• PERFORMANCE, FESTIVALMTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists MTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists
  • PERFORMANCE, FESTIVALMTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists MTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists
  • PERFORMANCE, FESTIVALMTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists MTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists
  • PERFORMANCE, FESTIVALMTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists MTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists
  • PERFORMANCE, FESTIVALMTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists MTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists
  • PERFORMANCE, FESTIVALMTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists MTAA: All Raise This Barn / Image: courtesy of the artists

Event Info:


Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

Friday October 1, 5:30 PM
VCC North lawn


Meet the artists

Sunday October 3, 1:00 PM
VCC North lawn

MTAA: All Raise This Barn (East)

Using 21st century techniques, MTAA (artists Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden) conduct an old-fashioned barn raising on the Rensselaer campus. All Raise This Barn (East) is a group-designed and assembled public structure created in response to a public vote by the Rensselaer campus and local community. Using a commercially available barn-making kit as the starting point, online voting determines architectural, aesthetic, and labor choices, as well as whether the assembly is collaborative or competitive. Part construction project, part participatory performance, All Raise This Barn (East) explores the positive and also persuasive power of the community vote and its prevalence in contemporary society, from the Internet to reality television competitions.

MTAA invites the public to participate in the group assembly/performance of the final work, which will be raised in one day starting in the early morning hours on October 1st and will culminate in a ribbon cutting ceremony at 5:30 PM.

Vote for the artbarn!

Curator: Kathleen Forde

FREE + Open to the public

MTAA is prototyping and beta-testing the barnraising performance as part of the 2010 01SJ Biennial’s Out of the Garage, Into the World program in San Jose's South Hall.

MTAA:

MTAA (M. River & T. Whid Art Associates) is a Brooklyn, New York-based conceptual and Net art collaboration founded in 1996.

Born in Iowa City, Iowa, M. River (Michael Sarff) attended the Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio and received a MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills Michigan. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

T. Whid (Tim Whidden) was born in Elyria, Ohio. He attended the Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio. Interested in creating art in a populist medium, during the early 90s he created underground comix as well as co-edited and co-published the short-lived Brooklyn comic anthology “Burger.” His interest in popular forms of art led him to the Web where MTAA helped shape the net art movement of the late 90s/early 00s. Whidden continues to work with networked and participatory art working with Michael Sarff in MTAA.

MTAA’s examinations and critiques of networked culture, participatory art, digital materials, and the institutional art world take the form of web sites, performances, installations, sculptures, and photographs. Their work has been presented at The New Museum of Contemporary Art, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Postmasters Gallery and Artists Space, all in New York city; The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; The Beall Center for Art and Technology in Irvine, CA, The Getty Center in Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as internationally. The collaboration has earned grants and awards from the Creative Capital Foundation, Rhizome.org, Eyebeam and New Radio & Performing Arts, Inc.


More information: