PSY-GEO-CONFLUX: New York City, May 8-11

-for immediate release-

PSY-GEO-CONFLUX
New York City, May 8-11, 2003 (exhibition runs through May 29)

Opening reception at ABC NO RIO, May 8, 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Closing party / music and video evening at SUBTONIC, May 11, 8:00 p.m.

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PSY-GEO-CONFLUX 2003 marks the inauguration of an annual event
dedicated to current artistic and social investigations in
PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY ("the study of the effects of the geographic
environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals"). Part
festival and part conference, it brings together visual and sound
artists, writers, and urban adventurers to explore the physical and
psychological landscape of the city.

PSY-GEO-CONFLUX will feature no fewer than eight experimental walks
and a mobile-phone-guided drift through the streets of New York; a
life-sized chess game using humans as pieces; several talks and
presentations; a noise parade; an art exhibition; and a night of
psychogeography-inspired live music, DJs, and video. All events are
FREE and open to the public.

The exhibition, talks, and presentations will take place at ABC NO
RIO, 156 Rivington St. (bet. Clinton and Suffolk): 212-254-3697. The
closing party / evening of music and video will be held at the
SUBTONIC LOUNGE, 107 Norfolk St. (bet. Delancey and Rivington):
212-358-7501. Walks and other outdoor activities will start at
various places around the city.

A complete schedule, event details (including location information
for walks), links to participants, contact information, and much more
can be found at:

http://glowlab.com/pgc

We have also set up a (low-volume) mailing list for schedule updates and
other news about PSY-GEO-CONFLUX. you can subscribe by going to:

http://lists.interactivist.net/mailman/listinfo/psygeoconflux

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PARTIAL LIST OF EVENTS:
———————–
WALKS:
- CAN .WALK WILL COMPUTE [Wilfried Hou Je Bek]
- City System [Lee Walton]
- Free Words [Sal Randolph]
- LOST [Kathe Izzo]
- New York Body 'n' Soul Map [Karen O'Rourke]
- PING [Kate Armstrong]
- Serenade [Toyshop]
- Surveillance Camera Outdoor Walking Tour [Surveillance Camera Players]
- Urban Chess [Sharilyn Neidhardt]

TALKS:
- Divided Cities [Grit Lauber]
- Game Theory and the City [Peter Lasell]
- Kant: Walking the Talk [Colette Meacher]
- Essays, stories, and poems by various readers, presented by Flaneur
magazine

EXHIBITING ARTISTS:
- Laurel Beckman, Germaine Koh, Dave Mandl, Christina Ray, Jeff
Stark, others TBA.

(Many more events to be added between now and May 1; please check the
PSY-GEO-CONFLUX website [above] for updates.)

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PARTICIPATORY EVENTS:
———————
URBAN CHESS
http://www.glowlab.com/psygeocon/pgc_events/pgc_evnt_nei.html

Volunteer to be a human chess piece on Sunday, May 11, 12:00 p.m.-2:00
p.m. The pieces will be moving from block to block on a grid in the
Lower East Side. Moves will be transmitted to them via mobile phone from
ABC No Rio, where two chess experts go head to head. If you have a
mobile phone and want to play, sign up! Contact Sharilyn Neidhardt:
[email protected]

—

LOST – a walking towards each other
http://www.glowlab.com/psygeocon/pgc_events/pgc_evnt_izz.html

An exploration of trust, love and true connection. Without any
preliminary contact except an exchange of cell phone numbers,
participants will collaborate with love artist Kathe Izzo in an
elaborate plan of losing and finding each other through both
telepathy and a system of phone calls, cryptic gifts and hidden
messages. These walks are on a one-to-one basis and are made by
appointment only. This is an all-day event taking place Saturday, May
10. Contact Kathe to make an appointment: [email protected]

—

NEW YORK BODY 'N' SOUL MAP
http://www.glowlab.com/psygeocon/pgc_events/pgc_evnt_oro.html

New Yorkers! Send us your tiresome commutes, your everyday errands,
your wrong turns, bike rides and bus routes, your shopping sprees and
secret shortcuts. Write your paths through the city and we'll map them
for you!

An online marketplace for the exchange of itineraries? A method of
charting urban travels online? A Web application capable of
transforming subjective experiences into images and sounds? A "Carte du
Tendre" drawn by surveillance technology? "NEW YORK BODY 'N' SOUL
MAP" is all of these.

Don't believe it? Try it!

SEND US YOUR DAILY ROUTES THROUGH THE CITY:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/korourke/map/index-questionnaires.html

—

CAN .WALK WILL COMPUTE
http://www.glowlab.com/psygeocon/pgc_events/pgc_evnt_hou.html

Desperately in need of some extra computing power? Need to render some
data but your hardware can't handle the algorithms? Want to calculate
one of those insane numbers?

The psychogeographic computer can help you.

Submit your computational needs to us before 25 April 2003.

Socialfiction.org will select from all reactions the problem most
important for the welfare for all of mankind. During Psy-Geo-Conflux we
will program a pedestrian computer that will be made up from the
congregation of international psychogeographers that will .walk to
compute for you.

So send in your needs to: [email protected]

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PSY-GEO-CONFLUX is produced by ABC No Rio, Glowlab, and the Brooklyn
Psychogeographical Association. Sponsored in part by Artists Space
Independent Project Grant. Exhibition funded in part by the New York
State Council on the Arts.

For further information, please contact Christina Ray (Glowlab):
[email protected], Dave Mandl (Brooklyn Psychogeographical
Association): [email protected], Steven Englander (ABC No Rio):
[email protected].