Thursday, December 11, 2014

Badminton at the Parthenon!



You've attended a picnic, played Capture the Flag and enjoyed free Zumba and Capoiera classes at Centennial Park with Adrienne Outlaw. Now MeetUp with her to play baminton in the Parthenon!

Click here to reserve your court time with the artist.

Games may also be played when artist isn't present.  Click here to request a court time with friends. Up to 4 people can play! 

No experience needed. Open to all with museum admission. 



Play a while, watch a while! Portions of Outlaw's MeetUp events are included in her video installation for the FLEX IT! exhibition in the Parthenon Museum.


FLEX IT! runs through Jan. 10 at the Parthenon Museum and Centennial Park in Nashville. It travels as FLEX IT! Expands! to the Jacobs Center in San Diego March 21, 2015 as part of "Jacobs Presents: Cultural Celebrations and Performances". A catalog accompanies the exhibition.



Here are some pictures from the first few games!!                                                   






Monday, November 17, 2014

Next MeetUp on November 22nd!

2-3 pmSaturday, Nov. 22ndMeetUp with Adrienne Outlaw for introductory capoeira class in Centennial Park.



The classes will be taught by instructors with the  Global Education Center. Weather permitting, they will be held in the park on the south lawn. Should they be held in the Parthenon museum admission applies.

The classes are part of Outlaw's MeetUp project for FLEX IT! MeetUpevents, designed to encourage acts of health and harmony, have included a potluck picnic, mud making and Capture the Flag. Future events include bread making and massage, portions of which are being shown as part of Outlaw's evolving video installation in the museum.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Yoga for Truckers (+Everyone) and MeetUp with Adrienne Outlaw


For more information about Yoga for Truckers (+Everyone) and MeetUp with Adrienne Outlaw visit Erica Ciccarone blog NYCNASH.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

MeetUp:Capture the Flag













Fun active community play for all….Join us at the next MeetUp.  Stay tuned.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

One Mile Loop and Capture The Flag

FLEX IT! evolves with your participation. Join us October 11th and 12th for two events! 



3 to 4 pm Saturday, October 11th, experience a continual live musical performance around the One Mile Loop walking trail in Centennial Park.  

Nashville musicians will be performing next to a series of newly installed public signs that share information about the current lives, exercise habits, and musical preferences of Nashville citizens who regularly use the park.  

One Mile Loop, made for FLEX IT! by the social practice art collective Public Doors and Windows with Harrell Fletcher, Molly Sherman and Nolan Calisch, invites park visitors to consider fitness in such a way that allows then to enjoy a diversity of experiences while intimately engaging with the tastes and habits of others. Visit the Parthenon to FLEX IT! more.




Visit the Parthenon to FLEX IT! more




2 to 4 pm, Sunday, October 12th, Join Adrienne Outlaw for a family-friendly game of Capture the Flag in Centennial Park.  

The game starts at 2pm. Report as early as 1:30 for armbands and rules at the Kidsville tent, located next to the playground. During the game younger children may play games and make crafts at the tent. 

Capture the Flag, a well-loved outdoor game that rewards teamwork, is part of Outlaw's MeetUp project for FLEX IT! MeetUP events, designed to encourage acts of healt and harmony, have included a potluck picnic and mud making. Future events include dancing and bread making, portions of which are being shown as part of Outlaw's evolving video installation in the museum. 




Friday, September 26, 2014

Pygmalion's Challenge Artist Talk


 New media Artist Brian Leister and landscape designer Becky Heavner, the artists behind Pygmalion's Challenge, ended their week in Nashville at the Parthenon for an Artist talk before their last workshop at Watkins College of Art, Design and Film.  The talk was called "How the Heck Did We Do This?"

Pygmalion's Challenge an installation at the Parthenon is a mobile augmented reality game that encourages movement through the collection of coins and the finding of sculptural markers.  Once you unlock the game you bring characters to life.  You can download the game and even play at home with simple instructions from Bryan Leister's website.



Check out these pictures of the interactive app in action. 




I want to try it out, do you?


Brian Leister and Becky Heavner speaking with reporters and the public near the sculptural markers at the Parthenon.


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Workshops with Bryan Leister and Becky Heavner, September 18-21 2014



The first workshop of FLEX IT! My Body My Temple are being held 1-5 pm Sept. 18 and 19 in room #403 at Watkins College of Art and Design and Film, is titled "Creating 2D and 3D content for video games". This workshop is most appropriate for artist and designers.

The second workshop, held 1-5 pm Sept. 20 and 21, also in room #403 at Watkins, is titled   "Augmented Reality for All!" This workshop is for the general tech or game audience.

New media artist Bryan Leister, who designed Pygmalion's Challenge for FLEX IT! will lead both workshops.

Click here for more information.
Participation in the workshops is free.
Attendance is limited to 17.  To sign up send an email TODAY titled FLEX IT with your workshop preference.

Sept. 20, 10-11 am at the Parthenon, Becky Heavner will Join Leister for a talk titled, "How the Heck Did We Do This?" The talk is free with museum admission.  No reservation required. 

Leister and Heavner's FLEX IT! project is an app that works in conjunction with sculptural markers embedded in the grounds at Centennial Park.  To play Pygmalion's Challenge, players collect coins using their iPhone or Android by traveling from the markers in the park to the door located on the western side of the Parthenon.  There they get a key which released colorful animated characters form the sculptural markers. 




Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Baking Bread at the Parthenon



If you happened to be at Centennial Park during the first week of September, you may have seen artist Moira Williams walking along the loop with a wagon in tow or operating an adobe oven on the Parthenon lawn. As part of Adrienne Outlaw’s FLEX IT! My Body My Temple, the Brooklyn-based artist created an ongoing, participatory art event that invites visitors to consider what feeds us.





“When I do socially engaged work,” says Williams, “it’s always about the community and supporting the community.” The physical structure of Socrates’ Wagon Sings with Demeter’s Torch was in fact community-made. Williams worked with park visitors to construct an oven and the mini-Parthenon shaped adobe structure surrounding it.

Read more about Moria Williams and her practice here.



Thursday, August 28, 2014

Invite Potluck Picnic at the Parthenon


Please join us on Monday, September 1st, this Labor Day from 12 to 3 to enjoy the company of your neighbors as we break bread together around the steps of the Parthenon.  

Everyone is invited!  

Please bring food to share, its a Potluck Picnic!  Based on your name in the alphabet bring a vegetable, fruit, grain, protein or drink (see flyer).  Interact with art and artist Moria Williams, Leung Mee (Momo) Ping and Adrienne Outlaw by bring a frisbee, baking bread in a replica of the Parthenon, exploring the park, chat with a new friend.  
FLEX IT! My Body My Temple will open at the Parthenon with regular admission.  Curated by Adrienne Outlaw and Susan Shockley. 

Visit to the Parthenon

Art has been spotted at the Parthenon.  The interactive signs by Susan O'Malley, Your Body is the Architecture, are up and inspiring action.








Becky Heavner and Bryan Leister's markers are ready for the September 1st launch of Pygmalion's Challenge, a reality virtual game that can be downloaded on to your phone for play.



  
-Adrienne Outlaw



Saturday, August 16, 2014

Meet Melody!

What's cookin'? Or should I say fermentin'?

Well... Melody, our Nashville sourdough! She is the mother sourdough starter born and partially raised in Nashville. She was my traveling companion on my way back to to NY. Since our journey, I have been feeding her and helping her stay healthy. Melody is growing and bubbling over with excitement ;D to meet all of you! She will be ready to share her sourdough goodness with Nashville very soon. If you would like to nurture her in Nashville, share your additions to Melody (kinda like a family tree!), and the recipes you created together please let me know, Melody likes to travel. She whispered to me that she misses Nashville.

Melody was born in Nashville, Tennessee June 16th 2014. She was fermented with wild white mulberries and the yeast living with them and allover them. The flour that was added to the fermentation process of Melody is gluten-free organic oat flour. 

Melody, our Nashville sourdough starter, is a fermenting living community. 


Thanks a bunch!

moira

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Yoga for Truckers (& Everyone)

The first blog entry for Nikki Cormaci invites the reader to journey with her.   Her plan is to integrate the methodology of her  project organically throughout a series of posts. 

I found myself slipping in and out of consciousness driving at 70 mph in the Northern California dark. I had a deadline, two in fact, a 5 a.m. low tide in Nachotta Bay, WA, some 700 miles northwest, where I work in the oysters. That one was impossible. The other one also proved impossible. Noon I was scheduled to work in the old hotel in Seaview, preparing the rooms for the weekend. The smell of propane gas leaking out of the kitchen in the trailer we call African Queen was the first thing I remember about work that day when finally I returned after 9 hours of sleep in a third as many days. The drive from San Francisco had been ambitious and badly-planned. The work in the oysters is early and tough, but the bright bay sunrises and milky fog daybreaks mixed with the brute to surge adrenaline, making things seem reasonable that are in fact completely insane. The first 12 hours on two hours sleep had been fine enough. The last twelve were another story, a bible story, the one about a desperate search to find a place to rest. You cannot shut your eyes and keep moving without death. The paradox of driving, shocking to me in my weariness, is that we are not the passengers but the pilots of these strange ships. We are their captains our duty is to stay alert. I pulled off the highways after several losing rounds pummeled by sleep, losing badly, I reclined in a terrifying RV park, where a fat tweaker approached my car, yelled "Hello" and told me to start it up and move it along, that he would stand there and watch me pull out. I made another attempt to sleep in the backseat in the parking lot of a small motel. I covered my white shirt in a black dress to camouflage myself against the black leather seats, blood freezing at every footstep or car door closing, opening. Silence hit again and I hit the black road once more. The white lines came alive, flattening, dizzying, then lifting up out of the concrete. I once thought the curved white line was the lip of a giant plate. The spore prints of insects on the windshield flattened against the moving pavement, too, then flipped, receding until I saw all the souls of the bugs flying at the windshield all at once, scaring me awake again. The temporary relief from sleep that the scare produced made a small victory out of the danger of dreaming while driving. 


Before I left SF I visited the Zen Center and flipped through a book about sitting. Sitting and meditating have been used interchangeably although the author argued this was incomplete, since sitting with your thoughts, if they are greedy for attention, is not meditating. Sleeping is also not meditating, although meditation (sitting) can collapse reality and the dream, too. Can driving, which is sitting, be mediation? Yoga for Truckers, my Nashville Flex it project,  searches for this link, this difference, asking buddhists and yogis and truckers to share their experiences of sitting and find the common ground. I found a safe place to sleep in the rest stop outside Shasta. A "Safety" rest stop, full of people hungry for sleep and the cessation of movement. There I slept soundly until the sun rose. I left and climbed Siskiyou out of California and into Oregon. There at the summit, drenched in the early morning sun, were a flock of long-hauls trucks and trailers. There was something ancient about seeing them there, like sentinels, or eagles perched atop the mountain. Why did they stop there, and not down at the Love's Travel Stop and Country Store, with its bedazzeled flip-flops and Nascar kit? Why were they up there sleeping just four miles north of the California border on the tallest peak on the I-5?


Thursday, July 24, 2014

We Are The Parthenon

Ancient Greece meets moving truck outside Nashville Parthenon
Hello Again, Susan O'Malley here.

The first time I visited the Parthenon at Centennial Park I was floored - a building with the same specs as the Greek Parthenon! A gorgeous gilded Athena by local Nashville artist Alan LeQuire that took my breath away. I wondered how this replica building has shaped Nashville's identity as the sister city to Athens. I also thought about what it means to bring to life this structure that was built and destroyed hundreds of years ago in a distant land. So I spent a good amount of time taking in the building during my visit.

The first time I saw the Nashville Parthenon. You may not feel it in this photo but I assure you It was exciting.
If you are a tourist in Nashville, you will most certainly visit the Parthenon. If you are Nashville resident, you have probably come to the Parthenon or Centennial Park to hangout in the shade, walk along its paths or play on its field.

Artist and Nashville resident Kayla Saito stretches her arms as wide as the Parthenon.
It's tricky to try to find new ways to look at a popular building and park like this. But with the help of local student and artist Kayla Saito, we set out to explore the Parthenon as research for Your Body is the Architecture, the project commissioned for the Parthenon's upcoming FLEX IT! exhibition.

Here are a few things we did and observed.

How to imprint yourself on the Parthenon:



Nashville Shadows from Susan O'Malley on Vimeo.


How to reach your arms as wide as the Parthenon:


Nashville Arms from Susan O'Malley on Vimeo.



What are your observations of the Parthenon? How does your body relate to this building?

In my next post, I'll share some more how-to videos as well as the update for the sign installation. Thanks for reading!