Participation Design, Direction & Performance, Eyebeam: Art
& Technology, New York, NY Eyebeam's quarterly event Mixer took on the theme of "Olympiad"
and hosted a number of participatory games. I designed a strategy to
encourage audience immersion and participation. After going through an
immigration process, the audience "athletes" pledged allegiance
to 1 of 5 nations, then were trained by a coach to take part in a
opening ceremony I directed. I directed a press core who occupied an
announcer's booth and interviewed audience members. I also MC'ed the
2 night event.
Photos: Christine A. Butler, courtesy of Eyebeam
--------2009--------
Celebrating the Boston Tea Party
(with Stephanie Pereira)
Social Performance, Soup Kitchen, Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY Open Source Gallery invited artists to cook a one-pot-meal
each night during the month of December. On December 16th, the anniversery
of the Boston Tea Party, we drank tea and served up a vegan
chower.
Silver Ticket Project: Help Wanted
Performance, Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
With unemployment numbers at 8.8% in New York City and topping 10% nationally,
laid off workers are turning to their passions to find more meaningful
work. Artist Erik Fabian wants to help, and luckily the Silver Ticket Project
is hiring!
Live Performance for Online Video, Low Lives, FiveMyles
(Brooklyn, NY), Diaspora Vibe Gallery (Miami, FL), and labotanica (Houston)
Learn the skills of midnight gardening. Protect your valuables. Trust the
trustworty.
An Introduction to Midnight Gardening
Performance, University Settlement, New York,
NY Midnight gardening is the act of hiding valuables under the cover of
darkness. Traditionally, valuables might be buried in one's backyard at night
to avoid the prying eyes of nosy neighbors.
Social Performance, Soup Kitchen, Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn,
NY Open Source Gallery invited artists to cook a one-pot-meal
each night during the month of December. On December 21st, the Winter
Solstice, we cooked a lentil soup and offered guests the project of making
clove-oranges. Silver Ticket Project: Sweeten the Deal
Performance/Installation, Orleans St. Gallery, Bridge Art Fair Miami,
Miami, FL
Each day, twice-a-day, I performed ritualistic performance-responses to
works by emerging artists in the Orleans Street Gallery at the Catalina
hotel. These value-adding performances critically and playfully responded
to selected works at the Orleans Street Gallery to redirect visitor attention
that might have otherwise been misallocated due to the recent credit bubble.
At 11am, I started each day at the fair with a walking piece that circled
the entire block of the Catalina hotel (the location of the Bridge Art
Fair Miami) and arrived in the Orleans Street Gallery (room #223). Later
in the afternoon, I performed a second performance in a ritualistic space
in the center of the Orleans Street Gallery room (#223) at the Catalina
hotel.
Don't Panic
Performance, Bridge Art Fair Miami, Miami, FL
To relieve some of the anxiety art patrons may be facing during the current
economic crisis, I offered a reminder of what credit feels like. Art fair
visitors were invited, one-at-a-time, to hold a wad of 1000 one-dollar
bills with me that had been borrowed from my credit card. I was not giving
the money away...we took a moment to pause and consider the relationships
that are created when markets and credit freeze.
Game, Orleans St. Gallery, Bridge Art Fair Miami, Miami, FL This version of the imagination game imagines the challenges or solutions
a gallerist faces when attempting to travel across country to take part
in the Miami Art Fairs.
Performance/Installation/Game, Emergence, Governors Island NY
A simple imagination game of offense and defense. This game unveils a
series of impending dooms that befall the City of New York, to which a
series of bold counter attacks are carried out in the nick of time. It
places the heroic Governors Island between beloved New York City and utter
destruction. Participants were invited to have a seat on the porch of
a historic house, to have a cup of lemonade and to play the game.
Silver Ticket Project: Eternal Truths & Hot Tips
(or:
Can you trust a giraffe for art investment advice?)
Performance, Jeffrey Boone Gallery, Affordable Art Fair, New York,
NY
I offered art investment advice to visitors at the opening of the Affordable
Art Fair in NYC. I took questions and limited my responses to a set of
all purpose investment sayings which I had printed on a deck of cards.
Conceptual Project, Zazzle.com
Commemorative stamps of many of the performances in this portfolio. Actual
U.S. postage format to expand inquiry into value.
Conceptual action, "The Chicago Review of Economics", Green
Lantern Gallery, Chicago, IL 2006 An exploration of value and the conductive capacity of silver. Hired
labor screwed and unscrewed the light bulbs around the gallery space for
three hours. A hired assistant documents and oversees the project in my
absence while I was attending a conference in Boston.
Mr. Market goes to Church
Performance, "The 14th Annual Performance Art Celebration",
South Union Arts, Chicago, IL 2006
A twenty-minute performance in a former church turned performance space.
Mr. Market is the usher. Mr. Market is the choir. Mr. Market collects
donations from the audience and escapes with them.
Performance/Installation, "Drive By", Links Hall, Chicago,
IL 2005
A driving lesson and a buzzing lesson. Three passengers are invited
to participate in the creation of the piece. One person is entrusted with
teaching Erik Fabian to drive, one is asked to be a bee, and one is asked
to be a co-pilot for a safe and attentive roadtrip through Chicago.
Performance/Installation, "Early Adopters", Three Arts
Club, Chicago, IL 2005 The third and most intimate of a series of three oratories. Guests
are invited to sit with me and are asked what they are looking for at
this reception. I help them find their political, pro-art message and
practice spinning conversations in support of the arts.
Performance, "Rebuttal", Green Lantern Gallery, Chicago,
IL 2005 The second of a series of three oratories. Performed in response
to a series of paintings by Caroline Picard. Our work has been joined
in a sacred union. Thank you for joining us on this very special day.
Performance Documentation/Video/Other, www.ErikAndTheAnimals.com,
2005
A series of performed responses/reviews to events and performances in
performance-centric language.
Paralleled by written commentary posted
on the www.ErikAndTheAnimals.com blog.
Performance Installation, "Gutted", SEEP
Collective, Chicago, IL 2004
"Gutted" was a one night show of performances in an artist space
that was to be gutted as part of the gentrification of the Bucktown neighborhood
in Chicago. In this piece I wonder what remains, like the old wives tale
about gum lasting 10 years in a stomach.
The audience was offered a stick of chewing gum and then
invited one by one into an installed stairwell. The stairwell is a wishing
well and also a throat. They encounter the performance and are encouraged
to make a wish while they spit their chewing gum into the beak of a baby
swallow.
Performance Installation, Group Show, Gallery 2,
Chicago, IL 2004
The performance consists of a spoken meditation upon items collected in
my studio over two years of graduate school. The audio was recorded and
then played back in the space over the three-week installation. Visitors
are encouraged to exchange items in the space for ones they bring, and
make account of their exchange in a ledger outside the installation room.
Performances Installation, MFA Thesis Show, the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago 2004
What can we expect as we approach old age? Multiple performances and daily
maintenance activity over a three-week period. On the opening night, a
tableau of bathers in old man wigs lounge in the space, slowly applying
sunscreen that whites them out. During another performance, I create a
shark fin out of paper plates.
Performance, Unlucky in Love, the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago 2004
I facilitated a Valentine's Day performance evening at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago. My performance was a short drama structured
by chance techniques taking material from texts including "Romeo
and Juliet", "The Heart Sutra" and heart healthy exercise
material.
Fausto's Locker
Performance Installation, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
Chicago, IL 2004 A former SAIC graduate student's abandoned locker of clothing, pictures,
boy adventure novels, bats, etc. is incorporated into a performance installation.
A collaborative performance developed during the
Goat Island Summer School in Chicago 2003
Actions and creative responses structured in relation to another performance
that preceded us. Performers are Erik Fabian, Chrissy Lanay, Judith Leemann,
and Aleks Slota.
String Pointing Piece
Performance Installation, BigShowCity Performance Festival, Olympia,
WA 2003
Performance Installation, Studio Projects, the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago 2002-03
This piece was one of several versions of a difficult to document installation
that would take place in a blacked out room. A piece of string is loosely
hung from a ceiling beam to the floor and illuminated on both ends. The
audience was invited to sit in chairs around the string and then would
be lead through a guided meditation upon the string and the "sounds"
of the string. The audience would then pass around a flashlight to illuminate
their face as they talk about their experience, campfire story-time style.
Studio Projects
Performance and Installations, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2003
Projects and experiments during 2003 that took place at SAIC for small
invited audiences and advisors. Many of them were difficult to document
because of low lighting conditions and the site/time specificity of the
actions and installations.
--------2000--------
The Listening Corridor
Performance and Interactive Sculpture, Schuba's Tavern,
Chicago, IL 2002
I participated in a talent show organized by Khaela Maricich during a
rock show. I came on stage as an inventor of the "Listening Corridor"
and invited an audience member up on stage to "get something off
their chest".
Hands Loop
Video, Studio Project, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2002
A short video where one hand tries to seduce another hand across the field
of a stomach.
Performance, Midnight Sun Performance Space, Olympia,WA,
2000
In the spring of 2000, I directed, performed and co-created (with Molly
Robertson) a one-and-a-half hour structured improvisation. Molly performed
a cluster of characters that sought a sense of individual and group identity
while I actively directed the environment and engaged the personas in
dialogue. The project was created to explore multiplicity and intimacy
in relationship to emotional pain.
