Siphonoforia 2010
In conjunction with the month-long celebration Britweek, Marcos Lutyens performs ‘Siphonoforia’.
This automatist performance, involving robotic drawing, maps the hectic activity of Londoners as it contrasts with the meandering flow of London’s River Thames.
In the late 1950’s, when Debord published his ‘Théorie de la Dérive’ (1958) a different way of mapping the city emerged: one that was personal and experientially based. Another related body of work is Stanley Brouwn’s famous series ‘This way Brouwn’. Starting in 1962, Brouwn began asking random passers-by for directions as to getting from point A to point B. He gave each route that people drew for him the title ‘This way Brouwn’.
Recently Google’s Buzz and cell phone tracking enables all our personal and intimate activities and movements to be ‘geolocated’, making our lives so incredibly intensive and intertwined.
Contrasting to this maze of electronic and physical activity, a great natural body, in this case the River Thames, flows through a city that has been otherwise artificially planned and generated.
Sponsored by: Tom LaBonge, Los Angeles City Council District 4
Robots courtesy of iRobot Corp.
Curated by Kamilla Blanche.
Thanks to Mateo Pinkerton, Jimmy Maza and Eric Lozano.
Thanks to Karen Satzman and Alicia Vogl Saenz of LACMA.
Video by Angie Gray
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Blvd • Los Angeles, CA 90036
Sunday, May 2, 12.30pm to 6.00pm Reception 4.00pm
