THE TOUR
MARDERS, 120 SNAKE HOLLOW ROAD BRIDGEHAMPTON, NY, JULY 9- SEPT. 1 , 2015
Come visit us and shop the weR2 line of functional objects made with contemporary artists as well as our curated selection of artist and designer home accessories, clothing and jewelry.
PARRISH ART MUSEUM, WATERMILL, NY, JULY 2-5 , 2015
On Independence Day weekend, the Parrish Art Museum and weR2 will bring the Dream Machine to Water Mill with conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll’s Public Utility 2.0, the 21st-century land art analog that retrofits unused television frequencies for two-way broadband connectivity. Carroll will set up a DV (digitalvision) broadcast station daily from 11am to 5pm on July 2, 3, 4 and 5. According to Andrea Grover, Century Arts Foundation Curator of Special Projects at the Parrish, “Mary Ellen Carroll’s Public Utility 2.0 presents a revolutionary way for the artist and the Museum to host complex live conversations about creativity, community, and land.” Connectivity will be made via VUUM’s ‘Super WiFi’ devices, software defined radios developed through Rice University’s Wireless Network Group and with backhaul support provided by Sky- Packets. Throughout the summer weR2 will offer a considered selection of programming with topics ranging from oysters to helicopters with artists from the Parrish permanent collection. Programming will include a selection of talks in Spanish.
HOLIDAY POP-UP, NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 13, 2014
The Dream Machine made its New York debut at the 14th Street entrance to the High Line in collaboration with Artware Editions. Headquartered in NYC, Artware Editions is an online gallery that creates and sells functional objects and furniture by visual artists. Artware Editions ships worldwide to the art and design savvy and showcases their works at art fairs and other temporary venues. The Holiday Pop-up featured functional designs by weR2, Artware Editions, Atelier Courbet, K/LLER, esses by Michelle Lopez, Sel Magiique and Voutsa with Paul Marlow.
UNTITLED. MIAMI, FL, DECEMBER 3 – 7, 2014
UNTITLED. is a curated art fair for international galleries and nonprofit art spaces with a focus on emerging and midcareer contemporary art. weR2’s presentation at UNTITLED. included a program of talks organized with Tali Jaffe, Executive Editor of Whitehaus and Editor of culturedmag.com, and writer Samantha Tse on the occasion of Mary Ellen Carroll’s presentation of Public Utility Miami. An adaptation of a working model developed by Rice University’s Wireless Network Group with the computer literacy group Technology for All, Public Utility Miami makes broadband connectivity and offers Super Wi-Fi as a model and program to affect public policy. Using public policy as material, Public Utility Miami is a conceptual land artwork, albeit for radio frequency. A conceptual artist who lives and works New York City and Houston, Carroll’s practice blurs the line between art, architecture, urban design, and policy. weR2 events at UNTITLED. included a Braid Bar operated by John Barrett Salon, and tattoos by Lulu DK Tattoos, jewelry-inspired metallic temporary tattoos using the original artwork of Lulu deKwiatkowski.
ALDRICH CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM, RIDGEFIELD, CT, NOVEMBER 15 – 23, 2014
The Dream Machine made its debut at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Founded by Larry Aldrich in 1964, The Aldrich is one of the few independent, non-collecting contemporary art museums in the United States, and the only museum in Connecticut devoted to contemporary art. In partnership with the museum, weR2 organized Art + Design +Life, a program comprised of a discussion on fine art and design in our everyday lives and a nature-inspired and child-friendly workshop led by internationally recognized artist Jason Middlebrook. Panelists included: conceptual artist, Mary Ellen Carroll; designer and artist, Sebastian Errazuriz; Wendy Goodman, editor of New York Magazine’s design features and Design Hunting; and moderator, Evan Snyderman, owner and co-founder of R & Company.
THE TALKS
weR2’s participation in the fourth edition of UNTITLED. International Contemporary Art Fair in Miami Beach (2014) included a series of talks on the occasion of Mary Ellen Carroll’s programme of Public Utility Miami. In conjunction with weR2, Carroll presented VUUM’s Super WiFi devices with an experimental license from the FCC for Miami that were developed by Rice University’s Wireless Networking Group under the direction of Professor Edward Knightly. Public Utility Miami utilized Super WiFi (unused television frequency) for broadband connectivity to demonstrate how this spectrum can be utilized in underserved locations. Super WiFi retrofits TV for the 21st century as a two-way communication model and engages in public policy as a considered material.
Mary Ellen Carroll’s career as an artist spans over twenty years across a range of disciplines including architecture, public policy, writing, performance and film. The foundation of her practice is the investigation of a single, fundamental question: what do we consider a work of art? Using public policy as material, Public Utility 2.0 is analogous to a work of land art, albeit for radio frequency.
A long-term project with unused television frequencies in New Orleans, Public Utility 2.0 was commissioned for the biennial Prospect.3: New Orleans. Carroll continues to work on her opus prototype 180 that makes architecture perform as a work of art. It employs land-use policy as its foundation. Begun in 1999, prototype 180 entails a radical urban renovation through the 180-degree revolution and reoccupation of a single-family home in the aging, first ring subdivision of Sharpstown in Southwest Houston, Texas.
Carroll is the recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Graham Foundation Fellowship for prototype 180 and an AIA’s Artist of the Year Award. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, Pollack-Krasner Foundation Award, Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and was recently awarded a Robert Rauschenberg Residency during which she completed the series My Struggle. Comprised of over 400 unique works that combine printing, drawing and painting, My Struggle makes memory and the subjective an objective conceptual process.
Her work has been exhibited internationally at: Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Johann Jacobs Museum, Zurich, Switzerland; ICA Philadelphia, PA; Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL; ICA London, United Kingdom; Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich, Germany; the Generali Foundation and MOMUK in Vienna, Austria; and in the Busan Biennale, South Korea. Carroll’s work is in numerous public and private collections. She has taught Public Policy and Architecture at Rice University, Columbia University, Pusan National University, South Korea, and University of California at Irvine. A 2010 monograph on Carroll’s work published by SteidlMACK was a recipient of the AIGA’s Book of the Year Award.
The talks were organized in collaboration with Tali Jaffe, Executive Editor of Whitehaus and Editor of Culturedmag.com, and Samantha Tse, a London-based journalist whose work has been published internationally in Cultured, New York Magazine, ARTINFO, and Wallpaper* among other publications. Cultured is a design and art quarterly based in Miami and published by Whitehaus Media Group, a boutique publishing company. Whitehaus Media publishes art and design, travel and fashion magazines, as well as books and gallery catalogues.