PigeonBlog (2024), photo by Juan Silverio.
PigeonBlog Launch and Workshop | Beatriz da Costa: (un)disciplinary tactics
Saturday, October 19, 2024, 2:30–4 PM
Release begins at 2:30 PM, free and open to the public
Workshop begins at 3 PM, registration required
Crenshaw Dairy Mart
8629 Crenshaw Blvd, Inglewood, CA 90305
Saturday, November 16, 2024 from 11 AM–1 PM
Conversation begins at 11 AM
Release begins at 12:30 PM
Curator walkthroughs at 2:30 PM and 3:30 PM
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
4800 Hollywood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90028
Join LACE for reactivations of Beatriz da Costa’s landmark work, PigeonBlog (2006–08) as part of the PST ART exhibition, Beatriz da Costa: (un)disciplinary tactics. PigeonBlog is an interspecies collaboration between homing pigeons, artists, engineers, and pigeon fanciers to collect and distribute air quality data to the public. Collaborating with pigeons that carry custom-built miniature air pollution sensors, this work engages in grassroots data collection to investigate the use of interspecies co-production in the pursuit of resistant action. Following da Costa’s ethos around collaborative knowledge-building and engagement, this program expands beyond the gallery walls and into the city to revisit the work nearly 20 years later. Guests are encouraged to observe in real-time the collected air pollution data through the PigeonBlog interactive map.
In partnership with Crenshaw Dairy Mart and Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, PigeonBlog is reactivated with media archeologist and artist Leslie García and pigeon fancier Bob Matsuyama. The launch is accompanied by a workshop led by Leslie García, who will demonstrate how to build a DIY air pollution sensor, followed by a conversation with exhibition curators Daniela Lieja Quintanar and Ana Briz, who will explain the process of restaging PigeonBlog; Bob Matsuyama, who will share insights on collaborating with pigeons; and Bhavna Shamasunder, who will speak on environmental justice activism in Los Angeles and ways for people to get involved.
About the Workshop
The PigeonBlog workshop is dedicated to learning about city pollution, community efforts, and building your own pollution sensor device based on the artistic practice of the late Beatriz da Costa. PigeonBlog is based on the idea of learning, generating, and sharing autonomous data by and for communities.
Each participant in the workshop will learn about the necessary components to build your own sensor device. Artist and Media Archeologist Leslie García will lead the workshop in two parts: the first session is dedicated to the electrical components, through an online video where García explains the data sensors and their individual components, as well as an introduction to air pollution and the relation with Beatriz da Costa’s practice. The second session is participatory, where you will learn directly from the project collaborators and have the opportunity to ask questions.
On November 16, the PigeonBlog workshop will feature a presentation by environmental justice scholar Bhavna Shamasunder, who will share resources on environmental justice and regional health issues. Following the PigeonBlog release and workshop, exhibition curators will lead two 20-minute walkthroughs at 2:30 PM and 3:30 PM. Reservations not required.
At 1 PM, Los Angeles Dance Project will present Resonance, a newly commissioned piece performed throughout Barnsdall Art Park as part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide.
About the Speakers
Leslie García works developing electronic art and digital media projects. She explores the process of fusion between art and technology. Cofounder of the bioart collective Interspecifics (Mexico City) 2013-present, cofounder of the electronic media collective DreamAddictive (Tijuana B.C.) 2003-2010, and member of Astrovandalists in Mexico City 2011-2018. Associate researcher at the Nano Laboratory Nucleus of the Escola de Belas Artes (UFRJ) in Rio de Janeiro, 2012-2015. In 2015-2016, she worked as an artistic researcher in the media department of the Bauhaus University in Weimar Germany. Member of National System of Art Creators (SNCA) in the specialty of new technologies 2022-2025.
Sergio Ramos is an Architectural Designer with a background on empathic design, digital design,
fabrication techniques, and other emergent technologies. Early in his career Sergio established himself as a founding Director of a non-profit that served as an open door, open-access community maker-space and hacker-space. During this time, he collaborated with the local community to engage in architectural interventions, art exhibitions and design-built work, in Mexico and the U.S. While pursuing his graduate degree in architecture, Sergio extensively researched the relationship between the built environment and the effects it has on people. His final thesis focused on visual architectural expressions that trigger a particular feeling, emotion, or sensation.
Bhavna Shamasunder is Associate Professor and Chair in the Urban and Environmental Policy Department and co-chair of the Public Health Program at Occidental College. She teaches and conducts research on environmental health and justice with a focus on the disparate and cumulative burdens faced by poor communities of color. Her active research projects include health impacts from neighborhood oil drilling in Los Angeles; the “environmental injustice of beauty” that considers health disparities for women of color from synthetic chemicals in consumer products; and the types of information (i.e. economic, public health, etc..) used by diverse immigrant communities in decisions to lighten skin and/or use skin lightening products. Her work has been supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the California Breast Cancer Research Program, and the National Science Foundation. She received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management.
SUPPORT
Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returns in September 2024 with more than 70 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. Dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will join the latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, with exhibitions on subjects ranging from ancient cosmologies to Indigenous sci-fi, and from environmental justice to artificial intelligence. Art & Science Collide will share groundbreaking research, create indelible experiences for the public, and generate new ways of understanding our complex world. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit pst.art.
Special thanks to the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural of Affairs for their support while LACE’s Hollywood Gallery is under renovation.
