PAI

PROJECT JOURNAL 

POSTED: JULY 16, 2005

July 15th, Matthew Mazzotta - Settling into this long houred schedule has been overwhelming. I think I am getting the hang of it now. This week I have not gotten back from doing something “busycle related” before 11pm.

On Wednesday, Dave, Ann, Jeff, Matthew, and Vicky met up at Ron’s house to get an early start at the junkyard, only to realize that there was a little leak in the diesel truck we were borrowing. As any good member of the Busycle team, this little leak couldn’t go unchecked. So up came the hood, and Ron climbed in with his freshly shorn “mullet” he had won on a bet.

Within 25 minutes, it was decided that the truck could not be fixed at Ron’s place. So we loaded up and packed in and started our trip. In two seconds we realized that there was now diesel gas “flowing” out of the bottom of the truck. From that moment on, all six of us, accompanied by two to Ron’s roommates, spent the rest of the day at Ron’s fixing the truck, playing with a green rubber kickball, drinking beer, talking, looking at old bikes, and leading missions to truck repair shops for parts.

At the end of the day, when the truck was fixed, and we were looking at each other for what to do next since the junkyard had closed an hour earlier, someone asked “Should we meet up here tomorrow same time?” There was a pause, and just like we kids with not a care in the world, or even the inkling that there is such a thing as 9-5 or a real job, we all said “Sure.”

POSTED: JULY 12, 2005

July 10. Big, big week. We completely dismantled a 1989 Dodge Van with the help of Vicky, Tommy, Dave, Jeff, Tim, Ann, Ron, Heather and Matthew. Now we’re ready to start building the Busycle. We also scored large amounts of metal at the Harvard recycling yard, including 11 bed frames and loads of exercise equipment, which we will cut up and use for welding the Busycle frame. The City of Boston invited us to talk about how they can support the project. They will be helping as advertise and will provide space. We also had a design meeting that was held at Sparqs. And to top that The Boston Phoenix wrote a little thing about us with a photo. That is all the good stuff. On the flip side, Heather and Matthew have reached the unexplored edges of their minds through pinnacles of stress. Learning to stay positive has been quite the challenge on certain days this week.

 

POSTED: JULY 8, 2005

June 29, 2005 All kinds of excitement have been happening. As of late, Matthew has been a full time worker on the Busycle, pulling 12hr shifts everyday now. Long days, broken up by short guitar breaks and riding his bike down by the lake at night after his mind has frizzled out. Heather is still working full time as an affordable housing developer and the Busycle is filling every space it can find in the rest of her life.

Major goodness has come out of all the Busycle efforts this last week. We were donated our choice of three different vehicles from Charles River Movers in Belmont www.charlesrivermovers.com. We chose a 1989 Dodge Van with the help of Jeff DelPapa (http://www.the-nerds.org), a crazy junk-warring, bike building, all around knowledgeable bearded guy. We’ll be taking the motor out of the van and giving it new life as the busycle.

We put an old license plate on the van and drove it over to Sparqs in Woburn, the Mecca of welding and woodworking. Tim Panagos runs Sparqs, (www.sparqs.com) an Industrial Arts Club that has anything and everything we could ever want to make cool projects. Tim donated the space to us and is interested in helping us work on the project with some of his crew.

The whipped cream on top of that double scooper is that we received an email from the City of Boston telling us that they are interested in working with us and potentially donating space to finish our project. The little cherry sitting on top of this baby is that we have two women – Ann Adelsberger and Hannah Verlin - who have been rolling videotape to hopefully make a documentary of this whole thing.
been on a journey to find the rumored human-powered vehicle perched on top of mount Busycle. They have spent time wading through friendship lake, where they have been noticing how majestic it still is after all these years. Then crossing onto partner path, where the nuances have surprised them both in a pleasant way. Currently the two are just rounding paperwork hills and have started planning their trip through construction alley. Be warned though, as beautiful as this journey may seem, they reported being attacked numerous times by an old winged baggage-monster and his children.
So far Matthew has made a very pleasant transition into Boston from Vermont. The Berwick community has made the social side of meeting a new city very comforting with its cool people, fun little adventures, and casual parties. Heather seems to be enjoying the new friends just as much.
Since the conception of the Busycle in February, there was a long period where nothing happened. Heather and Matthew just lived the same way they had been living. Then around April, the winds began to pick up. The two Busyclers met for the first time in Boston to discuss the game plan. Soon after, the momentum began to build and we met the Berwick Crew.

After meeting our key players in the Berwick, it was time to go out and press the flesh with “Bike people”. We met with bike enthusiasts, SKUL members, MIT grad students, MIT professors specializing in bicycles and human powered vehicles, and who ever else gave us their ear for a moment. These people have become our “Busycle Experts” and we have been working with them through email the last couple of weeks trying to finalize our design, which should put us in a position to get a truck chasse this week.
On another front, there has been a lot of paperwork trying to get sponsors for parts, money, and to help with the event we have planned for the debut of the Busycle. Organizing our joint email account, Busycle@gmail.com, and trying to sort out and respond to all the people that have written us to help has been a job in itself. We have been offered help from people of all backgrounds, including videographers, a radio show producer, bike parts, garage space, welding equipment, overall good Karma, etc.
Overall, this experience has been an interesting road. We thought we were working on a Public Art Project, but we realized we were tricked by bike lovers into building a bicycler’s surreal wet dream. It is quite impressive to feel the power, creativity, detailed knowledge, and love of bicycling from the people in Boston and around the world. We even have people writing us from Australia and South Africa giving us tips.
At this point we feel this project must be dealt with in the stages that present themselves. At the moment we are finishing up the paperwork side of things, and are going to be diving into construction later this week or early next week. The Conceptual part of this project has taken a back seat, though we both all acknowledge that will become a focus again when we have the Busycle actually moving. Feeling like things are moving a bit slow, we are eager to start the next phase, and Heather even prayed to a sweat potato last night for guidance.

PROJECT REPORT

For more information on what the Busycle is up to in real time, visit www.busycle.com.

Busycle Final Report: When we first began our residency at the Berwick Institute in June of 2005, our mission was to invent, construct, and run a fully functional 15 person 100% passenger pedaled “busycle”. The goal was to create a vehicle that runs solely on the energy of its passengers. Although driven by a busycle driver, all passengers would be required to pull their weight and pedal in their seats. The pedal power would then move the busycle from destination to destination.

Over the course of the residency, this goal remained true and was achieved to a degree – we built a fully functional “naked” busycle that even had a very successful public maiden voyage. Today the “naked” busycle is a running machine with no public interface, such as an exterior shell or features that make it easy for the general public to ride. Yet, it is a vehicle that creates an immense amount of joy and excitement when pedalled.

As the busycle was being built during the summer of 2005, so grew the concept and the community that the busycle created. The following describes the concept for the busycle that has developed to date, how we got to where we are today, and where we hope the busycle will take us.

Context

The concept of the busycle responds to the role that transportation and top down approaches to decision making play in defining where and how we live locally, as well as how we interact globally. Transportation can be an indicator as to how much power people have within their own lives, as well as in politics and policy. Transportation can serve as a litmus test for issues ranging from environmental racism to global politics.

The busycle does not attempt to be the answer to major ecological or socioeconomic questions, nor does it attempt to even be a practical technology.   Yet what it does do is serve as the antithesis to top down approaches to decision making that tend to leave many in the margins. It is everything that top down is not.  

The busycle has created spontaneous community. It has grown from the ideas and sweat of over 50 volunteers, with interest from over 2,000. It has been built from the waste products of our society, with the majority of the vehicle made of re-used materials. The busycle will be pedaled by anyone who is willing.

The busycle requires individuals to use their own will and physical strength to come together as a group to go from point A to B.   Starting and ending points are ones that they control. By bringing the intersection of art, technology, and activism to the street, the Busycle asks the public to literally participate in a small “movement,” and have a heck of a good time in the process.

As a Participatory Performance Piece

Once complete, the busycle will enter its public life in a series of experimental public rides, during which we will invite the public to pedal. For example, the busycle may create a two week long event, during which it will be driven in the Boston metropolitan area following a community determined route and schedule. This route will cross neighborhood and city lines. The route and schedule will be posted on www.busycle.com, and signs and schedules will be posted along the street. Riders can be picked up and can get off the busycle at any stop along its route. Ridership will be offered at no fare to any person willing to pedal.

As we learned during test rides, the busycle creates an excited shared commotion among riders and those passing by. People on sidewalks stop, stare, smile, point, and call to friends. Others spontaneously grab cell phones, cameras, and video cameras. And still others swarm the seats and want to ride. With a top speed of only 10 miles per hour, the busycle is not intended to be a replacement for cars or mass transit. Its purpose is to stir the imagination. Future performances will grow from what we learn during experimental rides and from the unique dialogue that occurs between strangers as they busycle.

From Naked Busycle to Traveling Art - The Next Steps

To complete the project, we are working on three main components, which will improve the existing mechanics and create a public interface. 1) Improving the mechanics - Based on our test runs, we would like to make some improvements to the mechanics of the vehicle so that it can run virtually maintenance free at public events. 2) Making the busycle user friendly - As discussed, the central artistic element of this piece involves the spectacle and dialogue that will come from people riding. To complete the project we would like to make the vehicle easier for the average rider to participate. This will involve improvements such as putting clear safety guards on the vehicle’s mechanical system, so people are kept at bay, yet can still see the inner workings of the vehicle. Other such improvements will involve making the vehicle easier for people with diverse body types and various skill levels to ride with ease. 3) Completing an exterior shell - The final step involves building a semi-transparent cocoon-like shell that adapts to the weather and the mood of passengers. The exterior shell is intended to emphasize the vehicle’s unusual engine – people. This organic shell will complete the piece so that the busycle clearly and beautifully tells a cohesive story. As such, we hope to move the busycle from solely an engineering project into the realm of art, the context from which it initially was conceived.

It is our goal that by bringing art and technology clearly into the public realm and as near to the community as possible (what could be closer than riding an art project down the streets where people live and inviting them onto the art?) we will begin to stir a dialogue about the current and universal issues from which the busycle has grown, while creating a forum for people to pause and enjoy.

When: Friday July 13th from 7-10pm

Where: Art Interactive in Central Square, Cambridge.

Who: Guests included...

Dirk Adams is a local artist, curator, and member of the Mobius Artist Group.

Kenneth Bailey is Sector Organizing and Strategy Lead for the Design Studio for Social Intervention . Most recently he has been a trainer and a consultant, primarily on issues of organizational development and community building.

Nova Benway is a local arts administrator with an interest in collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas.

Neil Coletta, chef for Meet Me at the Table: Public Art & Technology, is a local chef, DJ and food writer.

George Fifield is a media arts curator, writer, teacher and artist. He is the founder and director of Boston Cyberarts Inc., a nonprofit arts organization, which produces the Boston Cyberarts Festival.

Liz Geller is Manager of Clark Gallery in Worcester, MA, devoted to the works of New England artists.

Jock Gill is President and Founder of Penfield Gill, Incorporated , a consulting firm specializing in New Media communications, marketing, and strategic planning. The firm also provides its clients with special scouting services: people, ideas, and companies. Currently, Mr. Gill is a cofounder of the not-for-profit Grass Energy Collaborative and the for-profit Biomass Commodities Corporation -- both registered in Vermont.

Natasha Khandekar is Director of Art Interactive, a non-profit arts space in Cambridge that provides a public forum that fosters self-expression and human interaction through the development and exhibition of art that is contemporary, experimental, and participatory.

Brian Knep is a new media artist who lives and works in Boston. His large-scale interactive exhibit Deep Wounds , 2006, recently won an AICA/New England award for Best Time Based Work.

Judith Leemann is an artist, writer, and educator invested in creating objects, texts, and environments that interrupt habitual thinking. She frequently works in collaboration with others and with system-based methods of inquiry, poaching structures from outside of the arts in order to create things that do not behave as proper art objects.

Meg Rotzel a founder, former director (2002-2006) and currently co-curator of the Public Art Incubator of the Berwick Research Institute. She is also Curatorial Associate at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT where she coordinates Fellow and Visiting Artist programs. As an artist, Rotzel coordinates public projects and gives private gifts. Rotzel is currently a candidate for Brown University's Masters in Public Humanities.

Susan Sakash acts as the Associate Director of Development at Raw Art Works, an art therapy youth arts organization (www.rawart.org). She is also a street band trombonist.

Phaedra Shanbaum is Co-Director of Axiom Gallery in Jamaica Plain. AXIOM's mission is to provide space to foster the growth of new and experimental media through exhibition and presentation of new media art and artists. www.axiomgallery.org

Matthew Shanley, artist for Meet Me at the Table: Public Art & Technology, will be the Berwick's Artist in Research for Fall 2007.

Stay tuned for thoughts and reflections by dinner participants...  
 

For this second of five dinner conversations, the Berwick called together a diverse group of individuals who are using technology and new media to push the notions of public and community access within their specific disciplines or  fields.

Over three courses, this dinner's chef and artist team (Matthew Shanley, the Berwick's AIR artist this fall, and Neil Coletta, a local chef/DJ) challenged the format of the dinner party, while still encouraging a delicious dining experience! We hope that these differing perspectives will help inform the ways in which our PAI "artists in residence" think about and utilize technology in their public art works.
 

We invited guests to share proven practices from their respective fields (education, community organizing, urban planning, health care, etc.) to explore ways in which public art might use new media technology as a effective tool for stimulating dialogue across disciplines.

The dinner site, Art Interactive, was chosen because it highlights the city of Cambridge’s support of and instigation of projects promoting the intersection between art and technology. However, we attempted to open up this conversation to include the perspectives of groups and individuals not from art or new media backgrounds who see public art as a powerful strategy to convey their work to a wider audience.
 

Some questions that interested us going into the dinner include:

Within these shifting modes of communication and representation how do our traditional understandings of public spaces and communities change?

Who is the public for new media public art and how might this public be engaged within a widening digital landscape?

Meet Me at the Table: A Project of the Public Art Incubator (PAI) Program

The Public Art Cookbook has arrived! Share the recipes, conversations and ideas that were shared amongst the Meet Me At The Table participants. Sample from the pantry gift box to create your own dish or public art project.

To purchase your own copy of the Meet Me At The Table Cookbook and Public Art Pantry, please email the Meet Me At The Table staff using the Contact Page. Each purchase of $45 includes a limited edition cookbook, spices and selections from the essential pantry list, beautifully packaged by the Berwick staff! You can also make a request to have the pdf of the cookbook emailed to you - please include your email address, mailing address, and how you found out about the cookbook and what you intend to use it for when requesting a copy.

 

Mission of The Public Art Incubator and Meet me at the Table

During 2007 and through the spring of 2008, the Berwick's Public Art Incubator Program (PAI) curated Meet Me At The Table, a series of four unique dinner events that brought together artists, community organizers, urban designers, arts administrators, activists and other interested individuals to discuss the potential of socially based, temporary works to activate public spaces in the metro Boston area.

This year long project evolved out of the Berwick's interest in expanding our network beyond the arts community, and challenging the ways in which the Public Art Incubator program has operated since its inception in 2005.

Throughout the Meet Me At The Table conversation series, the Berwick invited culinary and visual artists to create menus that aesthetically and gastronomically evoke the specific topic of each conversation. This project was launched in late 2006, with the final dinners completed in January and February of 2008. Each of the dinners brought new faces and perspectives to the table and helped shape the direction and conversation of subsequent dinners.

The intentions behind these dinners were varied but interrelated:

• To literally bring people to the table in order to address issues that impact the quality of, and relationships behind, the public art being created in the cities of Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville.
• To meet and begin conversations with potential partners, so that future public art projects can evolve out of previously identified, shared interests.
• To create a platform by which individuals, organizations and municipalities can continue these conversations to the benefit of the wider communities who are ultimately affected by the quality of and intention behind artwork situated in public spaces.
• To research and document the dinners and public art making in this region in order to create a creative tool that displays PAI’s findings for a future public event

Importantly, the PAI curators, Meg Rotzel and Susan Sakash, felt that the Berwick could learn much from other socially-engaged (non arts-specific) fields in terms of how to foster effective collaborations and ways to make art that challenges viewers to take on a more active role in the way they perceive and interact with the world around them. And at the same time, they were interested in learning how to keep this work accessible to those who do not approach it first through the lens of contemporary art. The ultimate goal of the project has been to work towards an effective model for experimental, temporary public art production in the Boston area. We also hoped to delve into what role the Public Art Incubator program might play within that model.

 

Meet Me At The Table ultimately intended to serve as a platform from which the various parties invested in the production of and interaction with public art have an equal voice in shaping the dialogue around pertinent issues on these subjects.

 

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Meet Me At The Table is generously supported by the LEF Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Boston Cultural Council.

The Berwick’s Public Art Incubator began in 2005 as a residency program that supports artists who make temporary artworks in public places. In particular, Berwick PAI artists use their residency period for projects that are still in the research and development stage, incubating their ideas and building relationships with partnering organizations and individuals. The Berwick works within the realm of social public spaces, drawing upon the knowledge base and resources of local artists, neighborhood organizations, activists, educators, citizens and arts organizations. Through our programming and artworks we position ourselves as learners who create collaborative conversations through socially focused artworks.

Mission of The Public Art Incubator and Meet me at the Table

During 2007 and through the spring of 2008, the Berwick's Public Art Incubator Program (PAI) curated Meet Me At The Table, a series of four unique dinner events that brought together artists, community organizers, urban designers, arts administrators, activists and other interested individuals to discuss the potential of socially based, temporary works to activate public spaces in the metro Boston area.

This year long project evolved out of the Berwick's interest in expanding our network beyond the arts community, and challenging the ways in which the Public Art Incubator program has operated since its inception in 2005.

Throughout the Meet Me At The Table conversation series, the Berwick invited culinary and visual artists to create menus that aesthetically and gastronomically evoke the specific topic of each conversation. This project was launched in late 2006, with the final dinners completed in January and February of 2008. Each of the dinners brought new faces and perspectives to the table and helped shape the direction and conversation of subsequent dinners.

The intentions behind these dinners were varied but interrelated:

• To literally bring people to the table in order to address issues that impact the quality of, and relationships behind, the public art being created in the cities of Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville.
• To meet and begin conversations with potential partners, so that future public art projects can evolve out of previously identified, shared interests.
• To create a platform by which individuals, organizations and municipalities can continue these conversations to the benefit of the wider communities who are ultimately affected by the quality of and intention behind artwork situated in public spaces.
• To research and document the dinners and public art making in this region in order to create a creative tool that displays PAI’s findings for a future public event

Importantly, the PAI curators, Meg Rotzel and Susan Sakash, felt that the Berwick could learn much from other socially-engaged (non arts-specific) fields in terms of how to foster effective collaborations and ways to make art that challenges viewers to take on a more active role in the way they perceive and interact with the world around them. And at the same time, they were interested in learning how to keep this work accessible to those who do not approach it first through the lens of contemporary art. The ultimate goal of the project has been to work towards an effective model for experimental, temporary public art production in the Boston area. We also hoped to delve into what role the Public Art Incubator program might play within that model.

 

Meet Me At The Table ultimately intended to serve as a platform from which the various parties invested in the production of and interaction with public art have an equal voice in shaping the dialogue around pertinent issues on these subjects.

 

------------------

Meet Me At The Table is generously supported by the LEF Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Boston Cultural Council.

The Berwick’s Public Art Incubator began in 2005 as a residency program that supports artists who make temporary artworks in public places. In particular, Berwick PAI artists use their residency period for projects that are still in the research and development stage, incubating their ideas and building relationships with partnering organizations and individuals. The Berwick works within the realm of social public spaces, drawing upon the knowledge base and resources of local artists, neighborhood organizations, activists, educators, citizens and arts organizations. Through our programming and artworks we position ourselves as learners who create collaborative conversations through socially focused artworks.

John Ewing was the PAI Artist in Residence during the Summer of 2006. For details on his residency and the current status of his project, Virtual Street Corners, please visit his blog: www.symphonyofacity.org/RISD/blog.html. This project is still on-going and plans to be realized in the fall of 2008 with support from the Tomfohrde Foundation, the Berwick Research Institute, and other funders.

Project Concept: A street corner in Dudley Sq, Roxbury will be virtually relocated in Coolidge Corner, Brookline, and conversely, a street corner in Coolidge Corner will be transplanted to Dudley Sq. A storefront window in each locale will be transformed to appear like that of the other. Using large video screens, cameras, mics, the project will provide citizens of these neighborhoods with a window into each other’s worlds. People in front of the camera in Brookline will be seen on the screen in Roxbury, and vise versa. The screen images will be life size and a pedestrian in one location will be able to chat in real time with a resident of the other.

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John Ewing is a digital media artist and muralist who creates public art with an emphasis on community participation and social justice.  He spent two years in El Salvador with an international development organization, using the arts to organize and inspire dialogue about human rights.  Other work includes projects in Nicaragua, Uruguay and Cuba, as well as various cities in the U.S.  Local projects include Symphony of a City, which portrayed Boston from 8 different perspectives by installing “headcams” on residents and projecting the resulting video footage on city hall and streaming it on the web (www.symphonyofacity.org).   In 2007 Ewing received an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and currently directs HUMAN, a Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project in Dorchester that teaches art to incarcerated girls.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Responding to the role that transportation and urban planning play in the physical, social, and economic conditions of communities, artists Heather Clark (Boston, MA) and Matthew Mazzotta (Burlington, VT) plan to invent, construct and pilot a fully functional 15-20-person "busycle". Once constructed, the busycle will be driven in the city of Boston following a predetermined and socially responsive route and schedule. The route will begin in Dudley Square (home of the Berwick) and will travel to key points determined by residents in the neighborhood. This program will be a part of the Berwick’s new public art initiative, “The AIR Satellite Program.”

For more information, images, and links to this or to sign up to the Busycle mailing list, visit www.busycle.com.

Heather Clark, a resident of Boston, Massachusetts, is an affordable housing developer and a sculptor. She most recently finished a Master’s of Science in Real Estate development from MIT in the summer of 2004, where she studied housing issues in underserved neighborhoods, building systems, transportation issues and ecologically sound building methods. Although perhaps not apparent on the surface, her background in development and ecology are interwoven into her approach to sculpture, where she looks at urban infrastructure, making places, and the meaning of the built environment and its relation to nature.

Matthew Mazzotta, a resident of Burlington, Vermont, is a carpenter by trade and a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He works exclusively with recycled, reused, donated and found materials to construct forms which help satisfy his near obsession with housing, temporary urban structures and culture, and the fantastic. He has a long history of bicycle projects ranging from a bicycle that powers an organ on its handle bars, to a low-rider unicycle, to a bicycle that pulls a cart where a couple sits and eats a candle-lit dinner.