Conflux 2008

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

We presented "Open House" at this year's Conflux festival. Things went very well. The afternoon was filled with great conversations and domestic exploration. Matt and Todd were the perfect hosts. Their home is amazing. Their city is unlike anywhere else on the planet. The streets are truly alive. We are very grateful for Todd and Matt opening their home to the city.

via Conflux's Web site

Conflux is the annual New York festival for contemporary psychogeography, the investigation of everyday urban life through emerging artistic, technological and social practice. At Conflux, visual and sound artists, writers, urban adventurers and the public gather for four days to explore their urban environment.

People from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures come together at the festival to re-imagine the city as a playground, a space for positive change and an opportunity for civic engagement. The Village Voice describes Conflux as a “network of maverick artists and unorthodox urban investigators… making fresh, if underground, contributions to pedestrian life in New York City, and upping the ante on today’s fight for the soul of high-density metropolises.”

From architects to skateboarders, Conflux participants have an enthusiasm for the city that’s contagious. Over the course of the long weekend the sidewalks are literally transformed into a mobile laboratory for creative action. With tools ranging from traditional paper maps to high-tech mobile devices, artists present walking tours, public installations and interactive performance, as well as bike and subway expeditions, workshops, a lecture series, a film program and live music performances at night.

Since 2003, when we had 30 mostly local artists and a small audience, the festival has grown to include over 100 artists from across the US, as well as Australia, Canada, Japan and many European countries. As our annual call for artists becomes more and more competitive and we receive hundreds of entries, the quality of projects increases and we are now proud to present what we feel is the most innovative work being produced in the field of public-space arts.

Conflux is produced by Glowlab, a Brooklyn-based organization supporting emerging art and technology inspired by the everyday life of cities. Glowlab operates as a nomadic initiative, collaborating and consulting with host galleries, arts groups and individual artists around the world. We’ve worked with arts organizations including Eyebeam, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the Van Alen Institute and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, as well as local universities such as New York University, Hunter College and Parsons. Conflux has been reviewed in publications including the New York Times, the Village Voice Flash Art and Art Review Magazine and covered on numerous arts blogs and cultural websites such as Flavorpill, Nylon, Rhizome and Gothamist.

Conflux is attended by people of differing backgrounds who share a common desire to understand, explore, and ultimately heighten their enjoyment of the urban environment while learning how to sustain and improve it. Conflux visitors are introduced to the ways cutting-edge artists utilize performance, visual art and music to address topics including the environment, sustainable development, the increased presence of technology in cities, emerging trends in social/local networking and ways we can humanize the urban experience by encouraging dialogue amongst communities.

As a fiscally-sponsored project of Fractured Atlas and the Brooklyn Arts Council, Conflux has received support from the New York State Council on the Arts, Artists Space, the Puffin Foundation and the Independence Community Foundation.