We’re in the thick of the Minneapolis Art on Wheels Artist Residency Program, which will transform WBSC into a laboratory and studio until sometime in mid-June. Check out their website or stop by if you’re curious what this visiting group of artists is up to!
There will still be occasional events at WBSC, so keep your eyes on our calendar for details.
-S.H.M.
Those of you who have followed our activities since roughly a year ago, when we opened, will have noticed that in the past couple of months things have been a bit quieter in our corner of the West Bank.
This is because we’ve been busy. Boy, have we ever!
Our friends from MAW will be using the West Bank Social Center for the next two months as headquarters for their Artist Residency Program, which will bring media artists from around the world here to Minneapolis to create new projects. You can read about the projects here, and stay tuned, because there will almost certainly be some prototyping.
To prepare for the residents, MAW has been making some improvements to the space, including installing a gigantic projection screen made from an old vinyl billboard (they’re a resourceful bunch - just look at the photo).
In the meantime, the WBSC crew has been busy getting set for a few new projects of our own that will get us out of the space and into the surrounding city.
Our first curated exhibition, We Work Here: A Conversation on Art, Economics and Community, will open on June 3rd at Intermedia Arts with programming happening there, and here, and in a number of places in between. Want to participate? Here’s how.
There are still a number of artists and groups using WBSC for their various shows and gatherings - check out the calendar to see more, and let us know if you are interested.
We’re in conversation with other businesses and groups in the neighborhood, and trying to encourage and participate in some creative collaborations over the summer. More on that soon!
One of our cohort will be leaving in August for big things in New York, and we will be looking for more people with various skills and interests to work with us here in the space, so if you are interested, drop us a line!
And don’t forget to stop by tomorrow night to help us celebrate the end of short, but weary winter. Rent party details here.
S.H.M.
It’s Wednesday, which means that tonight is Wednesday Night Social and you are invited. We’ll be joined once again by our friends MAW, who will be working with artists Janaki Ranpura and Karen Haselmann to present a special interactive performance about health.
You can read more about it and RSVP here. We hope to see you at or after 8pm!
-Shanai
WBSC + MAW + You = ?
As you may have heard, somethin’s been a-happenin’ Wednesday nights at the WBSC. We’ve teamed up with Minneapolis Art on Wheels, who’ll be setting up their lab in the space every hump day and projecting onto the building across the way.
This video is from our first official Wednesday Night Social, when Miranda & I discovered a pitcher of moldy lemonade in the (unplugged) mini-fridge in the kitchen. We handed it off to the MAWs, and this is what happened.
What’s in store for tonight? I have no clue, really. Swing by and find out for yourself.
—Andy
“University Professor Ali Momeni displays a light projection Wednesday at the West Bank Social Center. Momeni teaches Art on Wheels, a class and research initiative that lets students display art from bike-mobilized media disseminators.”
Photo via Jason Kopp at Minnesota Daily.
Minneapolis Art on Wheels, a group of University of Minnesota students who roam the city on homemade mobile contraptions and project art onto large-scale backdrops, is beefing up its program this year with weekly performances and new software that allows audiences to participate using iPods.
Since its conception in the spring of 2008, the program has had students traveling throughout the United States to places like Montana, Nevada, California and Iowa as well as internationally to countries including Hungary, the Czech Republic, China and Turkey.
The projections are never lacking in originality, and have included countless illuminated sketches, shadow puppets, live musicians, actors and word art.
Each Wednesday at dusk, the group will meet in the new West Bank Social Center headquarters — located above the Nomad World Pub — and project their creations from the windows onto a large wall below…
We said we didn’t know what would happen when we let Minneapolis Art on Wheels run our Wednesday night social. They are currently manipulating some moldy lemonade (forgotten and found on a dusty WBSC shelf) with a magnet and projecting the image onto the building next door.
We’ve also just fashioned a Wheel of (Mis)fortune from cardboard for this Friday’s Speakeasy.
Earlier this month Minneapolis Art on Wheels paid a visit to WBSC and temporarily transformed the space into a media laboratory. Click the link above to see a video they made documenting the evening.
Tonight MAW returns for the first in an ongoing series of Wednesday night happenings. We are not sure what will happen, but suspect that it will be a good time.
WBSC will be open from 7pm to Midnight tonight and on Wednesday nights from here onward. All are invited to stop by.
Designed by Sam Paro.
Modifications by Colin Kloecker.
