 |
| Takehito Etani, "Transparent Footprints of Invisible Giants - Footprints from the Future" |
This Saturday is the Dissident Futures Art and Ideas Festival at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Not only is the festival free and open to the public, but the galleries featuring YBCA's Dissident Futures exhibit will be open as well (see my previous post on the exhibit). Much spectacle has been planned; there will be a robotic nun in the Grand Courtyard as well as Takehito Etani, who creates wearable devices and installations he considers "spiritual prosthetics." His current project is inspired by a race of gentle giants, so gentle they sprouted eyes on the bottoms of their feet to avoid stepping on any living creatures. Etani's wearable devices simulate the perspective of the giants with a pair of stilts that record virtual video footprints as he walks.
 |
| Fantastic Futures Project, "What Does the Future Sound Like?" |
Artists will be lined up all along the Grand Courtyard during the festival. Fantastic Futures Project, a collection of individuals from the US and Iraq, will showcase an interactive sound archive that explores concepts of time in both countries. Peter Foucault's drawing installation, "Attraction/Repulsion," allows audience members to influence sensor-driven robots that create compositions. Michael Zheng, a conceptual and performance artist, will host two participatory sessions in the Room for Big Ideas facilitating shamanic soul constellations.
 |
| Walidah Imarisha |
Upstairs Walidah Imarisha will conduct a science fiction workshop, helping participants envision alternative futures through visionary science fiction. Kal Spelletich, an experimental artist, will help future artists support their calling by teaching home-brewing, gorilla gardening, fire making, rabbit-skinning, and survivalist contemporary art. Future Cities Lab will present their work in the Dissident Futures exhibit, a sly parody of TED Talks will be conducted by Jaime Cortez, Bill Hsu, Larry Bogad, and Jenifer Wofford, and Lian Amaris will present "The Video Game Monologues," a performance piece on gamers.
 |
| Lian Amaris, "Video Game Monologues" |
There's a great deal more going on than I've mentioned- CODAME ART + TECH will be in attendance, there will be music by Brontez Purnell, Majo, and Pangea F.C. in the Sculpture Court, and food by Tango & Stache and Three Twins Ice Cream. The new Executive Director of YBCA, Deborah M. Cullinan, will open the festivities along with Artists/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility and Ray Gilstrap from NASA Ames. For a full schedule, please visit the festival's Tumblr site. This Saturday at YBCA is an excellent opportunity to come, contemplate the future, and participate in art.
