use of computer technology and reinterprets it as a material object using CAD software for which he composed specialized codes and simulations. The procedure, described by the artist below, reconstructs the 2D information as a 3D form based on particle physics.

“Using this software I created a code that converted pixels which describe the lighter parts of the photographs into “fastâ€� spheres; they bounce higher and move faster when stimulated by energy. The darker elements of the photograph are slower, less reactive, and therefore remain lower in the sculpture. Through another computer simulation, these pixels-turned-3D spheres (“voxelsâ€� or “volumetric picture elementsâ€�) can be energized like a wave. The entire simulation is driven by a code. It is actually the code that makes it possible for a living form to be born again from something that was dead.”

Because of the precise nature of the project, Díaz employed the use of robots, which best understand pure data, to assemble the sculpture. Check out a video of the robots here.

MATERIAL

The 420,000 black balls used in the 50-feet long by 20-feet high sculpture are sphere of ABS, or a light polymer (also used in the production of LEGO blocks). In his consideration of material, Díaz was not only interested in simulated fluid movement, but also wanted to allow a visible movement of light. Because motion is a fundamental concept in the piece, he incorporated the way the human eye processes velocity. When something is faster, visibility is lessened. Theoretically, “velocity drains color�, which led Díaz to use the color black in his representation of the particles of light.

“Light is something that enables us to see. Light is made of particles. In the sculpture, light particles were replaced by black spheres. So they represent the fluid movement of light, like a wave, as much as they represent the motion of fluids. There is a parallel between light and water; the turbulent movement of light is similar to the movement of the particles of water. They are basically molecules that move in the same way as light does.�

This long-term installation opens to the public Saturday, October 23. Of his installation, artist Federico Díaz comments, “Creating a unique object, which transformed the museum into a new form of algorithmic architecture was a fascinating journey full of unforgettable emotions.”

Walk behind MASS MoCA’s lobby, past a previously unused part of campus that exists somewhere amid derelict industrial artifact and developed exhibition space, through the remnant of Sprague Electric’s power plant, up numerous sets of stairs, and across a suspended steel overpass. What you’ll find is that somewhere along the way you’ve forgotten where you are in space and time and crossed the threshold into another world: the world of Donald Carusi as brought to you by artist Michael Oatman.

The world that you can expect to enter is one of complexity and thoughtfully organized disarray. It’s as if you’ve stepped into the middle of a movie set, where an elaborate narrative is implied. Mis-en-scene takes on a whole new meaning in the intricate architectural choices, ambitious level of detail, and purposeful editing of interior elements. Layer upon layer of seemingly disconnected objects meld into one another to create an environment that is at once familiar, mysteriously foreign, and sure to appeal to the naturally inquisitive periphery of the human mind.

Oatman labels his technique as an installation artist “maximum collage� and “unvironment�, but finds that neither term truly encompasses the breadth of the artistic channels that he utilizes in his multifaceted projects. All Utopias Fell, his latest installation open to the public on October 23^rd, is comprised of three interconnected parts. Codex Solis is a series of solar panels and mirrors atop Building 5 that follows the textual composition of a quote by an unnamed author. The Shining is a spaceship that has mysteriously crash landed outside of the museum after 30 years of space travel, absent of its previous occupant. Enter through the silver vessel and into The Library of the Sun, Donald Carusi’s hermitage and former dwelling space where objects that exist as a residue of their intrinsic history are recontextualized to transport viewers into the missing inhabitant’s peculiar and enigmatic life.

The most discerning viewers may spend hours perusing over the space, yielding to the desire to piece together the skeletal remains of Donald Carusi’s solitary existence. A number of objects will undoubtedly lead viewers to the conclusion that Carusi was an investigator and experimenter of sorts. A copious amount of sun photographs, diagrams, and images are plastered to the interior of the space ship, referencing Carusi’s interest in the sun as both a scientific phenomenon and cultural symbol. A technical control panel reminiscent of something you might imagine in an early rocket ship is a reminder of the previous whereabouts of the craft. Other items such as jarred food, a record collection, spare building parts, hanging yarn God’s eyes, and a personal library of engineering, astronomy, nuclear power, and fiction books seem more colloquial, but are no less imbedded with symbolism and clues. These items combine to provide an intensified viewing experience that exists at first as a grain of something that we can relate to and then as a place where we become lost and engage with the art.

Although on the campus of MASS MoCA, All Utopias Fell seems to preserve the absence of gravity in space. Michael Oatman also preserves and is inspired by what artist Marcel Duchamp believed was a central component to the art experience: viewer exchange and interaction. DuChamp says, “The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act�. So indulge your appetite for art that is as thought-provoking as it is aesthetically pleasing and join us for the opening reception of Michael Oatman’s All Utopias Fell this Saturday, October 23^rd from 2-4 p.m.

written by Sarah Borup

There is still plenty of work to be done to complete our newest exhibition Material World, opening on Saturday April 24. Below are a few snapshots of what you can see in the galleries right now.

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Downstreet Art is in full swing in downtown North Adams.  While MASS MoCA has a gallery which features original art for the third chapter of George Cochrane’s Long Time Gone and there’s a spectacular space on Main Street designed by Kidspace artist Matt Bua and created by local students, there are many other galleries.  We’ll be spotlighting one here each week hoping to be able to cover them all by October.

This week, we stopped by 28 Holden Street (the gallery just next door to the Cochrane space) which has a show called Works and Days by Mark W. Mulherrin.  This survey of 39 years of Mark’s work is presented in three parts, you only have a few more days to see the first part, the second part opens on July 30.  (There are many things happening on the evening of July 30, openings, performances and the like, so its a good time to visit if you haven’t yet.)

The first part of Mark’s show was curated by our good friend David Lachman whose you might recognize from our ad campaign).  Chuck Webster curates the second part while Rich Remsberg does the third.

The exhibition consists of works on paper, paintings, installations and text.  Mark’s  work is eclectic — it explores the various consolations of myth, the uses of wit, the mirror of the archaic, what breaks us and what heals.