This Thursday, March 23, artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling will take the stage for another rendition of Contemporary Art in Conversation. One of the goals of this lecture series is to put an artist and an important thinker from a different field in the same room together to watch their ideas intersect. It is particularly exciting when the two speakers have not formally met, as is the case with Tiravanija and Sterling. While Sterling wrote for a catalog/interpretive publication from Tiravanija’s retrospective at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the two of them have apparently never sat down for a chat. This makes you and I the lucky ones on Thursday when we get to see their first conversation live.
It’s hard to tell what they will talk about. They’re both involved with complex, genre-bending projects that make their work hard to sum up. Tiravanija is the guy everyone talks about when they talk about “relational aesthetics.” In other words, when artworks are evaluated based on the social interactions they encourage, rather than the aesthetic value of the objects in the work. He is best known for installations in which he cooks Thai food for gallery visitors and staff (which was a big bonus to people who worked here during his Walker residency in the 90s), but has moved on to other social, interactive projects: a pirate TV station in Italy, radio broadcasts in NYC, and the replication of his New York City apartment in a gallery that was open 24 hours a day for visitors. Perhaps his most exciting work is an ongoing project called The Land that he co-founded with another Thai artist in 1998. Located near Chiang Mai, Thailand this site brings together art, architecture, agriculture, alternative energy experiments and a space for community gathering.
Now onto Sterling. Every description of Bruce Sterling that I have read labels him a science fiction writer. This is true. But for all of you out there who hear those words and immediately tune-out: keep listening (or reading, rather) because Sterling’s purview is much broader that of a stereotypical “aliens and space-ships” novelist. His interests in technology and culture include sustainable design, objects and how they function in a hyper-tech world, environmentalism, and really, a million other things. (Check out his profile on Wikipedia). Past and current Sterling projects include The Dead Media Project, a collection of "research notes" on dead media technologies like old video games and home computers from the 1980s, and the Viridian Design Movement, an attempt to inject environmentalism into design. He talks about techie stuff at conferences all over the world, and blogs about it at Wired.com.
With all that, who knows what topics will come up: aliens? architecture? jet lag? If you can’t come listen in person, we’ll be webcasting live on the Walker Channel. And for more and more information about both Rirkrit and Bruce, head over to the Off Center section of the Walker Blogs. See you on Thursday!