Events > Events 2008
KH JeronWill Work for Food in Newark
Bring a can of food to barter with the robots from September 27 - November 22, 2008,
All proceeds to be donated to Newark food banks
"Will Work for Food" is a project by KH Jeron about labour and barter economy. Small robotic vehicles trade their manpower for food. The vehicles can draw and whistle the popular songs “Happy Birthday” and “The Internationale”. People can borrow one of the vehicles and let them work for them. After completing the assignment the vehicles have to be returned or given over to somebody else who needs their skills. Food and beverage offerings can be seen on the artist's website as they come in.
Interactions with the robots throughout Europe have taken the form of small offerings of packaged sweets, regional specialties, homemade foods, and even full dinners. For the context of the urbanism series, Gallery Aferro and KH Jeron will have the robots perform in the gallery as a food drive to question the collective responsibility of a city's residents towards each other.
According to Jeron, the “Will Work For Food” happening deals with the desire to find a new definition for labour and the act of working. “Will Work For Food” (WWFF) takes a position towards the question what role labour plays in a time, when full employment becomes an unattainable utopian conception. It deals with a re-assessment of labour” its disjunction from covering the cost-of-living of the individual.They give an occasion and a space for social interaction and discussion. The WWFF vehicles stand for a guaranteed basic income.
Alone and Together: Tintype Portrait Studio
Gallery Aferro
October 3 + 4th
See images from the event
Photographer Keliy Anderson-Staley is inviting the public to have their portrait taken at Gallery Aferro on October 3 and 4th from 1-7 PM. Sitters can come solo or with a loved one. The sittings are free.
This portrait series is made with the wet plate collodion process, the leading mode of photography in the 1850's and 1860's. Tintypes are positive images exposed onto metal. This historic process has a different relationship to time than digital or film photography. The chemistry is hand-mixed and poured onto the plate in front of the sitter. As soon as the exposure is made in the wooden view camera, the plate must be taken to a portable dark box to be developed and fixed. The wet plate collodion image captures a pose held over several seconds or even minutes. This prolonged gaze creates a tension between the sitter and the camera. While a snapshot captures a moment about a 1/1000 of a second long, the tintype process allows for a portrait of a person or a couple to unfold over time; the image produced can then slow down our looking. A viewer sees the hard lines of bone structure, wrinkles and blemishes, but also sees bright, focused eyes staring back intently. This process allows the photographer and the viewer to stare, but it is not entirely voyeuristic, as the sitter stares back. The act of taking someone's portrait can once again be an event.
WAX : Or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees
Screening July 12, 3 PM
New Media Room
David Blair’s 1991 full-length film WAX : Or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees was created over 6 years with 3D military VR footage, live footage shot at actual US nuclear testing facilities and archival materials.
Featuring a cameo by William S. Burroughs, WAX is the first independent feature film to have been edited on a digital non-linear system. It is also the first film (independent or otherwise) to have been re-formatted as hypertext and posted on the Internet. The New York Times recognized the accomplishment, and ran the article "Cult Film is First on the Internet" in its May 23, 1993 business section. The result is an obsessive, artificial history, which has been fastidiously detailed with fragments of real and imagined facts.
The film’s convoluted storyline concerns a beekeeper’s transformation upon discovering that his bees communicate between the living and the dead. The beekeeper protagonist (played by Blair) experiences hallucinations via the bee’s television, and is finally lead by the bees to their subterranean home: an enormous cave below the Alamagordo desert. In the cave it is revealed to him that he must actually become a Desert Storm-era weapon and destroy his "target" in Iraq, before rebirth as a fragmented soul in several bodies, including that of a Middle Eastern woman.
The intricacy and scope of the film allows questions as to the collective and individual value of life to be raised.
Michael Amter: Video Work
Studio 411
June 6, 2008, from 7-10pm
Video work by Michael Amter
Studio 411, 411 Monmouth Street, Jersey City, NJ as part of JC Fridays
June 11
Queer Black Cinema
Gallery Aferro New Media Room
8 PM
Free
Curated by Angel L. Brown, QBC film programmer.
Screening is followed by a Q&A discussion with filmmaker Charles B. Brack.
Never Forget
Angel L. Brown | USA 2008 | 5 min | World Premiere Special presentation
A tribute to Sakia Gunn, a 15 year old lesbian who was tragically killed in a hate crime, and to all the fallen LGBTQ youth whose lives have been cut short due to homophobia and the lack of respect.
Pariah
Director: Dee Rees| USA 2006 | 28 min.
In this empowering coming-of-age tale, 17-year-old shy, black lesbian goes to great lengths discovering her butch/femme identity while hiding her lesbianism from her parents.
Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project
Charles B. Brack | USA, 2008 | 55 min | Special Pre-Screening
A documentary honoring the life of Sakia Gunn, Dreams Deferred investigates the effects of her loss on family, friends, and other LGBT youth of color.
Roghie Asgari TorvundInsanity, Victims, and Childhood, in Short
April 18, 7 PM
Gallery Aferro will be curating a night of Red Saw's Filmideo, an annual event taking place on every Friday in April.
Artists:
JiHyun Ahn, Penelope Cain, Colette Copeland, Bang Geul Han, Kensuke Koike, Norene Leddy, Agnes Nedregard, Julia Oldham, Matt Ortega, Jean Gabriel Periot, Molly Schwartz, Martin Sulzer, Roghie Asgari Torvund, John Waters, Tamara Yadao
Matt Broach Storefront Films
March 15 + 22, 2008
7- 11 PM
Artists: Matt Broach, Michelle Levante, Jia-Jen Lin, Siri Ekker Svendsen, Brooke White, Andrew Wilkinson
Flat Black at Aferro
February 29, 7 PM
Rodney Gilbert of Yendor Productions will be performing his one-man show, Flat Black, written by Alysia Souder with poetry based on the autobiographical writings of Jerry Gant.