|
|
chicago home
events calendar
bars & clubs restaurants specials best of chicago 
art
film and video food and drink music and clubs stage style words sports features |
|
|
 Eye Exam Walkabout
If our city's sidewalks were left unpaved, our daily traveled routes
would be recorded as memories in the earth. Footprints multiplied by the
millions would create canyons of the most common paths. But cement
pushes back on our soles and in turn wears us down. Undeterred,
we still strive to leave our mark. The lovers' scratches in drying
cement, a war protest, community gardens, shoes hanging from a telephone
wire--in their own way, each of these actions reflect the transient and
protean communities that form and merge in, around and among the spaces
of Chicago. There is a definite relationship between who we are and
where we live, yet this fact is easy to ignore.
The way that we interact with the world, and the way that it actively
or passively shapes us, are the topics at hand at Mess Hall's "Marginal
Travel" series. Mess Hall is an alternative community center that seeks
to engage people in diverse cultural, economic and leisurely topics. The
series is a monthly public meeting centered on the ideas of routes,
journeys, divergences and the cultural interaction that ensues. While
the content of each event in the series varies according to its
producers, the main focus is on experimental travel. For Mike Wolf, the
creator of the series, experimentation connotes any type of movement
that occurs apart from "mere tourism," although that, too, contains
the possibility for renewed enchantment.
The next event in the series happens May 5. Titled "The Dark Side of
the Moon," it is a collaborative project that seeks to reconsider the
far north neighborhood of Rogers Park (Mess Hall's domain) in expanded
geographic and cultural terms. The organizers for this event, Cassandra
Smith's students in The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's
"Cities Unbound" class, have spent the past few months thinking about
the vagaries of urban dwelling, treating the city as a diverse
collection of often indefinable yet alluring layers.
In their creative collaboration, "Cities Unbound" has no desire to
deliver an answer for the myriad issues concerning urbanization. Smith
notes that the question, "`Whose city is this?'" is a "nonsensical"
one; she would rather consider topics such as national identity, exile,
cosmopolitanism and even the act of finding one's way through Chicago as
open-ended and changeable.
Rogers Park, where the event will take place, has been undergoing a
sweeping change in its cultural infrastructure over the past several
decades. In the midst of the push and pull between new condo
developments and low-income housing, there has been a zealous concern to
reflect on the composition of Rogers Park. In a recent survey by Steven
Berlin Johnson, he notes that Rogers Park ranks as the fifth most
concentrated area of bloggers in the United States, showing that this
neighborhood, strongly self-aware of its need to commune, is ready for
the sort of challenge that "Cities Unbound" will present. However, to
approach issues of gentrification and zoning, as well as other aspects
of modern living that subsist undocumented within the official bounds of
place-politics, isn't necessarily to pass judgment upon them. Rather,
"Cities Unbound" takes a more careful approach, touching on subtle
issues of visual, bodily and cognitive perception, operating with no
pre-conceived outcome and without regulating policies. This is where
Wolf's idea of experimentation comes into play. The "Marginal Travel"
series recognizes artistic and community-based endeavors shaped by the
motivation to initiate responsible forms of freedom. "This is about
invention and fighting to see," says Jason Saager, a "Cities Unbound"
co-producer.
Previously in the series, Dan S. Wang participated by relaying his
tales of a wagon train trip through the South; Joe Fienberg delivered a
lecture on the "tramping" movement, a Czech-based back-to-nature form
of hiking and exploring; Nance Klehm offered a tamale-making workshop in
conjunction with a slide presentation from her trip to the West Coast.
What Wolf deems "experimental" actually sounds more like a return to a
sincere embrace of one's community on local and global scales to ignite
dialogue between strangers and neighbors.
Perhaps a momentary pause of workaday behavior, using both fictional
and hyper-conscious methods, can treat the symptoms of a moderate case
of apathetic citizenry. Attendees at "The Dark Side of the Moon" will
walk, talk and observe in order to spark a re-education program for
one's sense of discovery. Guided walking tours will circulate
participants around the area by having directions phoned-in to them from
the command center at Mess Hall causing unexpected associations along
common paths. New maps will be drawn, field recordings will be taken,
spontaneous monuments will be demarcated and ephemeral collections will
be formed. These various acts will remind us that an ability to
intuitively navigate through the city defies the best-laid urban plans. The public is invited to participate in "The Dark Side of the
Moon" at Mess Hall, 6932 North Glenwood, (773)465-4033, May 5,
noon-10:00pm. The event is free. Wear walking shoes, be ready to
participate and bring cell phones, walkie-talkies and other mobile
electronic communication devices.
Also by Jason Foumberg Eye Exam
Eye Exam
Portrait of the Gallerist
Tip of the Week
Tip of the Week
Portrait of the Artist
Gallery of Gallerists
Tip of the Week
Portrait of the Artist
Tip of the Week
Portrait of the Artist
Tip of the Week
|
|
about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment |
