Looking towards aspects of the African diasporic tradition and its tools, such as cooperative creation, improvisation, and deep listening, we are provided both inside and outside of the context of musicianship, guides that can play significant and important roles in our lives as active neighbors in community. These are social tools to carry with us day-to-day.
For this third workshop for the class Fate is Kind, we will be joined by artist, musician, and 9th Ward elder Douglas Ewart. Centering our focus on the techniques and histories of so-called jazz, “social music” as it was described by Miles Davis, or simply, as described by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Great Black Music we will, in general, think through how this traditions qualities play a role for non-musicians to be more attentive neighbors. And in specific, we’ll listen to how these attitudes and qualities have played out in Douglas’ life and work, and what his experiences in cooperative creation can teach us moving forward in common.
As part of the Mt. Analogue class Fate is Kind we are reading Action Around the Edges, an excerpt from curator and critic Douglas Crimp’s critical memoir, Before Picture. This essay, read in tandem with text from Situationist International, looks at the intersection between interventionist art practices, namely that of Gordon Matta Clark and his piece Days End – a structural intervention of a derelict warehouse pier on NYC’s Hudson River – and the historical legacy and politics surrounding the gay cruising scene of the same era around the Hudson piers.
As part of the Mt. Analogue class Fate is Kind, we are reading Acconci’s essay Public Space in Private Time. Written in 1990 as the effects of digital technology with beginning to become more prevalent in daily life, the essay allows us to consider the deepening conflicts between notions of public and private space in cities. How do Acconci’s thoughts here relate to Mineapolis’ 9th Ward, the rise of encampments, protest, the autonomous nature of George Floyd Square, and their affects?
