Saturday, April 6th at 2pm, multimedia artist and experimental hodgepodge-ist Ying Liu opens her 2019 ISSUE residency with the premiere of PLAYDATE, a hyper-cellphone oriented performance combining theater and happenings, exploring themes of urban interconnectivity. The performance follows her neighborhood-wide theatrical workshop in Seattle’s Capitol Hill, YING OF THE HILL (presented by Northwest Film Forum), and the release of MAKE A FOUNTAIN, a book-length experimental report accompanying her three-episode play HANG OUT, that took place at Sara D. Roosevelt Park in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
PLAYDATE is an outdoor play in and about the Special Downtown Brooklyn District (DB) that documents a cast of roving players (documented by GoPro cameras) as they perform sequenced performative tasks which include dealing with local businesses, public facilities, and various contingencies. At 22 Boerum, the audience witnesses a projection of a screen mirroring the device of a lone “cellphone performer” that showcases the players’ activities through social media streams and GPS location tracking. Throughout, the cellphone performer runs their own personal and professional digital errands while intermittently checking in on the cast. Ying states: “We live in a time where it’s possible to watch an entire feature film on a cellphone in broad daylight, looking down”; she asks, “how might this change how long-existing artistic forms, like soliloquies in theater, are presented today?”
“If life is propelled by some kind of drive and philosophy for survival, then my theater, a form that imitates life, has performers commit to a trajectory that is creatively conceived and sequenced.” Featuring a cast of a dozen players found through personal connections, craigslist ads, street stands, and ISSUE's social media posts, the performers livestream to social media sporadically while engaging in and committing to their unique, sequenced actions throughout the neighborhood for about an hour and a half. They will set out from and return back to ISSUE. Attendees are encouraged to stay throughout the entire performance but should feel free to arrive and depart at any time.
As a whole Ying Liu’s residency explores the idea of "setting the audience free, physically," and probes what alternative viewing models could look like. Ying notes, “In a traditional performance or cinema setting there's a structure that asks for audience investment and obligation (to see and hear), emotionally, empathetically and physically” -- what she refers to as a FOUNTAIN model. “In order to not get wet, the observer has a tendency to stay outside. As a viewer, I frequently find myself toggling between the splash and non-splash zones…”
PLAYDATE is developed as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Workspace Program 2018-19 (https://lmcc.net/) and ISSUE’s 2019 Artist-In-Residence program.
Starring Catherine Ruello, Dave Wreck, Isaiah Baker, Julie Lin, Kenneth Pietrobono, Naomi Khan, Nawan Bailey, Nick Scavo, Rachel Brooks, Sean Forlenza, Yi Chen and Ella the dog.
Keith Connolly, CEO
Jack Skaggs, COO
Eli Coplan, CTO
Lighting: Kuo-Heng Huang
Documentation: Kuo-Heng Huang, Jingzhi Wang, Wayne Liu and Zhiyuan Yang
Street Outreach: Troy Schipdam, Nicole Huang, Jesus Benavente and Peter Shapiro
Many thanks to Jake Becker, Steve Cossman & Mono No Aware, Andrew Lampert, Tyler Maxin, Courtney Sheehan, Christopher Quinones and Xiaobin Zhou.
Ying Liu is a Brooklyn-based multimedia artist born and raised in a small island named Zhoushan in the East China Sea. Her evening-length, hybridized works often mix consumer technology such as VR, GoPro and GPS, and fuse mediums including theater, dance, video, and performance art with DIY props and an exuberant sense of play. The diverse, multi-generational casts of her projects range from professional ballet dancers, sociologists, house music DJs, psychotherapists, scientists and filmmakers – sometimes all in the same performance. Highlighting the shifting, participatory nature of viewership, mediated in real time by everyday use of technology, her practice reveals how experimentation is most fruitful when it escapes predetermination. Poking at the traditional boundaries between performer and spectator, she stirs together contradictory forces of memory, spatiality, and the inherent friction of sociality. New York’s Emily Harvey Foundation has presented her projects in numerous solo showings including performative screening (O Ppl Prefer) Techshting A(ny)way (2014), Don’t Be Shy, Man! – a hybrid show inspired by Stuart Sherman’s poetry (2014), and evening-length dance performance Now We Start from the Arm (2016). In summer 2017, she staged HANG OUT, a site-specific, three-episode play in Manhattan Chinatown’s Sara D. Roosevelt Park. MAKE A FOUNTAIN, a 302-page catalog accompanying and documenting those performances, was released in April 2018. In August 2018, she led a 6-hour theatrical workshop, an extension of HANG OUT presented by the Northwest Film Forum, in and about Capitol Hill, Seattle, a changing neighborhood where the Forum is located. Recently, she was part of the two-person show Cooked Two Ways, with artist C. Spencer Yeh at gallery Chen's in Bushwick, Brooklyn. She is currently a resident artist at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council 2018-19 and at ISSUE Project Room 2019.
Catherine Ruello’s mother and father were born, grew up, and got married in the small village of M. in France. She was born there; and, to speak the truth, there she dreamt of endless horizons and tumbleweeds. In the late 70s, she moved to Austin, Texas, where people oft-times told her that she had a lovely accent, which usually meant that they understood naught of what she spoke, often asking if she would kindly repeat her sentences (Texans tend to be polite). Having mastered her “Howdy” and her “See y’all,” she moved to NYC where she worked in waitressing, in publishing, and in art gallery-ing (sic), in that order. Now, she enjoys drawing and making pictures, but her favorite activity by far is promenading through the streets of a city. She has been residing in Downtown Brooklyn for 25 years. @cathruello1
Dave Wreck's roots in Downtown Brooklyn range from innocent teen memories and not so innocent ones. He still consistently works and plays there. He has frequented the area as a bike messenger and worked as a security guard for commercial buildings. He has mixed reviews of how the neighborhood is changing. He welcomes Trader Joe's and Alamo Drafthouse but despises the luxury condos and expensive coffee shops. He is a regular at the Dining Room and Hank's Saloon. He is also an expert on good pizza and can school you on how to tell the difference between good pizza and shit pizza. For his day job, he currently works security in midtown. Dave dedicates his performance to the memory of Aurilla Lawrence, a legendary messenger and legendary friend. @countastaroth
Donelle Randolf is an African American, 34 years old male who lives in Brooklyn, New York. A professional penciler, colorist and muralist, Donelle has been sketching for more than a decade, is extremely versatile, and seeks to become an established artist. @donivision
Isaiah Baker was born a Gemini, so he was a natural fit to wear a GoPro. Starting out life as a chubby kid, then moving into basketball, then finance, then a brief return to chubbiness, he now spends his time banking, painting, and trying to find “adventure” -- whatever that means. He has lived in Downtown Brooklyn for almost two years now, and has loved every second of it. His most notable achievement was winning the 2012 season of American Idol in a dream he had once. He volunteers his time to very few and even fewer desire it. His other interests include reading dead authors and listening to live musicians. @zayugh
Julie Lin has been living in the Kensington area of Brooklyn ever since she was “off the boat” over 20 years ago, at the same place and on the same block, since she moved from Zhoushan Island, China. She is an accountant/auditor for the city. Examining books and business activities based on established standards and protocols is what she does on a daily basis. Currently, she has a lot of time for herself and wants to reconnect to her childhood activities -- to find her sense of acting and performing that was lost long ago. Her journey and treasure hunt will begin soon and she knows for sure it’s going to be super fun. She likes to shop in Fulton Mall and get a coffee at McDonald's there. Court Street Cinema is also one of her frequent spots.
Kenneth Pietrobono (born 1982, Miami, FL.) is a conceptual artist dealing with ignorance. His work centers our inability to accurately model complex political, financial and social systems and their interconnections as the root for our age of no remedy. According to his Tinder profile, he is a “slightly over complicated Virgo (Sagittarius rising) [seeking] a patient partner to join him in what will inevitably be a cautionary tale of contradiction, intrigue, morning smiles and high level debates over pop music and global capital.” Clarifying that he is 6’4”, originally from Miami with 12 years in New York he goes on to state he “enjoys friends, family, travel, reading, debate, food, theory, giggles, beaches, blankets, architecture, art, politics, sweets and run-on sentences. His turn-ons include intelligence, wit, humor and karaoke. ENTP-T.” While he does not live in Downtown Brooklyn, his job as a studio manager for another artist is in the area and he has been in and out of several kinds of love in the borough. @kenneth218
Naomi Khan grew up in East Flatbush in Brooklyn, NY. She has regularly gone to see her grandfather at BAM and spends hours shopping for clothes in small Downtown Brooklyn boutiques. She is a freshman at the City University of New York, studying public relations and sociology, and is a social media manager for multiple clients such as Writing Stylist and The Caribbean American Organization. She is also a team leader for the Up To Us competition on her college campus to promote literacy on the US financial debt and fiscal policy. Her Instagram is @Naomi.Krystal_ and also has a Youtube channel to track her everyday thoughts. She has big hopes and dreams and plans to put them all into her life story. @naomi.krystal_
Nawan Bailey is a Trinidadian-American psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. A global citizen and polyglot, he speaks Japanese and French in addition to his mother tongue of English. He graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School, which with over 5,000 students felt to him like a world unto itself, in 1983. It is with relish that he remembers the occasional baked potato skin with sour cream and chives he and classmates would enjoy after school at, what was then, the newly opened Albee Square Mall in Downtown Brooklyn.
Rachel Brooks is a wax specialist and makeup artist residing in Staten Island and works in the Downtown Brooklyn area. She lives with her mom, step father, younger sister and her cat. Her passion for all things art and beauty is what keeps her creative juices flowing. She enjoys exploring her creativity by working on cross-stitch embroidery, painting and drawing. Her hobbies include dancing, reading, working out and making people laugh. @qu33nrach
Sean Forlenza has been a dog walker (walks around 13 different dogs a week) in Brooklyn Heights and Downtown Brooklyn since 2010. He also plays guitar and sings in River Cult, a heavy psychedelic rock band. Sean also DJs at WFMU every Tuesday at midnight with his program, "What Was Music?" For some reason, he enjoys confusion and goes by the name, "Marcel M" while on the air. He is also an avid reader and particularly enjoys French and Russian literature, although he laments the fact that he is too slow witted to read these works in their native tongue. @marcel_mirbeau
Yi Chen was born and raised in the island country of Taiwan. She teaches sociology, tries to be a caring person, and hopes to learn a few life's secrets from her cats. She goes to Downtown Brooklyn a few times a week and prefers to board the 4/5 trains from near the end of the platform. She performed in Ying Liu's Don't Be Shy Man! - a hybrid show inspired by Stuart Sherman’s poetry (2014), Now We Start from the Arm (2016), and HANG OUT (2017) along with its two prototypes. @yi.chen.549221
