Would You, Could You, In A Box?
May. 9th, 2005 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lagilmanWrite a novel, that is.
"Novel" as performance art.
The novelist Laurie Stone understood that her desire to go into the box was a symptom of something, she just didn't know of what. Ms. Stone, 58, will have a month to consider her decision from the confines of a sleek-angled structure, about 140 square feet, whose walls resemble shoji screens made not of rice paper but of translucent cellular plastic panels. Her temporary home was built just for her, in a converted factory in Queens.
On Saturday night, in front of 200 onlookers, Ms. Stone and two other novelists, ensconced in neighboring pods, embarked on a variation of the spectator sports made familiar by reality television. Ms. Stone, Ranbir Sidhu and Grant Bailie are the participants in "Novel: A Living Installation" at the Flux Factory, an artists' collective in Long Island City. The goal is for each to complete a novel by June 4. The purpose is to consider the private and public aspects of writing.
No cameras will record this voyeuristic experiment, though visitors can peep occasionally (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m). The potential for public humiliation comes not from the perils of constant surveillance, but from the more familiar writers' problem of failing to meet a deadline. Make that deadlines. They will give weekly readings of their works in progress on Saturdays at 8 p.m., and take part in two public discussions scheduled for this coming Sunday and May 22.
What the novelists write is not as important as how they live while they are writing. Each habitat was designed by builders who, like the writers, entered a competition. The writers can emerge for only 90 minutes a day and must record on time cards the reason for their absence (laundry, bathroom, snacks). Each evening they will gather together to eat a meal cooked by a chef from a local restaurant.
For the Flux Factory curators, the exhibition (or exhibitionism) is an extension of an experiment their group has been conducting for a decade. Seventeen of the mostly youthful Fluxers, as they call themselves, live in the Flux Factory, a 7,500-square-foot space, which has the trappings of a college commune. ("Novel" is in the 2,000 square feet set aside for exhibitions.) The Fluxers' mission is to constantly consider the relationship between life and art, a process oiled by grant money.
The idea for "Novel" came to Morgan Meis, 32, a founder and the president of Flux Factory, as he was trying to finish his dissertation on the Marxist philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin, and his theories of experience. "I said I should do a project called 'Dissertation' where I lock myself in a box" and just finish the thing, Mr. Meis said.
My personal favorite line: The writing and reading aspect did not alarm her. "What's the worst that can happen?" she asked, and laughed. "I'll be terrible and give a bad reading. I'm extremely experienced with that."
"Novel" as performance art.
The novelist Laurie Stone understood that her desire to go into the box was a symptom of something, she just didn't know of what. Ms. Stone, 58, will have a month to consider her decision from the confines of a sleek-angled structure, about 140 square feet, whose walls resemble shoji screens made not of rice paper but of translucent cellular plastic panels. Her temporary home was built just for her, in a converted factory in Queens.
On Saturday night, in front of 200 onlookers, Ms. Stone and two other novelists, ensconced in neighboring pods, embarked on a variation of the spectator sports made familiar by reality television. Ms. Stone, Ranbir Sidhu and Grant Bailie are the participants in "Novel: A Living Installation" at the Flux Factory, an artists' collective in Long Island City. The goal is for each to complete a novel by June 4. The purpose is to consider the private and public aspects of writing.
No cameras will record this voyeuristic experiment, though visitors can peep occasionally (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m). The potential for public humiliation comes not from the perils of constant surveillance, but from the more familiar writers' problem of failing to meet a deadline. Make that deadlines. They will give weekly readings of their works in progress on Saturdays at 8 p.m., and take part in two public discussions scheduled for this coming Sunday and May 22.
What the novelists write is not as important as how they live while they are writing. Each habitat was designed by builders who, like the writers, entered a competition. The writers can emerge for only 90 minutes a day and must record on time cards the reason for their absence (laundry, bathroom, snacks). Each evening they will gather together to eat a meal cooked by a chef from a local restaurant.
For the Flux Factory curators, the exhibition (or exhibitionism) is an extension of an experiment their group has been conducting for a decade. Seventeen of the mostly youthful Fluxers, as they call themselves, live in the Flux Factory, a 7,500-square-foot space, which has the trappings of a college commune. ("Novel" is in the 2,000 square feet set aside for exhibitions.) The Fluxers' mission is to constantly consider the relationship between life and art, a process oiled by grant money.
The idea for "Novel" came to Morgan Meis, 32, a founder and the president of Flux Factory, as he was trying to finish his dissertation on the Marxist philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin, and his theories of experience. "I said I should do a project called 'Dissertation' where I lock myself in a box" and just finish the thing, Mr. Meis said.
My personal favorite line: The writing and reading aspect did not alarm her. "What's the worst that can happen?" she asked, and laughed. "I'll be terrible and give a bad reading. I'm extremely experienced with that."
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 02:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 04:44 pm (UTC)Plus, it's a group project, not a solo deal -- the writers are only part of a larger performance art installation going on.