Made in L.A. artist Kathryn Andrews discusses how working with fabricators influences the final product.

Filed under: Behind the Scenes, Made in L.A. Artists, Video

DUBLAB co-founder Mark McNeill, a.k.a. Frosty.

Made in L.A. Soundmap is a companion iPhone app to Made in L.A. 2012. Soundmap explores Los Angeles as context for the exhibition through interviews with Made in L.A. artists and curators, providing visitors with insights into art making in Los Angeles today.

Excerpts from audio interviews with Made in L.A. artists and curators are embedded into an L.A. area map, with each excerpt—or segment—relating to a destination on the map. As the app user moves through the city, the audio segments are automatically triggered by the user’s location. In between segments music curated by local collective DUBLAB creates a soundtrack for the journey. DUBLAB co-founder Mark McNeill, a.k.a. Frosty, talks with Soundmap co-creators Elizabeth Cline and Amanda Law about the curatorial process for the DUBLAB playlist.

Amanda & Elizabeth: What kind of mood or vibe were you thinking of when choosing tracks for Soundmap?

Mark: When selecting songs for the Soundmap I had Smokey Robinson’s words in mind, “Music was made for love, cruisin’ is made for love. I love it when we’re cruisin’ together.” I thought it would be nice to create a soundtrack for communal cruising by L.A. art lovers. I love the idea that we can all be virtually connected in a city-wide tour of inspiring landmarks while enjoying music that reflects the wide spectrum vibes of Los Angeles. All of the music I selected for the Soundmap was made by L.A. musicians (for a full list see bottom of this entry). The art presented in Made in L.A. is such a great document of the current visual community, so I thought it would be fitting for the audio companion to be equally representative of the vibrant music community. We are the ultimate car city but let’s not forget to activate the Soundmap while cycling, walking, surfing and gliding.

A&E: Do you have a favorite Soundmap moment to share?

M: My favorite Soundmap moment was the first time I activated it. The Soundmap is an elegantly designed, functional tool that can spark action packed excursions around L.A. I was totally wowed on the first use and rerouted my predetermined path of duty to hit some more hotspots. I ended up seeing a much different side of L.A. than I would have otherwise and it has continued to sway me in new directions.

A&E: What types of responses have you heard from people about Soundmap?

M: I’ve been seeing a lot of people chirping about the Soundmap on Twitter. It seems like folks have really grasped the offer to take a sound tour of L.A. People have also been activating the soundtrack in contexts other than the art/info/tour experience suggested. I’ve heard from folks taking the Soundmap App with them to the beach to just relax and enjoy the tunes. Another person told me they enjoyed a great sounding grocery shopping journey with the Soundmap at their side.

A&E: What do you think is the future of this kind of technology?

M: I hope more art institutions will develop apps to accompany their exhibitions. It creates a rich experience that deepens the impact of a show, and in the case of the Soundmap, serves as a stand-alone tool that provides continued adventures long after the gallery walls have been rehung. I love the fact that this app in particular really motivates people to get out and explore the incredible city we live in.

MUSICIANS ON THE SOUNDMAP PLAYLIST
The Life Force Trio
OJO
Sun Araw
Piano Overlord
Soft Metals
Languis & Fer Chloca
Teebs
Jonwayne
Gaby Hernandez
Blank Blue
Nobody + Mystic Chords of Memory
Build an Ark
SA-RA
Austin Peralta
Carlos Nino & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
Anenon
Daedelus
Dntel
Co.fee
Carlos y Gaby
Asura
Kutmah
Julia Holter
Adam Rudolph
Hashim B.
TAKE
Golden Hits
DJ Lengua
SFV Acid
Weave
Peaking Lights
Lucky Dragons
Farmer Dave Scher
Suzanne Kraft
Brogan Bentley
Thundercat
GB
Teebs & yuk
Andres Renteria
matthewdavid
Alejandro Cohen
Pharoahs
Adventure Time

Filed under: Behind the Scenes, Soundmap

Artist Fiona Connor at the photocopier in the Hammer Museum Lobby. Photo by Marianne Williams.

The following is an interview conducted by the Hammer Museum’s new media associate Amanda Law with Made in L.A. artist Fiona Connor regarding her project Lobbies on Wilshire Publishing House. From June 28 – July 12 Connor worked with a host of collaborators to activate her installation by organizing a workshop and publishing house to create an alternate catalogue for Made in L.A. 2012. During this time Connor generated content by collecting documentation and reaction to the exhibition and events from invited guests and museum visitors. Articles were printed using a photocopying machine installed in the lobby and distributed daily.

Amanda: How long have you been working in the lobby now?

Fiona: I’ve been here for two weeks.

Photo by Salonee Bhaman.

A: What were you responding to in terms of creating this publication?

F: Um. That’s a good question. I think it came—That’s a really good question.

A: Was it a long journey to this point?

F: Yeah, such a long journey.

A: Did it start with the stairs, or…

F: No, it started with coming into—being invited to respond to a lobby, and the idea of making the lobby more lobby than it already was. And through this clogging, all that multiplicity, how would it change the way we acted within it? Part of that proposal was to take all the printers from the whole building and relocate then in the lobby. I’m interested in how upstairs, in the admin offices, there’s all this printing and production that goes on, but there’s no visibility, so taking that site of production and transferring it to the lobby—so that every time somebody prints something from admin, they would come downstairs and gather their printing.

Photo by Marianne Williams.

A: So people are actually doing that?

F: No, that got kaboshed. So at the same time that I was developing that proposal, we were developing these shows where I was trying to collapse the documentation of a site specific installation with the installation itself, because it’s like a problem of doing installation – can these works travel? Like they can’t transcend time and space. Which is a really important value, or something that people ask of art to do. So, I thought if the publication gets generated and produced in the space, it’ll be more close than doing this more conservative documentation that doesn’t question how work is documented. So saying a catalogue is another type of architecture of an exhibition, but then that architecture moves past the parameters of the show. What if you put as much rigor and thought into the documentation as the work itself – so acknowledging it as a new site.

A: So say I’m a visitor to the museum, and I walk up to your setup–would you interact with me?

F: Definitely.

A: What would you say to me?

F: The most important part of the work is that it gives a platform for visitors to – for their voice to be inserted, historicized, cataloged. I’ll basically tell you it’s an alternative catalog, and you can take as many as you want, and it would be great to get a response. And that conversation can go as far as you want, to the point of like, someone who comes and stays the whole day with us. It’s a very messy open project and I think the only rule is that all of the content is generated within close proximity to the exhibition, which is the point of departure from a lot of catalogs, which are produced before the exhibition. So there are the opinions of Jarl Mohn, and then there’s the voice of the artists, voice of the visitors, and voices of the curators. They’re all collapsed together in this one document.

Photo by Marianne Williams.

A: When can we pick up a catalog?

F: They are going to be placed in libraries in LA. And also it’s going to be scanned into a giant PDF. I’m not sure where that will be available yet, but maybe it’ll be a website where it’ll just be a click to download it.

A: What have you noticed by being in the lobby every day?

F: It’s actually amazing how productive it’s been. If you have a table and a computer and a power plug, you can just really settle. We’ve been really focused.

A: How has the technology worked for you? Have there been any crashes?

F: No, we’ve been good. Just the usual jams.

Photo by Marianne Williams.

A: Working at the museum, I love coming through this space now. I’m not a huge fan of this lobby space, but having somebody inhabit the space that’s not normally inhabited makes it much more human.

F: Hopefully! These guys have been working so hard.

A: It looks like it. You want to give an oral shout out to…

F: Yeah, definitely! Emi, and Salonee, and Ana, and Alex, and Elizabeth Cline’s been…it’s been a really intense conversation, because we’ve both been pushing our boundaries heaps, there’s been a lot experimentation for both of us. You know? I reckon like, I got a feeling that it was a leap of faith.

A: That’s cool.

F: Yeah, it is cool.

July 13, 2012
Hammer Museum

Filed under: Behind the Scenes, Made in L.A. Artists

Hammer Senior Graphic Designer, Julia Luke, takes us into her office and talks a bit about the collaboration with Colby Poster Printing Co. and how the identity of Made in L.A. 2012 came to be.

Run Time 3 min. 15 sec.

Filed under: Behind the Scenes, Video

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to sit in on the very beginning of a rehearsal for Made in L.A. artist Kenyatta A. C. Hinkle’s “Kentifrica Is: An Ethnomusicology Performance,” which will be held tonight (June 14) at 7:30 p.m. at the Hammer, and performed once more on August 2 at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater.

I left before the full run through of the performance, since I didn’t want to miss out on the full effect of seeing it tonight, but watching this group set up has made me even more excited to see it. Kentifrica Is draws from Hinkle’s larger ethnographic project, Kentifrica, in which she explores the “creation of a continent where the history of Kentucky and the ancestral heritage of West Africa converge.”

This performance will be by Hinkle and ethnomusicologists studying Kentifrican musical forms; it is presented in collaboration with performer and composer Kevin Robinson as well as instrument maker Eugene Moon. One of the most interesting parts of the rehearsal was catching a glimpse of some of Hinkle’s original instruments, both on stage and in action:

I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a few preliminary costume ideas, as well as hear the instruments in action—and can’t wait to see the show when it comes together.

You can see the entire performance tonight (6/14) at 7:30 pm at the Hammer, or on August 2 at 7:30 pm at the Barnsdall Gallery Theater; admission is free!

–Salonee Bhaman, Communications & Public Engagement Getty Multicultural Intern

Filed under: Behind the Scenes, Events

There’s a lot of work that goes into putting on an exhibition. Especially one that involves 60 artists, 3 venues, and more than 200 works.

On the eve of the opening of Made in L.A. 2012 we bring you a glimpse into the installation process.

Meg Cranston has taken over our Lobby walls with a site-specific installation based on this year’s color forecast for homes and fashion.

The work began as a grey wall, morphed into rows of brightly colored rectangles, and finally transitioned to more than 20 giant Bic lighters. “Why the lighters? I always liked that tradition of lighting a lighter at the end of a rock show. I like the reference of fire and ritual, and so I thought, you know I’ll do a kind of celebratory piece for all the artists in the show and just for L.A. in general,” said Meg Cranston in an audio interview for the exhibition’s companion mobile app, Made in L.A. Soundmap.

On the adjacent wall a large bright yellow collage—aptly titled California (Full Size), 2012 —depicts a girl breathing fire framed by chairs, trash bags, and “all this kind of stuff” that [Cranston] think[s] is L.A.ish. “L.A. is a big celebration of even the junk, even the stuff that isn’t considered high culture. L.A. kind of says yes to everything.”

Lindbrook Terrace now holds a giant installation by Pearl C. Hsiung.

The artist putting the finishing touches on “From Above it is not Bright; From below it is not Dark.”

Our prep crew works tirelessly to make sure that all the galleries will be perfect by the opening.

From left to right: Lucia Fabio, Byron Reynolds, Seija Rohkea, Luke Whitlatch

Well, almost perfect.
Dan Finsel’s Installation

At the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery Cayetano Ferrer has created his own mini Vegas…

At LAXART Mario Ybarra Jr. of Slanguage took some time out from install to model for us.

The show opens to the public tomorrow. Come see these amazing works in person.

PUBLIC OPENINGS:
Saturday, June 2, 11am-5pm Hammer Museum
Saturday, June 2, 12-3pm LAXART
Sunday, June 3, 2-5pm LA Municipal Art Gallery

-Miriam Newcomer, Communications Fellow

Filed under: Behind the Scenes

It all began a long long time ago, when the biennial exhibition was announced…no wait, that was only, like, six months ago! Anyway Elizabeth Cline, Curatorial Associate of Public Engagement and I began talking about how we could create an innovative way of delivering interpretive materials to museum goers for the biennial. There were three items in this recipe that led us to the Soundmap:

1. We needed to create something that could stand up to the heft of a large-scale exhibition featuring 60 artists.
2. How could we address the fact that there would be multiple venues for this exhibition across Los Angeles?
3. How could we create something so that museum goers would not use their devices in the galleries and instead would simply commune with the artworks?

“Ah-ha! What about the time spent in the car?!” we exclaimed. And hence, Soundmap was born. Well, it took a while before it became what it is today. There were many ideas initially.

Do you get it? Don’t worry, I’m not sure I do either.

Initially we thought about putting rippling rings around each of the venues and every time the user traveled through a new ring, new content would be delivered. The problem? The time a person traveled across a distance would certainly vary and thus the length of the audio segments placed in those rings would either be too long or too short. Are you lost? Don’t worry. Let’s just say that this idea didn’t work technically.

Alan Stuart of One Long House drawing the wireframes for Soundmap. Photo by R. Kevin Nelson.

Many conversations with many intelligent people led us to Alan Stuart, Creative Director at One Long House and Kevin Nelson, Coder Extraordinaire. Collectively we decided to sprinkle audio segments across the city so that what people are listening to would directly correspond to where they are.

The analog version of Soundmap. Each of the yellow post-its represent an audio segment.

So if a listener was traveling down 7^th street past all of the fabric stores, Made in L.A. artist Michele O’Marah would be talking about how the fashion district in downtown L.A. was a huge inspiration to her. They call this a locative media experience. The audio is triggered by GPS, which is tracking your location as you use the app.

Artists Jim Fetterley and Rich Bott, who collectively go by Animal Charm, tell us stories about living in Los Angeles.

An outtake from our audio interview with Animal Charm. The toughest part of the audio interview for the interviewees was always the introduction.

So while the app was being built, Elizabeth and I started interviewing artists and curators. And editing, and interviewing, and editing. Then there came the testing period, along with many testing fears. We kept asking ourselves, “Can we get this thing to work?” The closer we got to our deadline the worse I slept.

Taking programmer Kevin Nelson for an extensive test drive across the city.

Kevin’s laptop while coding in the backseat of the car on a test drive.

For some reason out of all of the participating iPhone testers, my phone did not cooperate the most. I would arrive at work tense in the morning, because I had not hit any of the hotspots on my drive. Elizabeth, on the other hand, would report an almost-perfect Soundmap experience. This kept happening day in and day out. Finally, as Elizabeth, Kevin, and I were doing one last extensive test drive across the city before we submitted the code to Apple, I asked Kevin, “What do you think is going on with my phone? Is there something that I don’t have turned on in the phone settings?” Kevin laughed, “Oh, you mean the ‘Make-GPS-not-so-sucky’ button?” For a few minutes we drove in silence as Kevin fiddled with my phone and then he put my phone in front of my face. My Wi-Fi was turned off. “That’s the problem,” he said resolutely. “Nooooooo…” I retorted. A few minutes later my phone chimed for a hotspot I had never hit during the course of our testing. And now I hit every hotspot every time.

COMING SOON!
Made in L.A. Soundmap is a site-specific mobile audio experience designed for use while traveling to, from, and in between the three biennial venues in Culver City, Los Feliz, and Westwood, providing visitors with insights into art making in Los Angeles today. Made in L.A. Soundmap explores Los Angeles as the context for the exhibition through interviews with Made in L.A. artists and curators. In a first-of-its kind usage of geolocative technologies, audio segments from these interviews are placed throughout a city map, with each location relating specifically to the segment content. Audio segments play automatically as an app user moves through the city, responding to the users’ specific location. In between segments, music curated by the local collective DUBLAB creates a soundtrack for one’s journey through the city. Made in L.A. Soundmap is a free iPhone app available in the iTunes store.

–Amanda Law, New Media Associate

Filed under: Behind the Scenes, Soundmap