January,
2010
A
new location to go with our new programming!
In
a few weeks we will be moving into our new HDTS Headquarters in
lovely downtown Joshua Tree. Come visit us at 6470 Veterans Way,
behind Teacakes Bakery and next to our friend Chantale at Mt Fuji
General Store.
The
HDTS HQ will include a small visitors welcome center where you
can read more information about contemporary art projects happening
in the high desert and we will also begin hosting a series of
workshops. (more about this coming soon).
Because
the operation runs on a zero budget we are always highly in need
of volunteers. We are looking for responsible, hardworking, fun
people to come work with us in the high desert. Some things that
need help with are fixing up the space, managing operations over
the weekends, and fleshing out our archive which is slowly but
surely coming together.
If
you are ready and willing to work email us here.
Or
if you would like to be sent email announcements about future
productions let us know here.
January,
2010
All
New Format for HDTS:
The High Desert Test Sites, first inaugurated in
2002, are a series of experimental art sites located along a stretch
of desert communities including Pioneer town, Joshua Tree, 29
Palms and Wonder Valley. These locations generate truly alternative
spaces for art that challenges traditional conventions of ownership,
presentation and patronage. Asking the question “what role
does contemporary art play in the world at large?” HDTS
strives to interject contemporary art into a world of pickup trucks,
new age meditation retreats, one stop supermarket shopping, dirt
bike enthusiasts, rock climbing encampments, plastic surgery billboards
and marine combat training.
Since
its inception HDTS has hosted seven intermittent events and presented
projects by over 150 artists. Our “intimate audience”
(deliberately kept small by a somewhat loose attitude toward planning
and promotion) has traversed countless miles of dirt road and
participated in panoply of increasingly experimental approaches
toward making art public.
After seven years we decided to take some time off in order to
examine both the successes and failures of this larger undertaking,
and at the end of this period have emerged with renewed faith
in the validity of the exercise and a new series of programming.
If there is one thing that we have learned so far, it is that
sometimes just being here brings up so many issues to think about,
that when there is a rush to “produce’ it can actually
hamper one’s ability to have larger experience or to truly
process the place.
In light of this we will now begin to generate a new three-part
program based on the process of “absorption and assimilation”
with the ultimate goal to create a “test site” where
artists, organizers and audience alike will explore the role art
plays in everyday life and in the world at large.
PART ONE ABSORBTION:
Each year High Desert Test Sites will invite four guests ranging
from curators, writers, thinkers, artists, to all around “doers”
who we admire and feel embody similar interests and ambitions
as those represented by the HDTS mission. These are people who
we feel we will learn from, and who we want to engage with in
dialog that will ultimately further and advance our understandings
of the social roles of contemporary art, both in day to day living,
and in intimate communities spread throughout the landscape outside
of urban cultural centers.
There will be no dictate to produce during this time other then
the exchange of ideas. Each guest will be asked to facilitate
this idea exchange by either a casual talk at the HDTS headquarters
in downtown Joshua Tree, or a short text that we can present to
the public as part of our archives.
ASSIMILATION:
Each
year one of the HDTS guests will be invited to curate an event
including up to 6 artists. The events are intended for the both
the local community and for a visiting audience and will last
for a two-day weekend. There are many forms that the events can
take – and many different kinds of artists who can be included.
The organizers will have access to all proposals sent into HDTS,
and they can also supplement this list with artists they would
like to personally invite.
SURVIVAL SKILLS: A SERIES OF WORKSHOPS
Our HDTS Headqarters will play host to an ever evolving program
of lectures and workshops called Survival School.
PROPOSALS
Proposals for High Desert Test Site projects will be accepted
on an ongoing baises. Proposals are not be solicited for specific
events – but will be collected and reviewed on an ongoing
basis, and will be open to the public at the Headquarters in downtown
Joshua Tree.
DRIVING
MAPS
See the sites! Driving maps to all current HDTS projects and sites
will be available at the HDTS Headquarters.
ADVISORY
COMMITTEE:
An advisory committee will be engaged who can give advice, propose
visitors and participants, and act as general ambassadors for
HDTS.
The advisory committee will include the five founding organizers
of HDTS as well as a small group of additional selected and valued
voices.
Current
questions are:
1.
Should we become a non-profit and/or apply for grants or approach
donors, or is HDTS more interesting on a $0 budget model?
Summer and Fall, 2009
High Desert Test Site is hard at work making an
archive! In a few months you will be able to check this out on
our website and hopefully eventually also as a book – but
in the meantime we need YOUR help.
It turns out that at every event the folks affiliated with HDTS
were usually out running around making everything went off without
a hitch, (remember flipping burgers in the kitchen of the Palms
for HDTS 3, or trying to find the 40’ HQ tent after it vanished
right in the middle of HDTS 08?) Consequently we didn’t
always manage to take such great photos of each project.
If you have attended any of our past HDTS events are several
ways that you can help us:
1. We are in need of high res digital photos of any of the projects.
You can mail a CD of these to PO Box 1058, Joshua Tree CA 92252.
2.
Because we believe that the experiences that you ultimately have
in the high desert are as important as the art you originally
thought you were coming out to see, we want to collect stories
about the trials and tribulations - either to view art-works or
to make them (did you meet new people, get stuck in the sand,
camp out during a raging windstorm?)
Send
us your story and pics – we will be most grateful for them,
and will make sure that you are warmly credited for your contribution.
Send these to info.hdts@gmail.com
3.
If you are a past artist we will probably be contacting you to
work on a short description of your project - but you think that
we don’t already have this you can help us by sending it
in to us early.
November
2008:
It
may be over, but it is not yet forgotten - HDTS CB08
We like to send out a belated, but deeply heartfelt, thank you
to the volunteers and participants who made it happen:
To the California Biennial Curator and the team:
Thank
you Lauri Firstenberg and to LA><ART and For Your Art!
To
the artists:
Hannah Greely, Jonathan Hernandez, Patrick Jackson,
Alice Konitz, Joel Kyack, Ann Magnuson, Thom Merrick, Yoshua Okon,
Jack Pierson, Ry Rocklin, Julia Scher, Marnie Weber and the Spirit
Girls, Wonder Valley Institute of Contemporary Art, Amy &
Wendy Yao's Art Swap Meet
To the staff and organizers:
Alexandra Wetzel our new and amazing administrative
director, Shaun Regen our most enduring and supportive founding
organizer, David Dodge for our publication design and Chris O'Hurley
our intern.
And
to our volunteers - without you we could not do what we do:
Sarah Nesbit and Alex
Aram Moshayedi
Tellef Tellefson
Christian Hacket
Thomas Stevenson
Daniel Pelt
Daiana Feuer
Sarah Williamson
Stacy Bengtson
Heather Harmon
Kate Kendall
Chris Bott
Anna Beck
Laura Lawler
Faith Purvey
Carole Frances Lung
Sarah Haughton
Stephen Walters
Tiffany Barber
Joy Anderson
Cesar Garcia
Alex Romano
Drew Dencker
Jessica Mellen
Lucas Clauser
Senna Chen
Tessa Helgerson
Alexandra Stapleton
And last but not least, thank you to Mary, Laura and James at
the Palms
Announcing
HDTS CB08:
On
November 7th, 8th and 9th, 2008, The High Desert Test Sites will
host an expanded desert event in connection with the California
Biennial.
Under the vision Lauri Firstenberg, curator of this year’s
California Biennial, the exhibition has expanded beyond the scope
of the museum to engage venues and sites from as far south as
Tijuana, and as north as San Francisco. As a non-institution dedicated
to the encouragement and support of art that "lives in the
world" HDTS will host the following artists for a three day
event.
HDTS
CB08 is affiliated with the 2008 California Biennial, organized
by the Orange County Museum of Art.
HDTS is produced for CB08 with LA><ART Public Art Initiatives
and Foryouart.
The map is now available in two downloadable parts:
Click
here for Western
sites and Eastern
sites
*Project
descriptions, and the program of events will
be available at the HDTS HQ and information center next to Coyote
Corner on Park Blvd in downtown Joshua Tree. (the directions page
tells you how to get to the high desert from just about anywhere)
HDTS
CB08 Artists Include:
Hannah
Greely
Jonathan Hernandez
Patrick Jackson
Alice Konitz
Joel Kyack
Ann Magnuson
Thom Merrick
Yoshua Okon
Jack Pierson
Ry Rocklin
Julia Scher
Marnie Weber and the Spirit Girls
Wonder Valley Institute of Contemporary Art (WVICA)
Amy & Wendy Yao's Art Swap Meet
Check out the
swap meet website
If
you would like to stay abreast of HDTS updates, events and projects
send an email to mailing
list@highdeserttestsites.com
* We are also looking for responsible, sturdy, fun volunteers
to manage the HDTS headquarters and to help various artists with
their projects throughout the weekend. If you are willing to help
please email Alex at alex.hdts@gmail.com.
PLEASE
NOTE: The High Desert Test Sites is a multi-site event. Attendance
is at your own risk. By attending the HDTS, you agree to assume
sole responsibility for any risk and to release anyone associated
with the HDTS, the CABiennial 08, and LAX from all claims relating
to any injury, damage or loss you may suffer or cause while in
the desert. Thank you - and have a great time!
Announcing: The Moab Video Project by Christy Gast
The
Moab Video Project is a year-long curatorial project
organized by artist Christy Gast, for a TV station
in Moab, Utah. Moab, a small town nestled in
a green valley between unimaginable red sandstone cliffs, was
settled by farmers in the 19th century, and began booming during
the age of uranium mining. The town consists of a business district
along the highway, with neighborhoods squeezed on either size.
Because of the cliffs, its growth is limited. Tourism is the main
industry, and people come from all over the world to see Arches
National Park, where Ed Abbey wrote Desert Solitaire.
In
2006 Christy spent the summer in Moab exploring the wilderness
and tending a big garden - during that time she met the owner
of Mac 21, an extremely local television channel. It was the first
channel in the world to have a cable news broadcast. The signal
from the nearest news channel didn't reach Moab because of its
geographic situation, so the cable channel started broadcasting
an all-volunteer news program. They covered the county commission
meetings in a seriously in-depth manner. Needless to say, the
commissioners weren't impressed. They covered Jeeps getting stuck
on the sides of cliffs, Christy says that she has seen amazing
footage of the newsreader reporting on this. The first cable news
broadcast was extremely microcosmic.
Christy
helped Jim from Mac21 set up his new studio and taught him how
to use Final Cut Pro. Now Mac21 doesn't need to cover the news
anymore--there are other accessible outlets--but there are long
features on the Chinese restaurant, mountain biking safety, and
homes for sale, always shot with these incredible cliffs in the
background. After returning to NY she proposed to curate a short
video program for Moab, which turned into a year-long project.
Mac21 is now airing one artist's video every week for the year
of 2008. The videos are inserted into normal programming, and
each video is broadcasted once every hour or so for one week.
Much of the impetus for this project was inspired by the singularity
of the setting, and the mythology of landscape. Christy says that
when she looks at videos for the program, she tries to think about
watching them in a motel room. “Sometimes I have specific
people in mind. Sometimes I imagine the desert watching.”
All videos are less than 5 minutes long and follow FCC regulations.
www.christygast.info
www.moabvideoproject.org
