An Interview with Chris Bassett on NIKE: Los Angeles Defense Area

Tyler Calkin and Chris Bassett

This project actually started as a bicycle ride connecting several of the sites along Santa Clara Divide Road (3N17). It worked out to 120+ miles if I recall correctly. After trying it out, I decided that it would make for a better photo series than a set of directions. The ride/hike was just too long and difficult for more than a few people to get the experience. … More An Interview with Chris Bassett on NIKE: Los Angeles Defense Area

“It’s not a joke!” Bio-art and the aesthetics of humour

Isabel De Sena Cortabitarte

In this paper I assert that in bio-art, the use of humour as a rhetorical tool holds the potential to bring ambiguous, non-normative perspectives into ethical questions that arise from developments in the life sciences (that field concerned with the study of living organisms and the advancement of life-altering interventions, such as bioengineering and genetic manipulation). … More “It’s not a joke!” Bio-art and the aesthetics of humour

Whimmydiddles, Whirligigs, and Capital Punishment: A History of Toys and Games, Being A Partial and Idiosyncratic Exploration of Several Centuries of Developments, Focusing Largely on Europe and North America.

Tyler Calkin

Toys are for everyone, not just the young: models, miniatures and replicas are as much for adults as they are for children. And the function of a toy extends beyond a moment’s amusement. Throughout history and across cultures, toys have been created to serve as tools for teaching. Indeed, they are almost always instructive in some capacity, eve if they have not been built with a primarily pedagogical intent. Toys are reflectors and propagators of a culture’s ideology, and variably serve as teachers of moral lessons, mathematics, imperialist narratives, class distinctions, and spirituality. … More Whimmydiddles, Whirligigs, and Capital Punishment: A History of Toys and Games, Being A Partial and Idiosyncratic Exploration of Several Centuries of Developments, Focusing Largely on Europe and North America.

Play: Active – A curatorial project in the form of a workshop

Tom Leeser

The political theorist, Hannah Arendt stated that we “define labor as the opposite of play.” However the predominant value of labor has evolved from physical activities embedded in a manufacturing economy to a form of indexical finance that is decoupled from the production and exchange of things. This digitally based “fiat” economy has fractured the definitions of labor and play that was articulated by Arendt. … More Play: Active – A curatorial project in the form of a workshop