Venue

I'm excited to be launching a new project called Venue, a 16-month collaboration with the Nevada Museum of Art's Center for Art + Environment and Future Plural, the small publishing and curatorial group I'm a part of with Nicola Twilley.

We kick things off this Friday, June 8, with a launch event at the Nevada Museum of Art in downtown Reno, from 6-8pm; if you're near Reno, consider stopping by!

[Image: The tools and props of surveying; courtesy of the USGS].

In brief, Venue is equal parts surveying expedition and forward-operating landscape research base, a DIY interview booth and media rig that will pop up at sites across North America through September 2013.

Nicola Twilley and I will be traveling on and off, in a series of discontinuous trips, over the next 16 months, visiting a variety of sites including infrastructural landmarks, science labs, factories, film sets, archaeological excavations, art installations, university departments, design firms, National Parks, urban farms, corporate offices, studios, town halls, and other locations across North America, where we'll both record and broadcast original interviews, tours, and site visits. From architects to scientists and novelists to mayors, from police officers to civil engineers and athletes to artists, Venue’s interview archive will form a cumulative, participatory, and media-rich core sample of the greater North American landscape.

[Image: Understanding landscapes by way of strange devices; courtesy of the USGS].

While there will no doubt be regular updates here on BLDGBLOG, you can follow along, both online and off, by reading our latest dispatches, suggesting sites and people we should visit, and keeping an eye on our schedule (or signing up for our mailing list) to find out when we will be bringing Venue to a neighborhood near you. In addition, our best content will be syndicated on a dedicated channel online by The Atlantic, so keep your eye out for our first interviews or site visits—photos, short films, MP3s—as our travels get underway.

[Image: The Venue tripods, universal mounts for interchangeable devices; designed by Chris Woebken].

There's a lot more information available about the project at the Venue website—including some early images depicting the incredible array of devices designed for us by Chris Woebken, a gorgeous hand-made interview box custom-fabricated for Venue by Semigood, and the "Descriptive Camera" that we'll have on the first leg of our trip—so by all means stop by and see the ideas behind the project, from conceptual inspiration taken from historical survey expeditions to Ant Farm's Media Van.

[Image: The Venue box takes shape, custom-designed by Semigood].

And hopefully somewhere down the line, we can meet many of you in person.