अ पार्टी!

Impossible Geometries

A benefit party for the new home of Triple Canopy, Light Industry, and The Public School

177 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, NY · 8 pm · $5-20, pay-as-you-wish · February 20, 2010

Triple Canopy is pleased to announce the opening of an office space and venue at 177 Livingston Street, in downtown Brooklyn. The 5,000-square-foot storefront will be operated in partnership with Light Industry and The Public School New York and will regularly host artist talks, screenings, workshops, lectures, classes, and performances. 177 Livingston will also host a library of books, magazines, artist publications, and film, video, and sound work, which will be open to the public starting in March. (Visit the 177 Livingston website for more details and a calendar of upcoming events.)

On February 20, Triple Canopy, Light Industry, and The Public School will throw a benefit party to celebrate the opening of 177 Livingston and help the organizations cover the costs of building out the space's interior, which was designed by Rachel Himmelfarb and Gabriel Fries-Briggs with support from Common Room.

The evening will begin at 8 p.m. with readings by Ed Park and Lynne Tillman. Next, there will be a rare stateside presentation of Lis Rhodes's Light Music (1975, pictured above). Rhodes's double projection is a seminal exploration of 16-mm optical sound—the on-screen abstraction is "read" by the projector as audio—and a classic of British expanded cinema. The "Anti-Matter Cabaret" of Ambergris and a set by the avant-pop ensemble Skeletons will follow, as will DJ sets by Josh Kline and Gary Murphy & Tim Lokiec.

Readings at 8, film at 9, music at 10

Ed Park is the author of the novel Personal Days and a founding editor of The Believer.

Lynne Tillman is the author of five novels, three collections of short stories, and three nonfiction books. Her most recent novel, American Genius: A Comedy, was published in 2006 by Soft Skull Press.

Lis Rhodes has been at the forefront of British experimental cinema since the early 1970s, working as part of the London Filmmakers' Co-op and later cofounding Circles, the first organization in the UK dedicated to distributing artist's film and video made by women. She lives and works in London and teaches at Slade School of Fine Art.

Ambergris is a band conducting spelunking tours into fluorescent lagoons of narrative imagination. Citing influences from Gilbert and Sullivan to Flipper, Ambergris has performed its "Anti-Matter Cabaret" in locations such as the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Issue Project Room in New York, and the Fumetto Festival in Lucern, Switzerland.

Skeletons is a New York-based avant-pop ensemble. The band's sixth full-length record, Money, was recently released on Tomlab.

Light Industry is a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New York. Developed and overseen by Thomas Beard and Ed Halter, the project has evolved into a series of weekly events, each organized by a different artist, critic, or curator. Conceptually, Light Industry draws equal inspiration from the long history of alternative art spaces in New York as well its storied tradition of cinematheques and other intrepid film exhibitors. Through a regular program of screenings, performances, and lectures, its goal is to explore new models for the presentation of time-based media. Bringing together the worlds of contemporary art, experimental cinema, new media, documentary film, and the academy (to name only a few), Light Industry looks to foster an ongoing dialogue among a wide range of artists and audiences within the city.

The Public School is a school with no curriculum. It has chapters in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Brussels, Paris, Puerto Rico, and other cities around the world. Via the Public School New York website and its discussion boards, members collaboratively generate ideas for free reading groups, skill-based workshops, seminar-style discussions, lecture-driven classes, and participatory projects. The Public School is not accredited, it does not give out degrees, and it has no affiliation with the public school system. It is a framework that supports autodidactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything. The Public School is a project of Telic Arts Exchange.

Common Room was established in 2006 as a space for collaboration with a focus on the built environment.

Very special thanks to Katie Dixon and The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Sébastien Venuat, and Brooklyn Brewery.