Feature Article ‘Talking Transitions’
These last two weeks opened a startling new exhibition and political education venue entitled ‘Talking Transitions’ located in an empty lot off of Canal Street and Varick Street, which is aimed at creating discussions and propositions for the new mayor.
I walked into the brightly lit tent erected on what’s called Duarte Square, purely out of curiosity. By its look, I was actually expecting some sort of pop up night club or fashion show. Instead, I stumbled upon a newly created mixed media project sponsored by George Soros’ non-profit organization for justice and change, Open Society. Having been vaguely familiar with Open Society from one of their fantastic podcasts (‘Life of the Law’), I was already in reverence of the idea. The huge tent is transparent and filled with colored lights and interesting arrangements using recycled crates. Lined up on unfinished wooden boxes were plastic protected iPads – named ‘interactive devices’ – each of which had a series of survey questions available to answer according to your status in New York City; lifelong resident, recent import, commuter, visitor, etc. Cleverly, the survey was answerable in 5 question batches so that exhibition visitors, while busy, would not have to make a huge commitment to still respond. Aside from the surveys, a ‘soapbox’ or microphone stand was available for anyone bold enough to get up and start a verbal conversation. The side walls were dressed with whiteboards for idea storming and boxes of labels and permanent markers were available and a popular method of writing down ideas and sticking them on any free space. This type of open source mining for crowd information using stickers and pens seems to be influenced from the installation art Candy Chang. She employeed this medium in her international exhibtions ‘Before I Die’ ‘Neighborloand’ and ‘I Wish this Was’ where strangers could record and see the ideas, concerns and wishes of their communities in a non-judgmental space.
When I spoke to several of the Talking Transitions employees milling around the tent after, they seem to continue the same thought thread. ‘Talking Transitions’ is meant to be simply a way to facilitate communication. It has no idealogy, no association with the local government, and no political incentive. Its events are independently organized and sponsored. After the two week space closes, a team from Open Society simply plans to quantify all the collected data and present it to the mayor as a means for consideration in his plans. Nevertheless, I was surprised to find that despite appearing free form and friendly, the employees of Talking Transitions did not want to answer my questions and preferred to I was redirect me to a special ‘Media Relations’ person. Once I obtained the media relations person’s attention, he refused to answer questions unless they were ‘off the books’.
From him, I learned that the entire two week event was surprisingly thought of and set up just a few weeks before the elections. Now, almost done with its run, its hope is to inspire other cities to do the same type of work. The tent, with it bright, dynamic demeanor, which I mistook for an art exhibition, was actually done by the production company ‘Production Glue’ which is a popular design firm that undertakes large scale NYC events like Tribeca Film Festival Streets and Election Night. Because of its innovative and visually striking appearance, there is a case for the for-profit company’s work to be taken into consideration as art as each aspect of their design is rich in metaphorical meaning and eye catching appeal.
I arrived on a mid-afternoon in the tent about a half hour before the two scheduled events started. Although built as a single tent, it is divided up into three spaces. One is a ‘Town Hall’ stage set with lights and cameras for official events and panels, one is the opening survey room, and the last is a smaller cocktail room that actually serves food in the evenings. I decided to go for the smaller conversation first, which was about Property Zoning and organized by the Municipal Arts Association. I sort of had a lot of hope for this event as the Municipal Art Society is one of the few organizations responsible for bringing more public space in the city, like the closing of Times Square, and some of its public art. There were a lot of people in tweed coats, fashionably curved glasses and thirty year olds with grey streaked hair- all probably urban planners or associates of MAS itself. I found myself wondering more about why intellectuals don’t tweeze their eyebrows rather than pesky zoning laws and moved on to the main event. It was about simplifying property taxes and included several urban planners from NYU’s Furman Center as well as people from the current Bloomberg administration. I started nibbling on my pb&j sandwich once the panelists started to talk about laws and issues that were way over my head. Ironically, although it was advertised as a Q&A, less than five minutes were open for questions after the sharp host finished her well versed probes. Interestingly, the conversation surrounded the fact that property taxes are extremely high for NYC residents, the majority of whom are renters and have to pay the taxes of their richer landlords- something with sounded to me like an Occupy Wall Street issue. However, with the panelists sophisticated language, there was little transmission on unfairness or anger as it was discussed with as least pizzaz as possible.
The history of Duarte Square comes into play here. Before Open Society borrowed the area for this event, it was a space for Occupy Wall Street protesters to voice their opinions. While those who initially voiced and called for change were beaten, gassed and jailed, this newfangled colored tent with high technology screens is meant to be the reaction to that- the tamer ‘opiate’ for many people who are breaking under the weight of NYC’s burdens to again, speak about and ask for change. There is a clear irony here. While the data collected in this project is meant to passively educate and better expand the knowledge NYC has abut itself, it is also acknowledging that we live in a beaurocratic system with many harsh issues that can undermines even the most enlightened and altruistic of ideas and movements. The reasoning for ‘Talking Transitions’ could be that New Yorkers can affect change but only in large numbers and only indirectly. And the last part –‘indirectly’- is disheartening, yet still a better alternative to the fire throated calls of our since forgotten protesters.
As art, I felt that this event was monumental as it crossed the bridge between artistic intention and political change. As a political outpost, I felt this event was also a monumental work, because it opened up a place for discussion and problem solving without assigning the need for the division of parties and outward negativity. My strongest feelings from attending this event came from the kernel of truth it contained while staring at its enormous lit up crate sign ‘Talk’. We do need to talk- and learn how to talk in the most efficient way that reflects our constantly evolving society. Using technology and creating safe spaces may just very well an initial experiment toward creating the most efficient medium for turning conversations into actions that can make an alternative life possible for the millions of people out there who don’t believe that our lives should be controlled by changes outside of our control.
