Sam Gould Red 76 Portland Art Coloring Book

Crisis manifests relationships and modes of action uncommon outside of other states of disruption. As a positive experience, crisis can highlight topic possibilities such as egalitarianism, collaboration and cooperation, in the midst of the destruction of the day-to-day.

But along with crisis comes anxiety. The repeated boost of adrenaline, while beneficial in small immediate doses, fractures our clarity and composure over time, contributing to the breakage of self.

Crisis Logic & the Reader, an area of inquiry to be centered around crowd-sourced questions and facilitated by artist Sam Gould, will manifest as an experimental symposium at St. Catherine University in November 2016, the week following the US presidential election. Although the project is not explicitly about the election, it aims to engage in meaningful ways with civic and civil discourse through symposia discussions, poster making, a durational listening session, and a musical concert.

Promoting the idea of the “culture of reading” as a long-term, daily alternative to the logic which arises out of singular moments of crisis, Crisis Logic & the Reader will convene students and the public as a means towards unpacking the possibilities and complications of reading culture serving as a vehicle for socio-political engagement.

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SCHEDULE
n.b. All on-campus activities, free and open to the public, will take place in the Visual Arts Building (VAB) in Room 203, St. Paul Campus.

Monday – Nov.14
Morning
Installation of a P.A. Sound System in the VAB by Minneapolis-based artist Derek Maxwell.

3:00pm
Lecture and Opening Reception
Afternoon artist lecture will establish the project and parameters for the week.
Reception to follow

Tuesday – Nov.15
1:30 – 4:00
Afternoon symposium
In consort with St. Paul-based artist / thinker / designer Matt Olson, participants are invited to pose questions based on ideas which may present themselves through our shared discussion. The act of reading (seeing/feeling/listening/(un)knowing) each other and our shared social landscape can then later take shape in the form of printed materials or public speech through the P.A. Sound System, a process which will continue throughout the symposium.

Late afternoon/evening
Durational listening
This fluid activity entails durational listening to a compilation of four conversations between American composers Morten Feldman and John Cage that were recorded in 1967 in the studios of the radio station WBAI in New York. Participants are invited to swim in and out of the space and audio recording, to hear the world through different voices.

Wednesday – Nov.16
1:30 – 4:00
Afternoon symposium
Announcements of harvested questions via the P.A. Sound System. Guest conversant to be announced.

Thursday – Nov. 17
1:30 – 4:00
Afternoon symposium
In consort with Minneapolis-based artist Monica Haller the group will unpack and discuss aspects of a new area of work for Haller involving issues of land, class, race, family, and the interconnection between environmental and social ecologies. Announcements of harvested questions via the P.A. Sound System.

5:30pm
Musical Concert and Closing Reception
Live concert by the Minneapolis-based experimental/drone band, IE.
Reception to follow

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About the Artist
Sam Gould is the co-founder and editor of Red76, an experimental publication platform. Established in Portland, Oregon in January of 2000, Red76 often works towards creating publics through print and other methods like meals and public projects that open space to discuss social, educational, and political life in America today.

As an artist-educator, Sam is interested in experimental pedagogies and conceives of the classroom space as fluid and non-hierarchical. Sam has taught within the graduate department for Social Practice at the California College of the Arts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He has written, as well as lectured extensively within the United States and abroad.

As a Red76 project, Sam runs the bookstore and publishing site, Beyond Repair, in the 9th Ward of Minneapolis, MN. The project will be in operation from 2016 – 2019 and holds space to help formulate publics and publications to amplify the questions and desires of neighbors.

Have questions or need more information?

• Amy Hamlin
• akhamlin at stkate.edu

Image from http://www.39forks.com/39pages/projects/COLORINGBOOK/BLANKS/Red76ARTaaa.jpg