obscureterrain
Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY
2pm-7pm, October 17, 2009
– NOTICE: 10.10.09 —
OBSCURETERRAIN POSTPONED DUE TO F & G TRAIN SERVICE CANCELLATION
Unfortunately, due to the municipal forces out of our control, obscureterrain will be postponed into the future.
The NYC MTA recently announced the following service changes: From Oct 9-26 there will be NO F train service between Jay St. and Church Ave, NO G train service between Bergen St and Church Ave
We would like to thank all who came together around the belief in magic and our potential to transform our environment and through community action.
obscureterrain will continue in our minds, and will appear on some unexpected landscape, at some time in the future.
Whenever you emerge from a subway tunnel onto an EL, check the horizon, envision magic, and one day it will be.
obscureterrain is the collaborative endeavor of over 40 artists and collectives to produce magic and to nurture fantasy. On October 17, 2009 (in conjunction with AGAST – Annual Gowanus Artist Studio Tour) an ensemble of self-produced performances, installations, parties, etc, will speckle the rooftops along the F/G line as it lurches over the Gowanus Canal. From the train, commuters will have an opportunity to witness – amidst an ever-shifting horizon of communities, economic, social, and political environments – a multi-rooftop spectacle that seeks to excavate voluminous fantasies and potentialities from the linearity of the everyday. In this way, obscureterrain harnesses the quotidian subway commute as an opportunity for inventing and imagining alternative modalities for encountering and inhabiting the transforming urban landscape.
Because this project encourages alternative relationships between artists and their community within a changing urban landscape, obscureterrain moreover addresses and renegotiates the anxiety often expressed by artists regarding their roles in the cycle of gentrification. For the community and by the community, this project requires that artists and residents practice radical forms of relationality in which notions home, reciprocity, and collaboration are at stake. Residents are invited to participate (or not) by simply watching from their own roofs, throwing a party, or donating their roofs to a project. All the while, we will all be engaged in alternative forms of exchange and becoming.
Between June and July 3rd 2009 we put out an open call for submissions to perform on Gowanus rooftops on October 17th 2009. We were thrilled to receive over 40 applications, and are meeting with the participants on August 6th to start mapping the terrain and moving ahead logistically.
