It’s remix-the-city-time: the Conflux Festival is back. This annual NYC-based festival of psychogeography promises some great urban tinkering, featuring the work of several artists we’ve featured here on Inhabitat. From Eve Mosher to Swimming Cities to Reverend Billy, the artists of Conflux use technology to explore public space in the city — re-defining the city and its proper use and maintenance.
Friday and Saturday include all-day presentations and workshops in NYU Steinhardt’s Barney Building. A few questions addressed in the workshops over the weekend: How can we use new tools and technologies to organize and connect with audiences? How do you make and ride a beautiful junk from Koper to Venice with many dirty people, put on a show, and then take it all apart again? How do you put on a performance in the subway?
Above all, the festival provides a toolkit for participants taking apart the city and putting it back together again. The artists transform urban space from the concrete blah we walk past every day to a thriving, liquid character in our everyday lives. Like your mom. But don’t do this kind of deconstructing on your mom.
You might recall artist Eve Mosher’s piece Insert_Here (pictured above) from last year’s CitySol: it involves the playful suggestions of sustainable additions to urban space — which Mosher then digitally enhances. This year she’s invited people to “rethink” their neighborhoods in her Friday afternoon workshop.
Other workshops involve text messaging the fish in the East River (seriously!), a blindfolded Urban Disorientation Game, and an instructional How-To on Breaking into public space.
On Sunday, the city will explode with ConfluxCity, a “user-generated” event in the spirit of Burning Man or PARK(ing) Day, with performances, parades, workshops and projects all day. Fans of The Yes Men can witness their Survivaballs out in full force! There’s a google map of scheduled events provided for more precise wandering.
Whether you love messing with space, hate urban re-development, are a performance junkie or just love important outside playtime, Conflux promises to be an inspiration, yet again, to the perpetual improvement and analysis of our increasingly urban lives.
+ Conflux 2009 Schedule
+ Conflux 2008: Street Spinning
+ Conflux 2008
+ Conflux 2007
