Conceived, in unveils Gary Allan the words gary allen states of its mission statement, "to encourage the heroic experiments of the gracefully overambitious," it plays host to exhibitions, performances, lectures and workshops on a broad and sometimes baffling range of topics revolving loosely around the intersection of art and technology. If you missed the cetacean-channeling SUVs (actually an installation by Peter Segerstrom), you might have caught "Psychobotany," an exhibition exploring "revolutionary breakthroughs in human/plant communication"; the Dorkbot Dorkbake, a bake-off in which contestants were required to construct their own ovens powered solely by the heat of a 100-watt light bulb; or the four-week Felt and Circuits Workshop, in which participants were instructed in the arts of both felt making and circuit board construction, with the goal of producing "your own noisy synthesizer creature from scratch. "It's an exciting time for art in L. A. , and nowhere is this more palpable -- nowhere are the reasons for it clearer -- than in a place like Machine, where the siren song of a fevered market holds little sway; anything goes, curatorially; and no one's getting paid enough to be haughty. Of all the city's cultural resources -- prestigious schools, ambitious museums, a robust gallery scene -- the most significant by far is its ever-welling population of artists, and it's from this pool that these organizations have arisen: institutions that function, to one degree or another, as art projects in themselves, driven by ideas and a spirit of collaboration, whose offbeat programming aims to challenge the boundaries of what we conceive art to be. The progenitors, most would agree, are the Museum of Jurassic Technology and the Center for Land Use Interpretation (opened in 1988 and 1994, respectively). In their wake have come Machine Project, Betalevel (formerly C-Level), Farmlab, Telic Arts Exchange, Dangerous Curve, the Velaslavasay Panorama and Monte Vista Projects. There are also nomadic organizations like Art2102, the Institute for Figuring and Outpost for Contemporary Art, as well as educational experiments like the Sundown Schoolhouse (formerly the Sundown Salon) and the Mountain School of Arts. They've opened for different reasons; they have different agendas, different vibes and different financial arrangements. Machine, for instance, has a technological bent; Farmlab's focus is environmental activism Dangerous Curve has become a center for experimental music. Betalevel, located in a basement down an alley in Chinatown, has the furtive, secretive feel of a speak-easy; the Panorama, which occupies an old theater near USC, models itself on the entertainment culture of the 19th century. Some (Machine and Telic) are registered nonprofits, surviving on donations and grants; others (Betalevel, Dangerous Curve) are internally funded Farmlab is wholly subsidized by the Annenberg Foundation. They are, however, very much in communication, often sharing board members, as well as contacts and audiences. As Lauren Bon from Farmlab puts it: "There's a whole mushroom spore of them.
They're all connected under the surface, but they are also very independent. "Outside the boxThe notion of an alternative art space is nothing new, of course, but there are a few characteristics that distinguish this current crop from more traditionally structured nonprofits such as LACE and LAXART, or from artist-run commercial galleries like Overtones, Another Year in LA and Pharmaka -- characteristics that suggest something more along the lines of a movement gary allan wife . There's the radical quirkiness of their programming, for one thing; their enthusiasm for pedagogy and do-it-yourself culture; their focus on science, ecology and technologies both old and new; their disregard for the traditional boundaries between disciplines; and, most strikingly, their deep commitment to cultivating community. While most of these groups produce exhibitions, what they thrive on are events: performances, readings, lectures, tours, classes, workshops, salons, parties -- any excuse to bring a group of people physically together in a room, so as to counteract the alienating tendencies of both the mainstream art world and the culture at large. "One of my biggest pet peeves," says Fritz Haeg, founder of Sundown Schoolhouse, "is the way that art schools tend to set these precedents for their students on the first day of school: They send them into their white box all alone, like artists are meant to sit alone in white boxes and make things, and then those things go out into other white boxes where people look at them alone and then buy them. "The most creative people in our society have self-ghettoized themselves so that they're virtually irrelevant to the society at large, and I am really interested in how artists or designers can step outside of those kind of boxes and have a bigger impact on that society. "The Schoolhouse, like the salons Haeg organized for six years prior, takes place in his own home, a geodesic dome in Mount Washington gary alan . Now in its second year, it assembles a small group of people from varying backgrounds to meet every Sunday for 12 weeks, 12 hours a day, to pursue a loose course of study revolving around a broad theme (this year it's "Planet of the Humans"), with a rotating assortment of teachers. Each day begins with a period of nonverbal movement (yoga, dance, etc. ), proceeds in a self-determined way through lectures, discussions and a communally generated lunch, and ends with a cocktail party gary allan site Gary Allan - garyallan . Last year's curriculum included a performance and video art workshop with artist Yoshua Okon, a writing seminar with poet Eileen Miles and a discussion with Mark Allen and Jason Brown of Machine Project on "the aesthetic, social and practical implications of experiencing/making/thinking art with other people. " The term culminated in a 12-hour bike tour of Los Angeles, with each student sporting a red cape custom-designed by Andrea Zittel. "We're surrounded by media that's so predigested and so homogenized," says Haeg, who spoke from New York, where he was working on an unrelated project, "that people are just craving one-off, unique kind of messed-up experiences that aren't fully formed or fully figured out yet, that are more tactile, that are about putting people back in touch with each other and encouraging some real critical thinking. "Play it forwardOne word that came up frequently in conversations with the people who run these spaces, many of whom have art school backgrounds and also currently teach, is "model. " The institutional structure of these organizations is not an incidental factor -- not a shell for the project to exist in -- but the essence of the project itself gary wife . The availability of viable models is a matter of great interest, therefore, and reflected, in several cases, in the spaces' names. "The idea with Machine," says founder Allen, "was that we would feed in ideas and different people and different technologies and it would be generative, it would be constantly producing projects, so that the people who might be our audience one day might be teaching a class the next day, and somebody who learns something in one of the classes might be producing a project with that knowledge later in the gallery. So that there was more of a flow of resources, more of a rhizomatic model, if I dare, than the sort of traditional gallery system. "This kind of generative potential is also central to Telic directors Fiona Whitton and Sean Dockray, who added "Arts Exchange" to the gallery's name in 2005 for that reason. "What we've developed within the mission," Whitton says, "is kind of an exchange between artist and viewer, gallery and artist, artist and artist, that builds on a notion of a social space. We don't want to just see an artwork coming in, being here, being viewed, and then leaving.
It actually comes in and activates the space, or the space activates it. "The link, for Whitton and Dockray, between the work and the space is the event gary allan tickets . To these ends, they encourage the artists they work with to orchestrate performances, readings, discussions and other functions in conjunction with any physical installation they create gary allan dont tell mama . This summer's "The Fundraising Show" consisted exclusively of events gary allan's wife . Every day for about a month, a different artist was asked to perform some kind of moneymaking endeavor in the vicinity of the gallery gary allan im doing my best Gary Allan . ("Like a group show," Dockray explains, "but extended over time, not in space. ")S. E Barnet and Hillary Mushkin sold lemonade and watercolors. Anna Oxygen hosted a "grandma-themed dessert auction," with a live phone line to her grandmother, who offered advice on various topics. While Telic did retain a portion of the proceeds (it was a genuine fundraiser), the idea, Dockray says, was "to make the transactional nature of the artwork fundamentally a part of it" -- something, he adds, that "comes up in a lot of the work we show. "Planting, healingFarmlab, for its part, feels every bit a laboratory. Located in an old warehouse just under the Spring Street overpass downtown, the sprawling headquarters includes indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces, offices, large workshop and discussion areas, a spacious kitchen and, tucked between the concrete overpass supports, an open-air performance venue they've dubbed Under Spring. The centerpiece of a recent exhibition, "The Garden of Brokenness," was a working carousel built from old chairs, tables and other found objects, designed by Bon, artist George Herms and composer Jeremy Mage and intended (somewhat ironically) as a monument for Confluence Park.
Surrounding it, and spilling out into the outdoor space, were a number of "Junker Gardens": abandoned cars, reclaimed by the Farmlab team, whose various cavities had been filled with soil and planted with vegetables and flowers. The organization, which includes a core crew of six and a rotating array of consultants, is non-hierarchical and all decisions -- "from budget decisions," Bon explains, "to things like the dishes" -- are made collectively. Stop in for one of their weekly Friday salons, when they serve lunch and host a variety of speakers (recent visitors included a team from the L. A Planning Commission, an L. A gary allan concerts . River activist, a carousel historian and a mushroom expert), and you might think you stumbled into some utopian hippie collective: people of all ages, from all (or at least many) walks of life, milling about, talking about the saving the planet, while children and dogs scamper happily underfoot. "This is a place where people come together," Farmlab's executive director Adolfo Nodal says over slices of his wife's bread pudding, just after one of the salons gary allen's wife . "From the art world, from the environmental world, politics, science -- all together to rub shoulders and figure out what to do. "To call Farmlab "alternative" might be a stretch, given its scale, its affiliation with the Annenberg Foundation (where Bon, granddaughter of founder Walter Annenberg, is a trustee) and the stature of many of its team members (Nodal, for instance, ran the L. A gary herzberg . Cultural Affairs Department for 13 years and now heads the Cultural Affairs Commission. ) This is not a starving-artist enterprise gary alen . Its mission, however, is far from mainstream. Recent projects include rescuing fruit trees from the South Central Farm, a community garden that was recently lost to development (they're being replanted at the Huntington Gardens) and installing 30 portable "ag bins" -- wooden crates converted to planters -- on skid row for growing vegetables and flowers for the homeless community. "Farmlab feels that creativity can bring recognition to some of these things," Bon says. "It's really an action-based project that's about revealing values we all share; we just don't know how to manifest them because we're in a strange juggernaut between politics, real estate and the disempowerment of those without the capacity to buy into those arenas. "When Bon described this network of alternative spaces as a "mushroom spore," it was likely because she had mushrooms on her mind: another of Farmlab's current endeavors is an investigation of microremediation or, in her words, the "healing of toxic sites through the growth of mushrooms. "We might consider the metaphor, then, on another level as well: that these spaces play some part in regenerating the soil of the art world. Without overestimating the present toxicity of that soil, it's safe to say these spaces bring a number of qualities deficient in periods dominated by the logic of the market: ideas, convictions, a communitarian ethic and -- something one almost forgets to even expect anymore -- integrity. . KABUL, Afghanistan — U. S.
and Afghan troops hiked across rugged terrain Thursday to reach the wreckage of a civilian helicopter that crashed in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, killing up to 16 people, including at least two Americans. A purported Taliban spokesman claimed that the rebels had shot down the chopper, but a military official said bad weather probably caused the crash. The Russian-made MI-8 helicopter, owned by the Afghan government and operated by a private company, crashed Wednesday about 25 miles northeast of the city of Khowst, in a region where Al Qaeda and Taliban militants are active It was flying from Kabul, the capital. Afghan and U. S gary allan concert Gary Allan - garyallan . troops had recovered 12 bodies and were searching for four others in the rugged mountainous terrain, said Col Tom Collins, a spokesman for the U. S . -led coalition At least two U. S angela allan . civilians were among the dead; the others were Afghans and foreigners, he said. The Dutch military said two officers were killed in the crash, its first fatalities in Afghanistan, where the Netherlands has 1,500 troops as part of a NATO-led multinational security force gary allens . Officials said there were no survivors. The helicopter was operated by a logistics firm, Tryco Inc gary suicide . A Tryco official in Kabul said the craft had been rented by Fluor Corp. , a U. S. firm doing construction work in Khowst province, 90 miles southeast of Kabul. . NAHARIYA, Israel — It was 1 a. m. , only hours after the start of Israel's offensive in Lebanon, when hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel received warning of imminent rocket attacks by Hezbollah militants. Within an hour, 180 patients of the Western Galilee Hospital -- children, the elderly, newborns and expectant mothers -- were moved into the hospital's labyrinth of underground bomb shelters. The evacuation in the early hours of July 13 marked the first use of Israel's only underground medical facility, a warren of concrete tunnels and bunkers with 450 beds that has become the front-line treatment center for wounded soldiers and residents in northern Israel. "We thought we'd never have to use it," Daniel said, sitting in his office for an interview that was interrupted by a beeper updating him about new casualties. The energetic 60-year-old has spent most of the last two weeks at the hospital, returning home only for quick showers and fresh clothes. "We could go on for months here without any problems," said Daniel, a decorated veteran of three wars who has treated 60 soldiers under fire. The hospital has admitted 750 Israelis since the conflict began.
In that time, more than 300 rockets have landed in the city, on the Mediterranean coast about five miles from the border with Lebanon. The underground shelter, which houses about 200 patients, is a maze of about a dozen rooms connected by tunnels wide enough for ambulances to ferry patients from a helicopter landing pad outside. Previously used for linen deliveries and trash removal, the tunnels are scarred and pitted, the air in them dank and stuffy, the walls stained yellow. Most of the patients crowd into one large room, the size of an elementary school gymnasium gary allan photos . Curtainless beds provide little privacy, and there is even less tranquillity amid the din of activity. The wards are marked by printed signs hanging on thin partitions country music . Relatives hang around where they can, while some patients read newspapers or nap under blue blankets. Nearby, an intensive-care room holds 20 beds, with barely room to get around them best country music . An adjacent storage closet has been converted into a resuscitation room. Another room holds infants and children of the hospital staff pat green tour dates . Gary Allan tickets The children have been entertained by an Irish folk singer and a clown. Babies in cribs share space with teens, who sit around drawing or singing. Most would have been in summer camps if not for the rocket attacks. Above the complex, and fortified by 23-inch-thick walls, are bomb-proof operating rooms, protected, like the bunkers, from chemical and biological attacks. The glass windows at the entrance to the hospital are taped to prevent glass from flying if it is hit in a rocket attack.
Dozens of beds are piled near the entrance in preparation for a possible mass casualty event . Several days ago, a number of rockets landed nearby, one at the fence surrounding the hospital. Daniel came up with the idea of creating an underground facility in 1981, after rockets fired from Lebanon smashed into the hospital and wounded three employees. He modeled it after an underground hospital in Buffalo, N. Y. , his wife's hometown, which he said was established to house patients during severe snowstorms. The bunkers appear to reassure the wounded. "I feel safer in here," said Boris Naor, 57, who immigrated to Israel from Siberia, Russia, seven years ago kenny chesney tour . "You can't hear the noise from the rockets. "Even among others wounded by the shelling, Naor stood out keith urban tour dates . His face was dotted with stitches and drying wounds, and his arm and leg were swathed in bandages; he was injured when a rocket slammed through the roof of his house and into his living room . Naor's wife, Larisa, showed visitors a plastic cup with four bloodstained chips of concrete from the living room wall, which had been taken out of Naor's arm. Lives have been saved in the bunkers. This week, a patient was brought in after shrapnel pierced his back, severed a major vein and emerged from his chest. He arrived at the hospital near death, with no pulse and very low blood pressure.
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