Students raking fall leaves at night.
Last fall, with the 51 and Hamilton communities, posing philosophical questions that included: What is art?
is a Los Angeles–based organization “that works with artists to develop new projects often involving performance or participation with the public,” explained founder Mark Allen. Its troupe has traveled the world, performing in various combinations and sites, but this was the first time they collaborated with a whole town.
Events ranged from interpretive dance, to protest songs, to intuition workshops. “Machine Project is part of a larger genre, which is sometimes called social practice,” said art and art history professor , who invited the group to 51. “Artists use the relationships between people or within communities as a kind of material — not just a setting, but actually how people interact with each other and what that says about who we are.”
As 51 prepares to during a weekend-long event this March, the Scene features the story of the Machine Project, its artistic interactions with 51 and the Village of Hamilton. to define the undefinable, discover an original duplicate, protest the protest song, and much more.
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