TPP_Prospectus_2012.pdf

THE PERISCOPE PROJECT. . . A C o o p e r a t i v e m o d e a c t i v a t i n g c i t i z e n s h i p , a n A l t e r n a t i v e

L a n d - U s e v i s i o n , a P u b l i c A m e n i t y f o r i m p a c t i n g P e d a g o g y ,

A N D a n e x u s f o r I n t e r v e n t i o n i s t A r t / A r c h i t e c t u r e P r o j e c t s . . .

Prospectus2 0 1 2

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Art - Architecture - Urbanism

THE PERISCOPE PROJECTProgramming, Pedagogy, & Projects...

Prospectus - 2012’

[Project Directors]

James A. EnosPedagogy, Policy, & Projectsem: [email protected]

MFA The University of California San Diego -Public Culture/Symbology - 2009M.arch The New School of Architecture & Design -Urban Studies/Infrastructure/Tectonics - 2005B.S. Purdue University School of Technology - Manufacturing/Computer Info Sys - 2001

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Molly Groendyke-EnosOperations & Advocacyem: [email protected]

AIA, NCARB

M.arch The New School of Architecture & Design -Humanitarian Policy/Mobile Living Units - 2005B.A. Westminster Colloege School of Business - International Business/French Studies - 2001

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Charles G. MillerCuration, Programming & Project Developmentem: [email protected]

MFA The University of California San Diego -Visual Arts / Public Culture- 2010

B.F.A. Maryland Institute College of Art - Sculpture, Digital Media, Conceptual Art, Public Art- 2004

[Advisory Board]

Teddy CruzEloisa HaudenschildSteve FaginAnya GallaccioKyong ParkLeonard J. Zegarski

[Supporters]

Kenneth & Barbara MillerTerry Frank

Mary EnosJulie WertsSybil Wendler

Leena BhaktaAnya GallaccioCarolyn HenneTyler LawsonSuzanne PerisicPalmer Stillwell TaipaleLeedie WalesJames Wang Steve Wong

Natalie Avery, Back Alley Bobbes, Ann Berchtold & David Malmuth, Lee & Jennifer Chase, Chuck Crawford, Tami Garrison, Judith Hoffman, Chris-topher Kardambikis, Rob Miller, Christine Ngan, Christina Nguyen, Paul & Cathy Philleo, Stephen & Jill Sabo, Tristan Shone, Susan Snyder, Mary Stewart, Diane VanDyke, Julie Vigalian

[Collaborating Institutions]

-Haudenschild Garage-City Farmers Nursury -The Preuss School UCSD-Monarch School -The New School of Architecture and Design-UCSD

[Collaborating Individuals]

Shane Anderson, Bill Daniel, Nate Hudson Glenna Jennings, Arron Kettl, Jay Ojeda, Louis Schmidt, Dan Smith, Tyrone Taylor, Ivana Vinski, Sybil Wendler

[Summer-Build Studio 2010]

Nannette Boror, Ryan Brunner, Josue Bur-guete, Melissa Vaughn, Greg Tatham, Rys Williams, Albert Wang, Corey Woodward

[Interns]

Jon Adams, Damian Roman, Angelic Torres

INTRO / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE PERISCOPE PROJECT:

A space and cooperative activating a nexus of art, architecture and urbanism toward pedagogy, advocacy, cultural amenities and interventionist art/architecture projects. An intervention in itself, reasserting urban citizenship, visualizing alternative land use and development: an urban observatory for cities in flux . . .

[Area Leaders]

Andrea NganEducation & Fundraisingem: [email protected]

B.S. The Univeristy of California San Diego - International Economics / Media Arts - 2010

Keith B. MullerOutreach, Facilities & Researchem: [email protected]

B.archThe New School of Architecture & Design Civic Architectures/Public-Private - 2008

[Area Support]

Hannah PowersOperations & Planning Asst. em: [email protected]

Johnathan J.P. BarthFacilities , Design & Instructionem: [email protected]

Jason DurrFacilities, Fabrication & Researchem: [email protected]

David KimNon-Profit Development & Fund raisingem: [email protected]

[Former Area Support]

Nate HudsonJonathan ZuppanMaksim Volovik

Itinerary

INTRO:

PROJECTS:

PROGRAMMING:

THE PERISCOPE PROJECTHistory, Focus, and Trajectory...

MQ-1 Predator Drone Coffin DRONE Readymade: Fine Military Detritus

Out of The Box Augmented Reality & Speculative Land-Use

Drones at HomeLabor, Time, & Visualizing the Landscape of Defense

Mapping OccupationsPreoccupations with Space & Situating Critical Practices

Urban Ecologies of Global JusticeAndrew Ross: Lessons from America’s Least Sustainable City

Adaptable SitesMake-Shift Environments & Claims to Space

Public Intersect: Anyang Redux2010 Anyang Public Arts Project: Local Response

RARE PROPERTIESSites of Irony & Accompanying Western Visions

Upcoming

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Alternatives in CitizenshipCivic Engagement & Policy Intervention

Good Mourning California:Counter-Mythologies in the Golden State

PEDAGOGY:

Upcoming

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Modeling Box Potentials3d Foundational workshops & mediated user experiences

Drawing The Urban Imaginary2d Traditional media & visual literacy workshops

Summer Build StudioBuilding Periscope as a teaching tool

Summer URBAN LaboratoriesExplorations of the Self, Place, & Politics

After School SpecialsFilm Series framing the Suburbanization of Warfare

Screening Political PositionsFilm Series framing developmental frictions

Past

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Past

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SELECTED CASES: 2011’

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Assorted HappeningsWe are all in this together for OURSELVES

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THE PERISCOPE PROJECTSELECTED CASES

0 1 . 0 1 . 1 0 - 0 1 . 0 1 . 1 2

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Detail: South

Good Mourning California Opening; 10.22.10

TPP – Est. 2007, Defunct 2008, Resuscitated 2010 . . . Nomadic / Transitional Squatting, and the Exploits of Develop-mental Limbo

Five 45’ Intermodal Shipping Containers, Access to City Sewer, and Tempo-rary Power Pole [under the guise of future development]

THE PERISCOPE PROJECT for Art, Architecture, and commu-nity exchange is a multidisciplinary project working to estab-lish viable facilities for artists, designers, students, scholars and activists within a vacuum defined by vacant, marginalized, or politically indistinct urban territories. Additionally, the project aims to produce a working prototype for responding to domi-nant land-use and development and investigate new modes of agency exercised in urban space.

Located on an undeveloped parcel in San Diego’s East Village, the project is comprised of five 45-foot inter modal containers, arranged to set up a multilevel complex of studio, office, project, exhibition and common event / performance space. built and maintained entirely by students, designers, artists and scholars responding to a set of historical demands to re-evaluate the prerogatives of their specific skill sets.

A REGIONAL NODE / LAB / TANK

15th St. Between J and K San Diego, CA - 92101

info@theperiscopeproject. org

THE PERISCOPE PROJECTHistory, Focus, and Trajectory...

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During the early 2000’s when urban renewal was being planned and executed in San Diego’s East Village, partnerships between city and corporate entities speculated the potential growth of this area: one adjacent to the residential neighborhoods of Golden Hill and Barrio Logan and the commercial districts of the Imperial Ave. corridor and Petco Park stadium (est. 2005, current home of the San Diego Padres) as yielding high-end commercial and residential districts supplanting warehouses, light industry and vacant lots. From the stalled-out real estate market and economic downturn, the detritus of these plans opened up the potential for The Periscope Project to intervene in the typically homogenizing and polarizing narratives of urban development.

Specifically, the project’s physical presence exposes by nega-tion CCDC’s [Center City Development Corporation] sharply mandated FAR requirements [floor / area ratio -- determining total building footprint size] in addition to existing street-wall prerequisites. The present zoning constraints call for an FAR be-tween 3.5 and 6 in addition to a street-wall presence of at least 45 feet: a minimum building with 4.5 stories and 8,125 square feet of occupiable space. With an average cost per / square foot of $200 [low end estimate] for constructing mixed use in San Di-ego, one can quickly distinguish how this becomes completely exclusive, privileging wealthy developers with a minimum 1.625 million dollar price tag [A loan at this amount would require at least $0.5 million cash down] predetermined for a 25 foot by 100 foot sliver of land NOT INCLUDING site acquisition costs. It’s important to note here that CCDC and the developers it arms insist on maxing out the FAR, which in this case would result in a lofty 15,000 square feet of occupiable space, an eight story building, or in other words a 3-6 million dollar endeavor in our new era of zero lending.

FAR: Requirements - conversely producing, status quo over-accumulation awaiting rede-velopment; urban planning incentivising decay, blight, and vacancy...

Contextual Framework :

Fig. A

Alternative Devlopemt Models

Power Retentiion / Private Interest

SAN DIEGO BUILDING DEPARTMENT

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I. Ideation; Agency / Actor Propositions and Responses -The anti-utopian mobilization of the accursed share, leftover, or paradoxical environments of illegitimacy, informality, and con-sideration of copious constraints affecting nomadic forms…

Utopia ⇐=========II=========⇐Reality

Context / Insight; Forces / Vectors shaping realities imposed by governing bodies, further, working to negotiate existing politi-cal / economical / edifying discursive channels.

Learning to exit the building department and working to culti-vate non-threatening scenarios capable of manipulating struc-tural illogic embedded in real-estate over-accumulation, mar-ket speculation, and post-downturn processes.

II. Political Contestation; Economy of Means - Framing / Justifying our existence outside of traditional zoning, capital, and developmental limitations, moreover investigating our means, cohorts, and ability to formalize dissent / activate unused space…

Learning to exit our own passive states and committing, as a core group of members working judiciously to rally political will, uncover stakeholders, and identify potential reciprocities. III. Momentum; Incentives, Opportunities, Contributions, Tac-tics -As a body of multi-incentivized and roving participants we are energized, dedicated, and profoundly gaining impetus…------

2011 – 2012: Spatial fulcrum for Developing Organization / Agency

Key Narrative Points -Periscope / Potential Alternative Dev. Models...

With the nominal completion of the facilities early in 2011, the focus of the project’s agents shifted to the development of programming [curatorial and interventionist], pedagogy, and a self-replicating organization. The formation of a cooperative has enabled the simultaneous production and articulation of multi-authored projects, educational and curatorial program-ming, while individual members have derived work space and opportunities in exchange for their efforts.

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ASSORTED HAPPENINGS + VARIOUS MISGIVINGS

WORK by LOUIS M SCHMIDT

www.theperiscopeproject.org

300 Block 15th STREET / SATURDAY SEPT 4th / 4-10PM

an informative lookinto the making of thePERISCOPE PROJECT

32° 44’ N 117° 10’ W

also featuring:video footageby ANDREA NGAN

work by JON ZUPPAN

and

a pop-up shopwith WEVE CLOTHING

“No One Gets Out Alive (Nobody Wins)”

MUSIC by SNAKE HIPS, STEVE TUTTLETRISTAN SHONE and IL-YOUNG SONPowered by the A&P Soundsystem

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From the original Press release, August 2011:On Friday, Saturday and Sunday August 19, 20 and 21, 2011, resident artists of the Periscope Project will push a logistical container for a Predator Drone MQ-1 UAV, modified as a hab-itable unit, on a photo-op pilgrimage to the sites of San Di-ego’s military industrial complex. This endeavor will complete a performative dimension of a multidisciplinary artwork titled Drone Readymade: Fine Military Detritus. The first destinations will be those most proximate to the Periscope Project’s East Vil-lage lot: the General Dynamics Nassco shipyard, and into the Gaslamp Quarter, confronting San Diego’s tourist core. Over the weekend, the container will be trucked to the closed pedestrian overpass at PHC adjacent to Lindberg Field, the last remaining physical infrastructure of the former General Dynamics Convair Division production plant, and on to public right-of-ways adja-cent to unspectacular sites approaching north county, such as General Atomics Aeronautics in Poway, and Northrop Grumman in Rancho Bernardo.

In the Winter of 2011, the aforementioned shipment case ap-peared on San Diego Craigslist. The “Predator Drone” is an “Un-manned Aerial Vehicle” (UAV) currently deployed widely in Iraq and Afghanistan, and along the U.S./Mexico border. Of recent controversial regard, the Drone can be piloted from half a globe away on both offensive and reconnaissance missions. The Pred-ator Drone is developed and manufactured by General Atomics Aeronautics Division in Poway, CA, 15 miles north of San Diego proper.

In as much as the F14 Tom Cat became the iconic saber of Rea-gan-era Cold War mobilization via films such as Top Gun (impor-tantly, set in San Diego), perhaps the Predator Drone occupies a congruent iconic niche post 9-11: a less heroic, more ethically nebulous and psychologically troubling space of compound-ing detachment, virtualization, globalization, corporatism and suburbanization. It is compelling to imagine that the shipment case appearing on Craigslist is an empty sarcophagus of sorts, returning to the U.S. as surplus after its original cargo met its fate in central Asia; and that it confronts its repurposing at its place of origin in San Diego. Resident artists forming the Peri

1 - Plastics Research Corp: Drone / Pack / Ship...2 - Price-tag sticker left on container: 17,647 $ vs. 300$ via Craigslist...

CASE: 1

From updated press release, August 23, 2011: On the weekend of August 19, 20, and 21 2011, resident artists from The Periscope Project transported the logistical container for a Predator Drone UAV (a roughly 27’ x 4’ x 4’ tan fiberglas box on heavy-duty casters), modified as a threadbare mobile living unit on a photo-op pilgrimage of important sites in San Diego’s military industrial complex . . . In Poway, when an employee of General Atomics witnessed the re-loading of the container into a rented Uhaul truck, he alerted authorities as though a Predator Drone UAV was being stolen. Several miles down the road, at the intersection of Scripps Poway Parkway and I-15, Poway Sheriffs, responding with severity consummate to dealing with suspects who were presumed to have stolen critical military ordnance, apprehended the artists. Charles G. Miller and Keith Muller, the driver and passenger of the rented truck respectively, surren-dered face down on the asphalt before a shotgun and assault rifle, were cuffed and sequestered in separate police cruisers while sheriffs assessed the situation. The spectacle of a poten-tial terrorist plot thwarted was diffused some 45 minutes later, when the authorities finally understood that the artists were in possession of nothing more than a glorified ammo case. Miller and Muller were subsequently released with no charges filed.

Artist's Performance with Predator Drone Container Elicits Suspicious Reaction, or how a Glorified Ammo Case can Stir Up Military Industrial Complex Protec-tionism.

MQ-1 Predator Drone Coffin DRONE Readymade: Fine Military Detritus

27’ x 5’ x 4.5’ fiberglass container outfitted with electrical, ventilation, living amenities. Former logistical asset in USA’s drone war, acquired from a craig-slist post in San Diego, re-used as a threadbare mobile living unit.

scope Project cooperative will explore the tectonic and utilitar-ian potential of this artifact: one that otherwise mediates the San Diego region’s relevance to matters of contemporary uni-versal concern.

During the spring of 2011, The Periscope Project hosted a series of screenings and informal conversations centered around the Drone “coffin”: a compelling readymade unto itself. The dialogs concerned what to be done with it, and what, exactly, it means–loosely concluding to engage the artifact as a sentinel to the embroilment of culture and the military industrial complex in San Diego along two fronts. First, the container will be modified as a threadbare mobile living unit, and deployed on a photo-op pilgrimage of San Diego’s most significant sites described above. Second, an installation bringing together various critical observations of the military’s implication in the landscape will be developed with the “coffin” artifact as its center piece.

The modified Drone container and installation will be on dis-play as part of the Adaptable Sites exhibition at The Periscope Project, opening for a special fundraising event on Wednesday, August 31., and to the public on Saturday, September 3.

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Urban Ecologies of Global JusticeAndrew Ross: Lessons from America’s Least Sustainable City

Urban Sustainability in the Age of Climate Justice: Lessons from Metro Phoenix

Andrew Ross, Author of Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City

Presented in conjunction with The Center on Global Justice, the Center for Urban Ecologies, The Periscope Project and social service NGO Casa Familiar in the border neighborhood of San Ysidro -through the UCSD Community Stations Initiative- in a series of collaborative public programs addressing pressing bio-regional and global socio-economic, urban and environmental issues. Co-organized by Fonna Forman-Barzilai (Center on Global Justice), Teddy Cruz (Center for Urban Ecologies / Visual Arts Department- Division of Arts and Humanities) and Keith Pezzoli from the Urban Studies Program, in partnership with The FRONT at Casa Familiar through the UCSD Commu-nity Stations Initiative.

Thoughtful people look to cities for evidence that progress is being made in the fight to avert climate change. The “sustain-able cities” movement is thriving all across the world, and may-ors compete for the title of “greenest city in America.”

In this lecture, drawing on his own research in the metro Phoe-nix area, Andrew Ross shows that the key solutions are more social than technical in nature. Marketing a green lifestyle to af-fluent residents will create showpiece sustainable enclaves, but will not alter the patterns of “eco-apartheid” that afflicts most large U.S. cities.

Ross’s new book, Bird On Fire, based on extensive interviews in the region, looks at some of Phoenix’s biggest challenges–wa-ter management, urban growth, immigration policy, pollution, energy supply, and downtown revitalization–in light of his argu-ments for policies that promote environmental justice.

Andrew Ross is a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU. A contributor to the-Nation, the Village Voice, and Artforum, he is the author of many books, including Nice Work if You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times, Fast Boat to China--Lessons from Shanghai, Low Pay, High Profile: The Global Push for Fair Labor, No-Collar: The Humane Workplace and its Hidden Costs, and The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty and the Pur-suit of Property Value in Disney’s New Town. He has also edited several collections, includ-ing No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment Workers, and The University Against Itself: The NYU Strike and the Future of the Academic Workplace. His most recent book is Bird On Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City.

CASE: 2

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Adaptable SitesMake-Shift Environments & Claims to Space

CASE: 3

Adaptable Sites: August - September 2011

Tumbleweed Connection / Eden V.2 by Bill Daniel

Drone Readymade: Fine Military Detritus by the Periscope Proj-ect Cooperative

Adaptable Sites is a double feature exhibition bringing together The Periscope Project Cooperative’s first collaborative project: Drone Ready-Made: Fine Military Detritus with artist, archivist and filmmaker Bill Daniel’s installation Tumbleweed Connection and film screening program Eden V.2. Adaptable Sites was pre-sented in conjunction with the 2011 ART SAN DIEGO Contem-porary Art Fair’s Art Labs program. Through a showcase of me-dia, performances and artifacts (including a modified transport crate for a Predator Drone UAV originally found on San Diego Craigslist), the exhibition explores postindustrial collapse cul-ture amidst San Diego, otherwise “America’s Finest City,” mani-fest destiny’s paradisiacal terminus; the military industrial com-plex’s golden boomtown.

Tumbleweed Connection is an installation imagining post-industrial collapse culture, configured as a walk-through space activated by multi-axis film and video projections. Large-scale photographs, displayed both in the gallery space and as vinyl-banner architectural elements, depict scenes that could easily be from a post-petroleum America– squatter boats, homeless RVs, abandoned gas stations, storm-destroyed landscapes... Tumbleweed Connection takes its name from a fictional small town newspaper: a shanty town made entirely of out-of-gas RVs. (any reference to the Elton John Album of the same name is uninten-tional, however observed parallels are welcomed).

Situated within the Tumbleweed Connection scenario is an improvised outdoor theater, screening the program Eden V.2 on the evening of Wednesday, August 31. The program is a mix of 1970s environmental films, and Daniel’s own documentary work.

Eden V.2 program: Found films include: Will We Freeze in the Dark? - Strip Mine Trip - What’s Your Bag? Films by Daniel include: Hokey Stoke - The History of Texas City - Tumbleweed Tall Tale.

About Bill Daniel:Filmmaker/photographer Bill Daniel’s work is a hybrid of docu-mentary and installation practice, usually dealing with Ameri-can sub-culture and occupational folklore. His film on the his-tory of rail worker and Hobo Graffiti, Who is Bozo Texino? (2005), has screened in hundreds of venues and is in the collection of MOMA. A recent installation is included in LA MoCA’s current “Art in the Streets” show. Inspired by the punk bands he photo-graphed in the early 80s, Daniel books cross-country film and photo exhibition tours, setting up one-night screening and in-stallation events in diverse non-art venues. His Creative-Capital-supported project, Sunset Scavenger was exhibited as a travel-ing video installation–a van with sails that toured the country. In 2008 Daniel was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has exhibited at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Deitch Projects, Red Cat, The New Museum, MoCA in Los Angeles, MOMA, and countless clubs, bars and punk houses.

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Public Intersect: Anyang Redux May 20 to July 1, 2011

Panel Discussion: June 8, 2011

The exhibition showcases graduate student responses to the thematics developed by professor Kyong Park in his role as director of the 2010 Anyang Public Arts Project (APAP 2010). Yet the exhibition emerges not via typical in-stitutional hierarchies (Institution > Curator > Artist), but from a set of informal dialogs forming a horizontal nexus of agents. This dynamic will hopefully become analogous to the relationship of the exhibition space to its content: moving beyond a simple showcase, The Periscope Proj-ect seeks to provide a platform upon which to test the relevancy of hypothetical aesthetic responses outside of their native institutional framework.

Sybil Wendler, the exhibition’s original organizer, encap-sulated the thematics of APAP 2010 as follows. “APAP 2010 begins the artistic and polemic discourse about the current on-going erasure of the older architectonic land-scape in cities throughout South Korea. The destruction and rebuilding affects the ideation of time and memory of the vanished spaces by creating a compressed tempo-rality for the transient population that inhabits the newly built neighborhoods and commercial centers. Continu-ing this thread, APAP 2010, as a municipally funded proj-ect, attempts to mediate the breakage between history and place, residents and memory that occurs with rede-velopment.”

In the winter of 2011, Park prompted graduate students to produce a hypothetical project responding to the core problematic of the APAP 2010: what is at stake, cultur-ally and politically, as redevelopment initiatives erase the spatial referents of place?

A loose consortium of the students, Park himself, and the Periscope Project, has challenged the “hypothetical” nature of the initial prompt, symptomatic perhaps of the brevity of an academic quarter, and UCSD’s sprawl-ing remove from any notable urban coherency. Via the Periscope Project, these projects have the opportunity to engage with urban narratives outside of the UCSD ivory tower, where new resonance between the otherwise dis-parate locales of Anyang and San Diego, or between the Periscope Project and the APAP 2010 initiative, comes to the fore. But this is only half of the equation.

The artists represented in Public Intersect have their own voices and their own agency, to respond to the initial prompt with embrace or rejection, or a critical balancing of the two. Platforming the results, new tangents, critical perspectives, and material realizations enrich the dialog. The emerging program at Periscope attempts to triangu-late a dialog between the artists / students, the prompts of their pedagog, and the analogous problematics that APAP and the Periscope Project confront.

The exhibited works themselves present a broad spec-trum of approaches. From Jamilah Abdul-Sabur’s choreo-graphic / sculptural response to Anyang’s Manan Bridge, to Misael Diaz’s protracted collaborations with Tijuana street vendors proximate to the redevelopment of San Ysidro’s Port of Entry, to Josh Tonies’ designerly / dystopic re-imagining of San Diego’s Horton Plaza, Stephanie Lie’s conceptual paralleling of Lagoon preserves in north San Diego County with Anyang’s water parks and artificial creeks, and Sam Kronick’s playful appropriation and ap-plication of American suburbia’s mediated artifacts. The projects operate as visual object lessons working across formal, representational, poetic, technological and con-ceptual registers. Such will set the stage for dynamic con-versations to follow.

CASE: 4

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Public Intersect: Anyang Redux - June 2011

Kyong introduced us to the remarkable situation into which APAP sought to intervene and it soon became apparent that it would be very hard for any of us to have made a project about Anyang, about Korea, about publics and cultures that are funda-mentally foreign to us. But the issues on the ground in Anyang not only have local analogs here in San Diego, they are products of globalizing forces and thus can be expected to implicate by only a few degrees of separation seemingly unrelated situations with which we may be more familiar.

This idea that the challenges facing our homes, identities, and cultures are enmeshed in a global network stretching to the far east and beyond is truly formidable. How do we take all this in? What do we, as perhaps the up-and-coming “experts” in this field of Public Culture, spit back out? Certainly retreating to a private, internal studio practice, emerging only to exhibit is not our answer; we all have responded to this prompt with clear references to concrete situations charged with sociopolitical meaning beyond the gallery’s walls. But beside this point of im-plicit agreement, each one of us has chosen a different tempo-ral balance of engagement with the public. For some of us, the focus was on input: carefully reading the situations around us, distilling them down to manageable points of contemplation, and then producing representations that raise nuanced ques-tions as a function of their simplicity. Josh’s futuristic recong-figuration of Hornton Plaza’s architectural details works in this way, asking us to imagine how a certain community saw itself in the past, how we read that self-image today, and how strange it might appear from the distant future.

For others, the area where the public enters into their own prac-tice is in the output phase, taking direct steps to write new re-lations into the public sphere. Misael + Amy’s interventions at the border do not just express a certain attitude towards the inequity of that situation, they seek to actively remedy it by stimulating new economic activities that may help to counter the asymmetrical power relations that characterize the region.

While none of us chose to situate our works in Korea, we did express a coherent attitude that site matters-- wheth-er real, augmented, specific, or abstracted. Jamilah’s work finds its richness in the layered meanings of a distinct landscape and the way it has been mythologized. Steph-anie seeks to recover lost space that was carved out by activists from the past from a literally elevated viewpoint. In all our cases, we are engaging in biographies of plac-es as much as the biographies of their populations. We seem to be saying that though talking to individuals as members of the public is important, we might get to the heart of their struggles and victories by telling the stories of their impact on and relation to the spaces they inhabit. And rather than just playing the role of artistic eulogy-writers, memorializing the past, protesting what was or is coming, as new sites are constructed and reconstructed, might we try to recognize the new myths-in-the-making and proactively anticipate the conflicts that may arise as a result?

This suggests a possible role for Periscope: It is embed-ded in a unique place to become a sort of research out-post which we can use to intimately observe the chang-ing terrain and intervene before it is too late. The forces of redevelopment are highly visible in this region-- not just the construction cranes looming overhead but our own growing presence in this distressed region of the city. And as change comes, it can play a role to observe document, and like the lawnmowing caretaker that is the protagonist of my game, maintain the culture that does or may come to exist on this site.

Sam Kronick, Visual Arts MFA Candidate UCSD - June, 2011

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Good Mourning California:Counter-Mythologies in the Golden State

CASE: 5

Good Mourning California

The first annual exhibition of its Project Space Gallery, pre-sented in honor of founder Petar Perisic. Artist Glenna Jen-nings has curated the work of fellow California residents Matt Coors, Monica Duncan, Gretchen Mercedes, Chuck Miller, Iana Quesnell, Brianna Rigg, Charchi Stinson, and 21 and Under into an eclectic collection of art that speaks to themes ranging from the perilous politics of water usage to the uncanny collision of pastoral beauty and war simulation. The dusty corners of a midland taxidermy shop, the dingy interiors of Tijuana border bars, the sun-soaked concrete of an Anaheim burn tower, and the graphite exterior of a San Francisco nail salon converge in disparate visual representations that speak in subtle voices to the many myths and artifacts that make up the Golden State.

Good Mourning, California eschews the more glamorous terrain of the Hollywood industry in favor of quieter places on the map, evoking histories of migration, pleasure-seeking, and sheer sur-vival. Each fall, The Periscope Project will present a new take on California, commemorating the life and work of Perisic and celebrating Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s book from which the show takes its title⇐a collection of art and writings that playfully explode myths and histories about the often violent and ethi-cally questionable acquisition of Manifest Destiny’s celebrated terminus.

The exhibition endeavors to instigate a conversation rather than present a totalizing survey of California culture. The group show format allows the works to inhabit the same container, al-tering and expanding their internal meanings through this tem-porary residency. The Periscope Project hosted weekly artist talks and panel discussions that open the work to public input and quandary.

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CASE: 6

The Urban Labs program is the second formal educational proj-ect at Periscope, and the first working directly with high school students. In the summer of 2010, a design / build studio was conducted through Newschool of Architecture and Design as a formalization of the methods by which Periscope was con-structed in the first place: much of the project’s embodied labor is attributable to the tireless and enthusiastic contributions of students. Recognizing the appeal of Periscope to students as such, it has become a supplemental micro-institution. In such a space, the hierarchies of traditional educational systems can be bracketed, allowing students to develop for themselves a great-er sense of ownership, connection, and tangible engagement.

Resident artists and educators at Periscope work with small groups of high school students in focused workshops that engage the urban territory surrounding Periscope’s facilities. Opening up this space as a classroom, the programs introduce students to intensive visual / analytical / collaborative practice, and foster a deeper understanding of the symbols, structures and ecologies that form San Diego’s urban public realm.

Working with students from the Preuss School UCSD, Monarch School, Francis Parker School and San Diego High School, the labs have functioned as a temporary respite from the pressures of evaluation allowing students to creatively explore: fostering a sense of connection and opening up new conduits for learning.

Can we record the city, and most importantly, can we read its symbols?

Are skateboarders the only ones having fun in the city, and most impor-tantly, whose stuff is this exactly?

What are urban green technologies, and most importantly, how does envi-ronment play into the city?

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SVEN LOPEZ, INES MONICA NEFI, MARCO RIGUELME, & MARCONI TORRES

Images from the City - Vertical Workshop - 2011

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SVEN LOPEZ, INES MONICA NEFI, MARCO RIGUELME, & MARCONI TORRES

Drawings from the City - Vertical Workshop - 2011


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Bibliography:

http://theperiscopeproject.orghttp://www.facebook.com/pages/ThePeriscopeProjecthttp://vimeo.com/periscopeproject

UNION TRIBUNE:Finding the right location at the Art San Diego Contemporary Art Fair and the Art Labs”James Chute. September 4, 2011. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/sep/04/Art-San-Diego-Contemporary-Art-Fair-location/

HYPERALLERGIC:Artists launch offensive Against San Diego”Benjamin A. Snyder. August 25, 2011.http://hyperallergic.com/33444/artists-launch-offensive-against-san-diego/

ARCHITIZER:The Periscope Project”http://www.architizer.com/en_us/projects/view/the-periscope-project/26440/

INHABITAT: The Periscope Project: Hip Shipping Container Art Space Redefines Architecture in San Diego”http://inhabitat.com/the-periscope-project-hip-shipping-container-art-space-redefines-architecture-in-san-diego/

DESIGN BOOM: Ens_Projects: The Periscope Project” http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/15620/ens-projects-the-periscope-project.html

ARCHITECTURE LINKED:The Periscope Project”http://architecturelinked.com/profiles/blogs/the-periscope-project

CITYBEAT:The Return of The Periscope Project is an open Invitation”Kinsee Morlan. September 22, 2010.http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-8204-do-something.html

KPBS: San Diego Art Labs”Angela Carone. September 5, 2010.http://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/sep/05/photo-gallery-san-diego-art-labs/

UNION TRIBUNE: Periscope Project peers into future - What to do with empty lots in downtown San Diego? These architects offer ideas”Roger Showley. September 1, 2010.http://www.sandiegounion-tribune.com/news/2010/sep/01/periscope-project-peers-future/

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TPP_Prospectus_2012.pdf

Documents

Transcript of TPP_Prospectus_2012.pdf