By the way, if you’ve written us asking about the video documentation of Conflux 2007 presentations, we’re working on the final editing touches and  will have video available soon. Stay tuned.

My modified experience began after our impromptu walking tour of the payphones that I organized on behalf of MetroColorCollision for “Just Another 3704558 [asshole]” but that’s a separate post altogether. To particpate in Kurt Bigenho’s “Experiential Modifiers” project, we made our way through the crowd at HQ because we too wanted a bright, pink object to play with, fondle, wear or probe. After a brief consultation with the modification specialists, my friends and I acquired a giant pink helmet, pink maracas, and a pink toy automatic car. Becky wore the helmet because she bikes everywhere, and although the helmet covered her entire head and face, it still seemed appropriate for her special modified experience. Sara got to play with the automatic car; while under normal circumstances toy cars are annoying, useless chunks of plastic that make horrible noises and jam into your legs, this one was pink, soft and cushy therefore entirely acceptable. I got the pink maracas. A little dancing, a little banging on the head, and my modified experience seemed a veritable success.
The project is a fun way to interact with objects in real time and space, to change an otherwise linear experience of time during the course of one’s day. If each object is restructured and reconfigured to represent the mundane and the obvious, by turning it into a bright pink artifact that stands out among the otherwise dull palette of any room, you notice its novelty. Suddenly, playing hoola-hooping, maneuvering a toy car or using a portable fan becomes thoroughly entertaining. In other words, color, as a factor of change within the context of a perceived norm, becomes the operative device for a changed or modified experience. In this vein, the same experience with an object of choice per se would not qualify as a modification of that very experience but would blend into the routine of the day. Bottom line is that objects cast in bright pink are by far the exclamation point in any ideal modified experience.

“Break free from hourly coffee purchases and grab a slice of Williamsburg’s alternative working community – co-working at The Change You Want to See - a cafe-like community and collaboration space for programmers, net-artists, online organizers and independents. These types of grassroots coworking spaces are popping up all over the world, from San Francisco, to Paris, to a few here in New York City… ”

Williamsburg Co-Working Open House and Happy Hour(s)
@ The Change You Want To See Gallery and Convergence Stage
84 Havemeyer Street, at Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11211

Friday, September 21
10-5pm Open House
5-7pm Happy Hour(s)

Here’s some recent coverage of the festival:

Wall Street Journal:
The Frontier of High-Tech Art: WSJ.com’s Andy Jordan reports from New York’s Conflux Festival, where iPods monitor air quality and cyclists create movies by pedaling.
September 17, 2007

New York Times: Art & Design
In Brooklyn, a Confluxion Junction
By Martha Schwendener
September 18, 2007
Now in its fourth year, the Conflux festival, centered mostly on the intersection of Havemeyer Street and Metropolitan Avenue, offered everything from audio graffiti to surveillance technology.

Check out the Flickr’d photos from Conflux, and if you have pictures of your own, add them and tag them conflux2007.

We look forward to keeping in touch with everyone in the Conflux community throughout the year. Do contact us with news and updates on your projects, and we hope to see you again in 2008.

Brooklyn burgers

The Tall Firs

After releasing a debut album in fall 2006 which drew accolades from Rolling Stone, Vice, NME, Q, and Harp amongst others, Tall Firs criss-crossed North America twice in the past year, winning audiences from San Diego to Saskatoon with album cuts and new rockers alike. A March appearance in Austin during South by Southwest drew notice from Rolling Stone’s David Fricke, who described their live set in his Fricke’s Picks column: “A gently uplifting highlight of my…weekend…a psychedelic-folk tangle of spider-leg-guitar arpeggios and hazy, bong-room singalong harmonies.” In May they performed at All Tomorrow’s Parties in the UK, opened dates in Europe for Shellac, and did a short headlining tour of England.

Beyond sporadic apparations amongst the warehouses and backrooms of Brooklyn, Tall Firs will also strike out on a brief tour with labelmates and fellow-travelers Magik Markers this fall. Coming from alternate dimensions of the Ecstatic universe, recent live shows prove the two units are warping the continuum until their trajectories can suddenly be plotted on the same grid. Without warning the Markers are singing and the Firs are rocking. Dude, WTF?

The Hatch

“Channeling Michael Jackson, Elton John and John Brion into a neo-indie pop-rock experience dressed up in a slick RnB style.”