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Franklin Furnace presents four artists at
Digital H@ppy Hour at the Kitchen
Wednesday, January 31, 2000
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Rae C Wright, "Art Theif"
Jack Waters, "Superschmoozio"
Scott Durkin, "Shared Identities"
Dyke Action Machine! , "GYNADOME"

The Kitchen
519 West 19th Street (between 10th & 11th Street)
Wednesday, January 31, 2000,
6 PM Tickets: $8
To buy tickets go to the Kitchen

Franklin Furnace presents four recipients of THE FUTURE OF THE PRESENT, Franklin Furnace's live art on the Internet series.

Rae C. Wright's live/netcast art event, Art Thief, entertains the idea that all art is really a steal -- from life, nature, other artists' art. Ms. Wright uses the cyber medium to share her most recent "good art" experiences with the viewer, combining elements of performance art, audience participation, and tour guiding. This "event" incorporates the magical music of the composer Terry Dame. You are invited to participate! Add yours to Rae's rich stockpile of great stolen art - live online in just a few hours -- when all will become a part of the art we art.

Jack Waters Superschmoozio, The Game of the International Art Market is an interactive online game. Played and/or simulated, live and/or archived. It replicates the aggressive drive of climbing the ranks of a career in high profile top dollar art from the perspective of the "professional artist". Superschmoozio is currently being workshoped via utilization of visual chatware. In collaboration with DestopTheater (http://www.desktoptheater.org) this improvisational approach challenges concepts of hierarchy through the exploration of the myths surrounding "art", "advancement" and "success".

DAM! Techno resisters aren't the minority. Especially when they are the only ones left ... on the planet. The digital universe is growing exponentially, keeping most of us scrambling after the latest techno-gadget. But what happens when all the power is goes out ... FOR GOOD. That feisty public art duo, Dyke Action Machine's online manifesto for survival in a world without electricity could come directly from an Amish bed-time story. Except that it was written with a militant cult of lesbian separatists in mind. DAM! presents "GYNADOME," a post-apocalyptic paradise where Women go back to the Land and learn to love their Mother (Earth, that is).

GYNADOME, Dyke Action Machine's forthcoming public art project, will consist of two parts: a website and a 28' x 22' stretch vinyl mural, sited in on the side of a building in lower Manhattan. The project will revisit a particular moment in the history of lesbian culture-the separatist, women's back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s-by situating it within the narrative structure of such classic science fiction films as "Planet of the Apes" and "Mad Max". Spun from earlier campaigns, 1999's "DAM! FAQ! (Frequently Asked Questions of Lesbians)" and 1995's "Straight to Hell," the poster for the Lesbian Revenge movie that didn't exist, our vinyl mural will entice viewers to an interactive website.

Players will be able to join an online chat chamber, moderated by our Neo-Luddite characters, where they can discuss such pressing questions as: What if women ruled the planet? Inside the GYNADOME environment, players can be interactively "punished" for the mere mention of anything remotely automated and will try to discover which keywords trigger the various banishments. Viewers will also be able to watch streamed, diaristic videos of back-to-the-land life on Gynadome.

On a street in Lower Manhattan, the headline -- "No electricity, no computers.NO MEN" -- teases pedestrians as they gaze up at a billboard of a Lesbian Paradise that only Dyke Action Machine! could imagine. In a diorama straight out of the Museum of Natural History, three women gather in the woods, dressed in a retro-futurist pastiche of animal skins and biker gear. Joan Jett meets "Clan of the Cave Bear". Surrounding our superheros, hidden in the bushes yet perceptible to the viewer, are the obsolete remnants of our own digital age.

It's time for a massive technological backlash to begin. Everywhere we go, we are inundated with ads for start-up "dot coms". The term "IPO" is now as common as "BYO". A tiny cyber scream that goes off inside us every time a new technology is introduced. Yes, you might wail - but how many of us could survive without our palm pilots, cell phones or unlimited web access? Prepare yourself for the post-digital age when your battery pack dries up and the only communication left is a primal scream.

Scott C Durkin Description For this event I have coordinated a simultaneous action, the accumulation of sand from East and West coast beaches, with my twin brother across the country. He has completed the designated event as Scott C. Durkin in California, while I completed the action as myself, Scott C. Durkin in New Jersey. Thus I existed in two locations at once. The California version of myself then transported the excavated material (sand) to myself in N.J. Where the excavated material from both events was combined during a live netcast, supported by Franklin Furnace, and then distributed, via US Mail, to others across the country who share the name Scott C Durkin. This piece illustrates the shared identity we all have with complete strangers.

THE FUTURE OF THE PRESENT 2000 is made possible by the faith and foresight of Jerome Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc., the Heathcote Art Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts' Technology Initiative, the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology.