Homouroboros Spin Again in San Jose
Mercury News relays this story that “Homouroboros” by Peter Hudson has landed in San Jose for the 01SJ: “a global festival of art on the edge”.
The Great Handcar Regatta
Sunday, September 28, 2008 — Santa Rosa, CA
Erasmus P. Kitty Presents: The Great West End and Railroad Square Handcar Regatta and Exposition of Mechanical Wonders!
A SPLENDID CELEBRATION OF ART, SCIENCE AND INGENUITY, FOR THE DELIGHT AND EDIFICATION OF ALL WHO ATTEND.
A SPECTACLE FOR BOTH YOUNG AND OLD!
The Handcar Regatta invites Builders, Tinkerers and Artists to create and then race a Human Powered Rail Bound Vehicle for the adoring public.
The Handcar Regatta brings Art and Science out of the galleries, studios, and smokey laboratories, out among the People, where everyone can enjoy it and participate!
The Handcar Regatta will delight the senses with Melodious Music, Daring Diversions, Rollicking Games, Delectable Comestibles, and all manner of Adventurous Entertainments!
THE HANDCAR REGATTA IS NOT TO BE MISSED!
Movement: “Celebration Arts” = “Play-ticipation”
Michael Mccarthy of the Vancouver Courier has an in-depth article on the notion of “celebration arts”, or community participation arts in a party or entertainment scene, ala Burning Man style:
“Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic,” says the festival’s official statement on its website. “We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve through doing. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.”
I’m overjoyed to note that our own progressive town of Santa Rosa, and the Northbay Burner community of Sonoma County in general, has been leading the charge of dragging “art” from the conventional hallowed halls of museums and galleries and out into the streets for all to play with. I’m coining the new term du jour: “Play-ticipation“.
One such upcoming event is “The Great West End & Railroad Square Handcar Regatta & Exposition of Mechanical & Artistic Wonders” or, for short:
As the lengthy title suggests, on Sunday September 28, 2008, we’re bringing a DIY arts and mechanical invention street party to Rail Road Square as an old-timey railcar race with music and refreshment for all. Attendees are encouraged to participate in costume and other forms of creative revelry.
The Arts District of Downtown Santa Rosa, along with other forward-thinking local organizations, are supporting this cause to bring a large dose of “celebratory arts” to a new wave of joining and doing with creativity and fun amongst like-minded folks.
Huzzah!
ITEM! See our railcar crew, Krank-Boom-Clank, hard at work on our 4-man, big wheels, hand-built, recycled, kinetic sculpture thingy-mobile, YEAH! More crews and their picts sure to come!
Along with this concept of creative celebration among peers, play and fun are inherent. I attended the explosion of DIY art at Maker Faire 2008 this weekend. If tens of thousands of ravenous participants are any sign, the wave of doer-hacker-artist movement is well into its lofty crest.
We Make Money Not Art folks, in tandem, recently posted an interesting article highlighting these ideas of play in contemporary society:
The human being used to be regarded as a Homo faber (man the smith or man the maker in latin) for the control they could exert on the environment through tools.
In 1938, however, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga introduced the idea that man is also an Homo Ludens (a “playing man”), a man for whom amusements, humour and leisure played an important role in both culture and society. Philosopher Vilém Flusser went further. For him, we are living in a society which, instead of working, generates information by playing with a technical apparatus, implying a transition from the myth of the creator towards a player. Playing can therefore be regarded as an act of emancipation.
