(M)end Time
EXIT ART – Collective/Performative show (April 10 – 14, 2012)

A series of talks/meetings/workshops that engaged and analyzed the mania surrounding post-apocalyptic anxieties in the collective psyche, but will also function as a series of consultations towards the making of a performance.

Tuesday, April 10
H.P. Lovecraft Book Group with Paul Halpern

A public discussion of Lovecraft’s short story, “A Shadow out of Time,” and an article on the fourth dimension, time travel, and anxiety as exemplified in this particular story written by Halpern, a respected physicist.

Dr. Paul Halpern is Professor of Physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. A prolific author, he has written twelve science books and dozens of articles. His interests range from space, time and higher dimensions to cultural aspects of science. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright Scholarship, and an Athenaeum Literary Award, he has appeared on numerous television and radio programs. His books include: Countdown to Apocalypse: A Scientific Exploration of the End of the World; The Great Beyond: Higher Dimensions, Parallel Universes and the Extraordinary Search for a Theory of Everything; What’s Science Ever Done for Us?: What The Simpsons Can Teach Us About Physics, Robots, Life, and the Universe; and most recently, Collider: The Search for the World’s Smallest Particles.

Thursday, April 12
Conversation with Cori Ellison, an opera dramaturg, about the last act of Götterdämmerung
Oleson and Ellison will meet to discuss ideas of apocalypticredemption in Götterdämmerung, the final act of Wagner's Ring Cycle.

Cori Ellison is a highly respected opera dramaturg who has worked on major productions around the world. She was at New York City Opera from 1997-2010, where she was responsible for the company’s production dramaturgy(research), supertitles, and program book, as well as its adult outreach programs, curating both its pre-performance event series and creating its acclaimed “Opera Matters” series of collaborations with other noted New York cultural institutions. Ms. Ellison began her intense involvement in the development of contemporary American opera through New York City Opera’s annual “VOX American Opera Showcase,” where she was part of the selection team and worked with individual composers and librettists. For four consecutive seasons, she has served on the faculty of American Lyric Theatre’s Composer Librettist Development Program, where she teaches operatic dramaturgy. In 2009, she was the first opera dramaturg invited to participate in the inaugural Yale Institute for Music Theatre. In addition, she is a sought-after private consultant to numerous composers and librettists.

Friday, April 13
4:30-6 pm: 2012 Readiness Workshop with Anne Hall
Anne Hall’s inaugural workshop for a monthly 2012 Reading Group. We made galactic compasses, Mayan moon charts and a mime interpreted José Argüelles’ Mayan Factor, Harmonic Convergence and Law of Time theories. Students left the workshop with a personal toolkit including their galactic signature and a roadmap for the months ahead.

Anne Hall’s work explores communication between seemingly separated dimensions including humans and other animals, terrestrial and astral spaces and past and future time zones. Working primarily with photography, Hall uses everything from infrared heat sensitive film to holographic plates. In 2008 Anne Hall’s first book of photographs, The Known World, was published by Capricious. Anne has been included in the NY Photo Festival and American Photography twice, was nominated for the Santa Fe Prize in Photography, and is published in LTTR and Documenta 12. Anne received her BA in Studio Art from Oberlin College 1997 and her MFA from RISD 2006. She has been a visiting artist at the following schools and museums: ICP, Parsons, Mass Art, The DeCordova Museum, Tufts and SCAD.

Saturday, April 14, 7pm
Final performance: A means to an end

An exercise in dimension, line, anxiety, and endings. Online forums, lists, Wagner’s operas, religion and animal consciousness are re-combined in this community production. With Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Allen Frame, Guadalupe Rosales, Amy Sadao, Nelson Santos, and Diwa Tamrong. Music by Rainy Orteca.

Rainy Orteca is an internationally known musician, sound designer, DJ and composer based in New York. Rainy attended Smith College, The School of Visual Arts and SUNY at Empire State. Her work has appeared in and been written about been written about in Time Out London, GQ magazine, The London Times, The Independent 2008. Recently, she took part in the Feedback: VVAVE show at Recess Art. As a performing musician, she has worked with notable artists such as: Sarah Silverman, Antony and the Johnsons, Lou Reed, Divinyls, Nina Persson, Maggie Cheung, Lesley Gore, Mascott and Cat Power. In 2008, operating under the moniker of Dead Air, she released an album on the UK label Reveal Records which features songs with "…scatter gun delivery, trash aesthetic and electro-analogue tension…" (The Times of London).

Photo credits: Verity Combe, Anne Hall, Jeanine Oleson, Justin Wolf