Building A Nation
Sara Eliassen (New York), Carlos Castro (Bogota) and Jevijoe Vitug (Las Vegas)
Let’s Build A Nation (CAC the Nation)
Installation on view September 29th-October 28th

Building A Nation
Sara Eliassen (New York), Carlos Castro (Bogota) and Jevijoe Vitug (Las Vegas)
Let’s Build A Nation (CAC the Nation)

7:00 pm
UNLV/Art Department Fall Lecture Series
Off the Strip artists Kerry Laitala and Zach Rockhill discuss their work in the Marjorie Barrick Museum Auditorium.
For more information please see: http://art.unlv.edu/category/events/

5:00 -7:00 pm
Opening reception for Off the Strip: The Atomic Body
Artists’ Talk at 6:00 pm

7:00 pm
Doors Open for Pre-Show

7:30-8:30 pm
Test Market (Las Vegas, NV)
Schadenfreude
A broken soundscape that devolves into a stage performance that melds
men, machine, time and space. It is a dark, humorous and furiously
absurd work that will push the boundaries of artistic integrity and the
buttons of the audience.

8:30-9:00 pm
Intermission

9:00-10:00 pm
Kristina Wong (Los Angeles, CA)
Going Green the Wong Way
This new work details the artist’s two years (and counting) of living
without a car after a well-intentioned effort to “go green.” Wong focuses
on the urban landscape of Los Angeles—a city that, like Las Vegas, is
characterized for its sprawling roads and freeways that make navigation
without a car close to impossible.

Sensorium Lab
Jean-René Leblanc, Craig Fahner and Neal Moignard (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)
Open Field
This installation will generate audio and visuals based on analog phenomena related to the electromagnetic spectrum, body capacitance and the resonant properties of matter. Participants are invited to experience these phenomena by interacting with the space around the installation.

Heather Sparks (San Francisco, CA)
Within My Nature
A single-channel video of kaleidoscopic landscapes incorporating digitally rendered images of scanned skin and hair; an inorganic and organic construction.

Laura Smith Fillmore (Gardernville, NV)
The Mother Of All Bombs
Written while looking through a surrealist lens as an activist artist living on the Washoe Indian reservation, this artist’s zine is a working script for a performance - the culmination of three years of research (and counting) on the artist’s response to the birth of atomic technologies. Available at ATM in a limited edition.

6:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Kerry Laitala (San Francisco, CA) with original soundtrack
by Freddy McGuire (Anne McGuire and Jon Leidecker)
Glitter Gulch
A three-channel video and sound installation in 3D created from stunning imagery of neon. The original footage was shot on 16mm film. 3D Chromadepth glasses will be provided!

6:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Installation | Suite B115
Joe Nanashe (Brooklyn, NY)
3xladyx3
A video installation exploring the spectacle and mass devotion, celebrity and
the cult of personality, the constructed intimacy between performer and the
individual, time and it’s impact on performer and performance.

6:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Video Installation | Suite C114
Marlene Siu, Yasmina Chavez, Eri King and Javier Sanchez-UNLV (Las Vegas, NV)
Acclimation
Las Vegas as we know is a famous destination place for gambling, sex, have fun, and drink twenty four hours a day. This project essentially reveals places and people who live off the strip, away from the Las Vegas neon and how they have been acclimated to be part of this town that is not noticeable by tourists. The viewer will experience the other side of the sin city,  a taste of the real community and their acclimation in a short 3 minute video.
The idea is to make a video from another video that will be projected through a plexiglass separated from the wall, this will give the sense of layers and third dimensional space. Technically a television on a pedestal inside of an empty room will play a DVD of the regular Las Vegas Strip (while the DVD is playing on the TV), a video will be projecting images with people and their neighborhood on the wall behind the television.  The final piece will be a video that will be recording the TV and the video on the wall at the same time.

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Sci Fi Center on the south side of the Commercial Center
(* Upper level, New Orleans Square Plaza, directly across from Namaste)

Artists from around the US and the UK exploring consumption, construction, destruction, phenomenon and performance in these videos.

Minou Norouzi (London, UK)
U Never Asked To Be My Mountain

Liz Hickok (San Francisco, CA)
Las Vegas in Jell-O

Zach Rockhill (Brooklyn ,NY)
As for the Motive that Compelled Me

Joe Nanashe (Brooklyn,NY)
Internet Alphabet

Roger Beebe (Gainesville, Florida)
Strip Mall Trilogy

Scott Stark (San Francisco, CA)
Animal 2.99

Hillebrand Magsamen (Houston, TX)
Accumulation

Minou Norouzi (London, UK)
Imago

Jeanne Jo (New York, NY)
Russian Roulette in the Desert

Building A Nation
Sara Eliassen (New York), Carlos Castro (Bogota) and Jevijoe Vitug (Las Vegas)
Let's Build A Nation (CAC the Nation) - Live Presentation
Building A Nation collective declares Contemporary Arts Center a sovereign nation from September 29th-Octobter 28th, 2010, establishing its national identity, national symbols and history. To foster CAC nation’s economy, the collective re-invents the gallery as hotel casino – its “theme” inspired by cultures of nations least visited by tourists.

Diane Bush (Las Vegas, NV)
SMEAR and LOATHING
Artist Diane Bush confronts political leadership in Nevada. Members of the public are invited to an interactive performance to “smear” (with diluted bleach) photos of known state and local politicians. Uncle Sam and Betsy Rosswill be on hand and apple pie, hot dogs and other patriotic delights will be forsale at the Bar + Bistro @ The Arts Factory

Nicola Morton (Brighton, Australia)
Remote Viewing Experiment
Remote Viewing Experiment #1 explores our perception of objects from privatespaces whilst attempting to record and evaluate phenomenal activity. Theproject emerged from an open call to artists interested in investigating theirpsychic abilities and to post video journal entries describing the room of objectsposted online by fellow participants.

Douglas Moffat (Montreal, Quebec)
With Hidden Voice
In 1916, Marcel Duchamp created ‘A Hidden Noise’ / ‘Un bruit sécret’ - a ball oftwine trapped between two plates concealing an unknown sound. In 1963 ,Marcel Duchamp visited Las Vegas for the first time. Moffat conflates Marcel Duchamp’s readymade with the unique sonic environment of Las Vegas. The result is a series of sonic objects or readymades that serve as containers for a mysterious sound.

Off the Strip 2010: A Community Conversation
Panel discussion with Off the Strip artists and audience. Organized by Dr. Kirsten Swenson (Assistant Professor of Art History, UNLV) and moderated by Dr. Jennie Klein (Associate Professor of Art History, Ohio University), an art historian and critic specializing in contemporary art, public art, and performance. This program has been funded in part by University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Nevada Humanities, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.   

Taylor McVay & Jordan Tynes (Jamaica Plain, NY and Boston, MA)
Marriage Proposal: A Critical Engagement
Presenting their own wedding within the context of Off the Strip, Tynes andMcVay simultaneously engage the institutions of art and the social and private performance of “marriage.”

Diane Dwyer (Brooklyn, NY)
Can I Get You Anything Else?
Most interaction between strangers revolves around commerce --- the exchange of money for goods and services. Can I Get You Anything Else? is an interactive performance exploring the prescribed interactions of strangers using the language of a waitress taking an order.

The Bridge Club
Emily Ward Bivens (Knoxville, TN) Christine Owen (Warren, CT) Annie Strader (Huntsville, TX) Julie Wils (Gunnison, CO)
Music Box
Music Box addresses the spectacle, allure and possibility that characterizes Las Vegas in the popular imagination. Through its marketing and myth, Las Vegas promises a glamorous or exciting departure from our everyday lives. Yet, unlike its promise, encounters with spectacle can make the banal seem alluring, calling attention to conflicts of hope, expectation and desire. This performance begins at Don't Tell Mama, a classic Las Vegas piano bar, before leading viewers on a tour in search of an elusive mundane reality.

Laura Napier (Bronx, NY)
project for a street corner: Fremont Street
Visibly organized crowds are always seen at certain places in cities. Revealing a staged quality found in real life, this experimental performance explores how simple actions can expose reflexive behavior in public space, while heightening our awareness of crowds and of the polite space we allow for strangers.

Sister (Los Angeles, CA)
The Cutter
Outdoor video projection. In The Cutter, a Vegas showgirl lashes out against the superficial nature of glamour to reveal the vulnerability of her flesh. Through a cathartic hysterical fit, she defies the perfecting confinement of female beauty rituals and exposes her mortal, leaking body. Inspired by the template of the coven, Sister is a collaborative exploration of cultural myths and narratives that have shaped notions of female identity through the ages.

Taylor McVay & Jordan Tynes (Jamaica Plain, NY and Boston, MA)
A Wedding Reception: Celebrating the First Evening of a Life-Long Collaboration - Photo-Op & Toast

Danielle Kelly (Las Vegas, NV)
Go Down to the Pool and See the Shark: a love story
Language and found images are used to tell a story about the often disappointing, occasionally transcendent and always confusing search for true love. In the process, the tradition of oral history is used to think about how acquired experience shifts the structure of remembered experience and calls into question the contingent truths of lived history, while the "visual slang" of Google images, YouTube and memes- becomes a tool for rethinking storytelling and myth.

Patrick Cadenhead (Richmond, VA)
Cheyne Stokes: Live in Concert
Cheyne Stokes, the internationally renown and occasionally charismatic 5’11” cockroach, will be recreating Elvis Presley’s last recorded concert, the 1977 CBS special Elvis Presley: Live In Concert. For one night only, Mr. Stokes will bring this infamous performance back to its rightful home as a tribute to the messiness of the creative process and the business of survival.