Last wk- Dorkbots and Michael T

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I had two fabulous adventures last week that I’ve been meaning to share in detail. On Wednesday night, as I informed you in advance, I went to see ‘Creative Misuses of Technology’ at the 92Y Tribeca. The program was as follows:

Jeremy Bailey: live demonstration of the SOS operating system — Jeremy will demonstrate his radical ideas for a new kind of operating system. This consisted of shapes that could be compelled to do various things if you threw them against the sides of the screen. The fact that it was explained in all seriousness made it very funny.

The Draftmasters + Daniel Iglesia: live pen plotter performance — a musical performance using old electro-mechanical pen plotters as a sound source. The pen plotters draw and the sound from their motors is amplified and processed. Meanwhile video of what they are drawing is turned into anaglyphic 3D and projected on the movie screen. 3D glasses provided! This may have been my favorite simply because it was so fucking absurd. The audience sitting around staring at robots drawing things and having them projected 3D, it was all just completely surreal.

Kelly Dobson: Omo/Blendie/Screambody — machine therapy and wearable body organs. I take it back; this was my favorite. It’s this thing that you wear like a baby carrier and it contains sound so you can scream into it when you need to scream. I could actually use one of these, particularly when the subway is just stopped in the tunnel for ages…. AAAAAH!

fur: Pain Station — losing should hurt. Disturbing. Deeply disturbing.

Daniel Greenfeld: mini-disasters — recreations of famous transportation disasters in miniature. I would have to go with weird on this one, kind of like the diorama’s you might have made in 4th grade.

Jon Kessler: Cape Carnival/Cookie Machine/Marcello 9000/Rowing Machine/Still Life (with pork chop)

LoVid: 486 shorts

Daito Manabe: face shock/face copy — Daito Manabe plays tones into electrodes connected to his face, causing muscle spasms. He then hooks up his friends and uses his face to control theirs. Fucking awesome- people making music with weird faces. Any child would have adored this.

Sam Pluta: data structures/monoliths ii (for chion) — live video cutup mayhem.

Ride the Planets: Rock Wings

Tetranitrate: Laser Tattoos — what not to do with a laser cutter. The most disgusting and frightening thing EVER. The creator was in the audience and provided pics of the wounds a week after. Traumatic.

Tom Sachs: A Film About a Space Program — an incredibly detailed mis-re-imagining of a NASA space mission.

Paul Slocum: You’re Not My Father — crowd-sourced video of strangers reenacting a clip from 1980s sitcom Full House.

You can find more information on the dorkbots and their various endeavors on their WEBSITE.

Friday night I managed to get to two parties and still get into APT for Michael T’s party. My friend B got us in (he’s one half of Excess Energy, and the other half, Fucci, was spinning). I’m sorry to anyone who failed to get in that night; APT can be kind of a fortress at times. Actually they were keeping the crowd to a reasonable level, which was great if you were able to get in since it meant you had room to dance. B is an amazing dancer and I always have a blast when we’re out together. We have developed a theory that where there are drag queens people will dance, and there were some great drag queens, like this lovely lady:

Drag Queen on the dance floor

Close-up on the fabulousness

Fucci spun some great music:

Fucci at the helm

The best part of the night though was when Michael T himself danced. Michael T dancing is like a series of poses and as the one with the camera flashing incessantly I was lucky enough to have some of those poses directed at me:

Michael T

Michael T- check out those heels!

Michael T and his dance partner

It was truly quite the party. Oh! One final story about it! I was waiting in line for the bathroom and this guy tried to pick me up with the most NY line EVER. He says to me, all cool and chic, “I work in PR and I could get you into the Michael Kors show next week.” Hahahahahaha… how NY is that?

I hope you all had a great V-day as well (mine was uneventful; I chose option 4 after I realized that the wonderful party I detailed in my last post was all the way the fuck out in Bushwick. Actually it’s for the best as my friends tell me it was broken up early by the cops!) I’ll be letting you know about this week’s events shortly!