Creative Migration & Jasmin Blasco Laboratory (JBL) present a film collaboration about sustainable futures

Creating experimental time-based media to advance cultural diplomacy through art, social engagement and sustainable futures.

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Written by Susannah Tantemsapya

Updated on 19:25, Jan 13, 2016

The First Human Born In Space

Whether privately or publicly funded, manned space exploration has functioned as testing ground for technological and ideological ambitions. In the large scale narrative of space, the astronaut is posited as heroic adventurer, the test pilot of scientific advancement. By flipping the pioneer narrative on its head, K_XYZ tells the story of the native astronaut through a series of fictional journal entries authored by a theoretical entity: The First Human Born In Space.

Projection is the site-specific intervention on the iconic, yet blighted Sunset Pacific Motel by Vincent Lamouroux. This exhibition was on-view in Los Angeles from April 26 to May 10, 2015. It continues to attract visitors daily (over 5,000 to date) as it embarks into its entropic state. Creative Migration and its founder, Susannah Tantemsapya, worked with Lamouroux for almost two years to bring this ephemeral, public artwork into fruition.

POST NEW BILLS is the first film about Green Patriot Posters, a highly acclaimed multimedia design campaign that challenges artists to deepen public understanding and ignite collective action in the fight against climate change. It tells the story of its founders and contributors, innovators of social change whose work has reached five million people through print media, public space and digital culture. Locations include San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ventura, New York, Paris and Stockholm.

Creative Migration is a nonprofit arts organization based in Los Angeles. Our mission is to produce and collaborate on initiatives to advance cultural diplomacy through the three pillars of art, social engagement and sustainable futures.

CURRENT PROGRAMMING

K_XYZ: The First Human Born In Space is a multi-disciplinary project primarily composed of short films written and directed by Jasmin Blasco, produced by Pico Studio in partnership with Creative Migration.

In a series of transmissions, The First Human Born in Space examines the long term effects of the condition of outer space on the human subject, mind and body. The orbital perspective of the native astronaut provides an alien vantage point on Earth from an environment of pure technological mediation. The project explores the ideology of function as it extends from engineering into the social realm.

Jasmin Blasco Laboratory (JBL) is an experimental research lab approaching time-based media as the site where sound, image, and language conspire to generate the fictional.

On Friday, December 4, 2015, JBL and Creative Migration organized a preview of the film project through #COPisHere, part of OpenIDEO's Accelerate program. The project’s official debut is in TILL IT’S GONE, an Exhibition on Nature and Sustainability, at the Istanbul Modern (January 13 – June 5, 2016) – featuring artists from various periods and geographies, explores artistic positions and approaches to the ecological issues and to the world we live in.

RELATED PAST PROGRAMMING

POST NEW BILLS: The Story of Green Patriot Posters (2014) is a short documentary illustrating how art can influence public perception towards environmental issues. Green Patriot Posters is a highly acclaimed multimedia design campaign that challenges artists to deepen public understanding and ignite collective action in the fight against climate change. So far, it has reached five million people through print media, public space and digital culture. The film features interviews with key Green Patriot Posters contributors (Shepard Fairey, Michael Bierut, DJ Spooky, Mathilde Fallot) and its founders (The Canary Project, Dmitri Siegel).

POST NEW BILLS was the only American film accepted into the first edition of Project Green in 2011. Launched by NOMAD Films, an independent production company based in New York and Paris, Project Green was an initiative challenging filmmakers to create sustainable projects and incorporate environmental awareness into their content. POST NEW BILLS has screened in New York, Boston, Berkeley, Chicago, Los Angeles and Stockholm. The film was also featured in 100 Days of Active Resistance, an online art installation and book published by Artbook D.A.P. to engage today’s youth through 100 images born from Vivienne Westwood’s manifesto encouraging the pursuit of culture and of art to provide an antidote to propaganda.

POST NEW BILLS was shot in Los Angeles, Ventura, San Francisco, New York, Paris and Stockholm. The film's director/producer, Susannah Tantemsapya, was the only person to travel to all locations, producing each shoot with local crews in each city. This significantly reduced the production’s carbon footprint, especially in the form of international air travel. Public transit, carpooling, on-foot production days, virtual Skype meetings, usage of High Definition video equipment, rechargeable batteries and natural/available light, online paperwork; reusable water bottles; and local, organic food for crew meals are some of the sustainable methods utilized during the shoot, which saved waste, energy, time and money. This process became part of the film’s overall narrative, fundamentally influencing the lives of the filmmaker, crew and its subjects.

Projection (2015) is the site-specific intervention on the iconic, yet blighted Sunset Pacific Motel by Vincent Lamouroux. This exhibition was on-view in Los Angeles from April 26 to May 10, 2015. It continues to attract visitors daily (over 5,500 to date) as it embarks into its entropic state. Creative Migration and its founder, Susannah Tantemsapya, worked with Vincent Lamouroux for almost two years to bring this ephemeral, public artwork into fruition.

The process of installation on existing architecture enabled this to be a large-scale piece that was mounted from April 13 to 26, 2015. The limewash mixture was rapidly applied in thick coats, blurring the building's details while preserving and clarifying the structure's essential shape. The limewash has an ambiguously strange quality that when applied is both textured and delicate. The trees and billboard surrounding the motel were included in the installation as an outline, framing a plot of land – rather than simply architecture – to signal the abrupt change in the landscape and return the spectator to a prime source of spatial information.

Projection disrupted the landscape that Angelenos have been accustomed to seeing, thus allowed the viewer to re-examine their own experience of the urban environment. It has garnered tremendous media attention with more than 100 features placed in international publications such as Liberation, The Guardian and W Magazine.

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Susannah Tantemsapya

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Celenk Bafra

08:10, Feb 04, 2016

We are extremely delighted to host First Human Born in Space at Istanbul Modern. It is full of metaphores and hints for a sustainable and unsustainable future in the planet/s. check out the website and the making of video : http://www.istanbulmodern.org/en/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/till-its-gone_1743.html

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Creative Migration & Jasmin Blasco Laboratory (JBL) present a film collaboration about sustainable futures

Written by Susannah Tantemsapya

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