CURRENT SERVICES

Supermax Subscriptions - Ongoing project, started March 2008.

Supermax Subscriptions seeks to connect the surplus of well-traveled citizens to a population that never goes anywhere: prisoners in American supermax prisons.

As most of you know, frequent flyer miles often expire before it is possible to save enough of them for a free airline ticket, seating upgrade, or other costly prize. Supermax Subscriptions asks people with these surplus miles to exchange small quantities of unused miles for magazine subscriptions to supermax prisoners. For as few as 300 miles, you can give the gift of a yearly magazine subscription to a prisoner with little or no reading material.

The first goal of Supermax Subscriptions is to provide every prisoner in Tamms C-MAX supermax prison with at least one magazine subscription. Men in Tamms are in their cells 23-24 hours a day in permanent solitary confinement. The men have been there for years on end—many for ten years. They have no communal activity, no phone calls, no programs, no education, no work, no librarian, and virtually no reading (mostly children’s books). A magazine subscription is one way to give these men your support. Your gift will not be taken for granted.

In conjunction with the Tamms Year Ten campaign, we are kicking-off the Supermax Subscriptions project on the day of the ten-year anniversary of the opening of Tamms supermax prison. Together, we will sign letters to each man in Tamms C-MAX, asking them to pick their magazine preferences. Please join us—each handwritten signature will show them that someone on the outside knows and cares about their situation.

This project is a collaborative effort by Tamms Poetry Committee, Sarah Ross, Temporary Services, and you!

First Event!
WHERE: Mess Hall, 6932 N. Glenwood Ave, Chicago 60626
WHAT: Potluck & letter-signing with information & entertainment.
WHEN: March 8, 2008, 6pm-8:30pm.
CONTACT US: supermax [at] temporaryservice [dot] org
FURTHER INFORMATION: www.YearTen.org

Photos and details from the mailing event at Mess Hall: here

Coming Soon: Participating prisoners! Watch this page to learn which Tamms prisoners will participate and how to send them gift subscriptions.

Airlines: Check these airlines to sign up for a mileage awards plan, check your travel mile balance and to find out how to redeem miles for magazine subscriptions: American Airlines, Delta, other airlines may apply.You are also welcome to purchase magazines if you don't have any frequent flier miles.

Overview of Prisoners' First Amendment Rights (download a copy in PDF form)

Personal Plastic - Off the Grid, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY, March 30 – June 1, 2008.

We are presenting a mix of new and old items made from plastic bags, images of plastic bags in peoples' home, plastic bags in the wirld, and a selection of our booklets.

From the museum's web site:

Off The Grid features works that subvert and circumvent conventional infrastructures.

Interested in alternatives to corporate and commercial applications and proprietary refinement of communication technologies, Off The Grid assembles media works by contemporary artists making social and ecological responsible art.

Installed inside the Neuberger Museum of Art and across the Purchase College campus, visitors will encounter installations that are non-regulated, fluid, and composed of accessible, sustainable materials, often incorporating participatory elements, which augment the works themselves.

Off the Grid is co-organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art and free103point9. Curated by Jacqueline Shilkoff (Associate Curator, Neuberger Museum of Art ) and Galen Joseph-Hunter, Tianna Kennedy, Tom Roe (free103point9).

Here is our brand new poster-booklet for Personal Plastic: personal_plastic_2008.pdf

Neuberger Museum of Art

Audio Relay 2005 - Beyond Green: Towards a Sustainable Art, Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford Hartford, Connecticut, April 2 ‚ June 10, 2008.

Brennan McGaffey collaborated with us to make a second Audio Relay (mobile radio station and archive) for this traveling exhibition.

Contributors:
[archive]
Jack Armstrong
EC Brown
Nick Diederich
The Freedom of the Art - Radio Broadcast
Matt Hanner
Gregory Jacobsen
Terry Plumming
Open Source / Open Ear - Compiled by Tim Ivison
Jerry Rose
Paul Lloyd Sargent
Sasker Scheerder
Andy Sykora

Beyond Green is described as:

Balancing environmental, social, economic, and aesthetic concerns, sustainable design is a critical tool of contemporary culture and increasingly the topic of fervent public discourse throughout the United States and Europe. Beyond Green: Toward A Sustainable Art probes the relationship between sustainable design and contemporary artistic practice by spotlighting a number of international artists who use the strategies and promises of sustainable design for metaphoric, practical, critical or even playful ends. [...] Presenting existing works, new commissions, and previously presented work that has been “recycled” into new forms, this exhibition seeks to create new opportunities for thinking collectively about sustainable design and to build paths to new forms of practice.

This exhibition was organized by Stephanie Smith with ICI, and is traveling to mutliple venues through 2009:

The Smart Museum, Chicago, October 6, 2005 - January 15, 2006
Museum of Arts & Design, NYC, February 2 - May 7, 2006
University Art Museum, CSLUB, Long Beach, California, November 1 - December 17, 2006
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA, February 2 - April 15, 2007
Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH, May 4 - July 15, 2007
Richard E. Peeler Art Center, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN, September 14 - December 2, 2007
Museum London, London, Ontario, January 5 - March 16, 2008
Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, University of Hartford Hartford, Connecticut, April 2 ‚ June 10, 2008
The Ronna and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art, Lewis & Clark College Portland, Oregon, September 11, 2008 ‚ December 7, 2008
The DeVos Art Museum, Northern Michigan University Marquette, MI, January 21 ‚ March 29, 2009

Public Phenomena and Temporary Conversations - One Night Stand, Berlin Biennial, Kunstwerke, Berlin, May 24, 2008.

We will release the first in a brand new series of interview booklets, Temporary Conversations, at the One Night Stand event.

One Night Stand will be a very small scale "artists' book fair"-type event. It will take place in the garden of KW on the evening of May 24th. Like in most regular fairs there will be long tables on which to present the projects and benches to sit on. The bar will be open and the usual Saturday night crowd will mix with those coming specially for the books.

The following people will participate:
Documentation Celine Duval, Normandie, www.doc-cd.net
Temporary Services, Chicago, www.temporaryservices.org
Eva Weinmayr books and printed projects, London, www.evaweinmayr.com
Uqbar Foundation, (Irene Kopelman/Mariana Castillo Deball) Amsterdam, www.uqbarfoundation.org
Rita McBride books, Duesseldorf, www.ritamcbride.net
Kristina Ask, dictionary and printed projects, Copenhagen www.kristinask.net
Salamander Comics, collaborative comicbook series, Beirut, www.samandal.org
Michalis Pichler, printed projects and archive of shredded catalogues, Berlin, www.buypichler.com
Anita di Bianco, Corrections and Clarifications, New York. www.anitadi.net
Bent Books, Istanbul, www.b-a-s.info

Kunst-Werke, Auguststr. 69, 10117 Berlin

Personal Plastic - Test-Site, Austin, TX, November 16 – December 22, 2008.


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