Uptool Events This Week

Expanded Art History for Plants #3: 

How Am I Not Myself? 

Wednesday, April 27th from 6-8 PM

UIC Greenhouse and Plant Research Lab (1020 South Union)

Episode 3 of EAHFP looks at performance: the kinds in which we willingly choose to step outside of ourselves and the kinds in which we don’t even realize we are performing. Discussed: Ghosts, re-performance, actors v. acting, Dick Wolfe, Elvis Presley, and the existential, playful, self-aware, and nonetheless entertaining condition of self curation.

EAHFP is a monthly pseudo-lecture series that imagines a premise in which Art History is designed for anyone: kids, animals, plants, scholars; the Pizza Hut waiter as much as the Frankfurt School lover. The presentations in this series are therefore "expanded" in the sense that they are not only made somewhat more art historically general, but also entered into arenas of playing with its form and limitations. Which is to lead to a pontification following this hyphen - how do we talk about art history without a powerpoint or a stack of papers in front of our face outside of a classroom or conference? Answers are not necessarily expected, powerpoints are not necessarily denied, and papers will most certainly be used. The provocation is simply: play with all these things to make a potentially generative mess.

ABOUT THIS MONTH'S PRESENTERS:

Hannah Higgins' research examines twentieth century avant-garde art with a specific interest in Dadaism, Surrealism, Fluxus, Happenings, performance art, food art and early computer art. Her books and articles argue for the humanistic value of multimodal aesthetic experiences. Higgins is solo author of Fluxus Experience (University of California Press, 2002) and The Grid Book (MIT Press, 2009) and co-editor of with Douglas Kahn of Mainframe Experimentalism: Early Computing and the Foundations of Digital Art (University of California Press, 2012).

Kelly Lloyd, was named a "Chicago Breakout Artist for 2015" and recent solo exhibitions include: Gift Baskets by Occasion at The Mission Gallery & Western Pole, a telephone pole located on Western & Iowa Street. Lloyd's is the author of writings and performative lectures with titles such as "Notes on Facebook and Self Preservation" and "Cute Camo."

Nellie Kluz is a Chicago based filmmaker who makes observational documentaries about visual processes, social dynamics and small pleasures. Kluz's films have screened at the Full Frame Film Festival, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, the Independent Film Festival Boston, the Maryland Film Festival and Rooftop Films.

​Urban Forage With Nance Klehm

Saturday, April 30th

​2-4 PM

Meet at 2 PM at the UIC Greenhouse 

Join us this Saturday, April 30th from 2-4 PM for an urban foraging walk with ecologist Nance Klehm. Nance's Urban Forages are two hour long, informally guided walks through the spontaneous and cultivated vegetation of the urban landscape. Along the walk, we will learn to identify forgageable plants and hear their botanical histories. All Urban Forages start with an herbal beverage and end with a simple food shared over a discussion generated by the walk.

Nance has led these walks since 2006 in and around Chicago, as well as Los Angeles, Montreal, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, New York, Mexico City, Warsaw, Berlin, Baltimore, Portland, Detroit and Pasadena.

Due to a size limitation, please let us know if you would like to participate. We still have a few open slots available. If you are interested, please email Aaron at aaron.walker63@gmail.com

Nance Klehm is a Chicago based ecological systems designer, landscaper, horticultural consultant, and permacultural grower. Nance’s recent undertaking, The Ground Rules, is a unique earth-building initiative that involves creating community-run Soil Centers to gather organic waste from local businesses. She is the founder of Social Ecologies, an organization that acts as an umbrella for a variety of ongoing ecological and system-regenerating projects.

Radius Episode 73: Lindsey French

Sunday, May 1st at 5:30 AM (sunrise)

UIC Greenhouse and Plant Research Lab (1020 South Union)

Join Uptool and Radius us for the first broadcast and performance in the 2016 GROUND Series, featuring Episode 73: Lindsey French. This live radio broadcast and sound performance will be held at sunrise (5:30 AM) Sunday, May 1st on the grounds of University of Illinois at Chicago's Greenhouse and Plant Research Laboratory.

In this episode Lindsey French’s "non attachment to the ground" reaches down; a promiscuous transmission in an extended moment of transition and a cautious moment of optimism regarding the bedrock beneath Chicago. Think of a plant. Is it a tree? Or is it a houseplant? The ground is the basis of the terrestrial environment, where the normative plant is rooted. Without the ground there would be no sky, or without the sky we would know no ground. The ground is our grounds of habitation and habit. We habitually water our houseplants. Plants turn the air into ground. Plants disappear into the background. Plants are the background, but they transmit promiscuous signals and receive them, too. When the glaciers melted they deposited seeds.

Lindsey's broadcast will be available for streaming through the month of May on the Radius website.
Radius Episode 73 is produced in partnership with SoundCamp, a 24-hour radio broadcast that tracks the sunrise around the globe, and Uptool, a programming series that highlights the work of cultural producers who find themselves engaging the edges of anthropology, ecology, and the arts.

Radius GROUND is a three-part, site-specific, commissioned radio series that focuses on radio’s direct physical connection to the Earth.