Goldman & Benney: Adopt-le-Font	Maubrey: Solar Ballerinas	New York Society for Acoustic Ecology:logo

INTRODUCTION
40°, 73°: Works at the Intersection of Art and Ecology is a new public art series produced by The Canary Project that will occur in late September, with a culminating presentation by the artists at Old American Can Factory on Sunday, October 5, 6:30-8 pm. For this series The Canary Project is working with 3 artists ­ Charles Goldman, The New York Society for Acoustic Ecology, and Benoit Maubrey/Die Audio Gruppe-- to create site-specific works in Brooklyn (40°N, 73°W), that engage the public in experiencing global ecology on a local level. The three works are as follows:

Charles Goldman & Paul Benney - Adopt Le Font
Throughout Sept 2008
A project by Charles Goldman in collaboration with Paul Benney, Adopt-le-Font is a makeshift adoption agency for fountains located in Brooklyn, NY. It invites members of the general public to house a fountain for one-week intervals during the month of September 2008. Consisting of three tiers of 5-gallon plastic buckets, tubing, and a pump that circulates the water and generates a delightful burble, Adopt-le-Font’s understated garage-minimalist aesthetic questions the semiotics of civic space through its most stripped down form of a fountain. Like Alan Kaprow’s Trading Dirt (1983-6) in which participants exchanged buckets of dirt, Adopt-le-Font similarly casts the viewer-participant as an active steward whose performance or maintenance sustains the project. However, as an agency invested in distributing the fountains and water to a wide a demographic as possible, Adopt-le-Font asks the ‘parents’ to assume a role as the fountain’s public representative and, therefore, maintain the social space which develops around it.

Benoît Maubrey - One Week in the Life of a Solar Ballerina: Site specific installation & Performance with solar-powered wearable sound devices
Performances: Wed Sept 17-Micro Museum (123 Smith St), Thurs Sept 18-Brooklyn Bridge Park, at the water's edge, 230-330p, Fri Sept 19-Coney Island Boardwalk, by the Parachute Jump, approx. 230p (TBC)
‘Solar Ballerinas’ is a sound installation performed by dancers whose tutus -- augmented with light sensors, miniature radio receiver, contact mics, and amplifiers—transform the body in its environs into a responsive instrument that steals and mixes ambient sound. By acoustically responding to sounds, surfaces, and topographies of space, the ‘solar ballet’ questions the conventional balletic focus on the discrete body and instead suggests ‘choreography’ (in Greek: khorous = body + graphein = to write) as an environmental record.

The New York Society for Acoustic Ecology (NYSAE) - Soundwalks
Sept 20, Sept 27, 2pm sharp, Soundwalks in Red Hook (Edmund Mooney), Fort Greene (Jonny Farrow), Crown Heights (Andrea Williams)
Oct 5, 3-5 pm: Soundwalks around Gowanus and the Old American Can Factory preceding the Artists’ Talks
Hour-long ‘Soundwalks’ led by The New York Society for Acoustic Ecology (NYSAE) throughout various places in Brooklyn engage participants in attuning their ears to the sonic environment and the politics of sound. By becoming newly aware of the sound normally blocked out in normative work-a-day practices, the NYSAE’s soundwalks encourage mindful listening and an awareness of the immediate. The Soundwalks will take place in areas of Brooklyn currently undergoing rapid change such as Red Hook, Fort Greene, Crown Heights, and Gowanus. The walks are followed by brief group discussions on sound and ecology. Each soundwalk is limited to 10 people so please arrive on time to guarantee your spot

ARTISTS BIOS
Charles Goldman’s multifaceted practice explores the cyclical nature of life and the standardized units used in its measurement. Goldman has exhibited at venues such as Centro Cultural Molino de Perez (Montevideo, Uruguay), Art Basel Miami, The Jewish Museum (San Francisco), Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, CA), and in New York at the Sculpture Center, Peter Blum Gallery, Socrates Sculpure Park, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Altria, The Drawing Center, Apex Art, White Columns, Smack Mellon, and more. His work has been included in collections such as the MOMA (NY), New York Public Library, Projet Mobilivre (Montreal), Brooklyn Museum of Art, Whitney Museum, The University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Berkeley Art Museum. www.charlesgoldmanwork.com.

Paul Benney is one of the founder members of Areaway. Having worked mainly as a dancer and choreographer, he is currently making site-specific performance installation work that engages the public. He collaborates with TRYST -- a group loosely inspired by the Situationists -- that uses New York City as a canvas for performance interventions. More information about TRYST can be found at cmlperformance.org (aka culturepush.)

The New York Society for Acoustic Ecology (NYSAE) is an organization that advocates listening and promotes public dialog about the urban sound environment. NYSAE has received commissions from Rhizome and free103point9 and has been presented at venues such as The Observatori Festival (Spain), WNYC’s SoundCheck, the Brian Lehrer Show, WBAI Pacifica Radio, and in New York at the The Knowing the World through Sound Symposium (New York University), Participant, Inc., Conflux, and more. Participating artists involved in NYSAE’s soundwalks include Jonny Farrow, Edmund Mooney, and Andrea Williams. Jonny Farrow is a sound artist, composer and performer who holds an MA in Musicology from the City College of New York (CUNY). Composer, sound designer, and sound artist Edmund Mooney has presented work in New York at The Whitney Museum, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum, DTW, Wave Farm, PS 122 and at Fotofest (Houston), and Galeria Leme (Sao Paolo, Brazil). www.edmundmooney.com. Sound/installation artist Andrea Williams has presented work at the Whitney Museum, the Tank, Wave Farm, the National Arts Club, and in the Brazilian rainforest; she also co-curates the NYSAE's Giant Ear))) radio show on free103point9 and leads group soundwalks and therapeutic soundwalks in various locations in NYC and beyond. www.nyacousticecology.org.

Performance and installation artist Benoît Maubrey has exhibited at festivals such as the Taipei Digital Arts Festival (Taiwan), Lange Mozart Nacht (Augsburg), Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), Festival des Arts Electroniques (Rennes, France), ISEA (Helsinki), The Kitchen (New York), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Seoul Performing Arts Festical, Location One (New York), and more. Maubrey received the European Award for Street Theatre/Holzminden in 1995 and the Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance NYC in 2006 and has received grants and residencies from Hull Time-Based Arts UK), and KuenstlerSchloss Wiepersdorf (Brandenburg, Germany). A co-founder of the non-profits arts organization Kunstpflug e.V, Maubrey has lived and worked in Berlin since 1990. http://home.snafu.de/maubrey/.

ABOUT THE JURY
Juried by Nathan Elbogen, Director of XO Projecs/The Old American Can Factory; Marisa Jahn, artist and co-founder of Pond: art, activism, and ideas; Jeff Kastner, Editor at Cabinet Magazine, Edward Morris, Co-Founder of The Canary Project; and Patricia Watts, Curator at The Sonoma County Museum of Art, the works were selected on their ability to resonate with specific places throughout Brooklyn and the daily lives of the people that live there.

ABOUT THE CANARY PROJECT
40°, 73° is a project produced by The Canary Project, an organization that produces visual media, events, and artwork that build public understanding of human-induced climate change and energize commitment to solutions. In addition to producing original work, Canary collaborates directly with artists through logistical support, financial support, creative brainstorm/formation, and/or the project's distribution. Depending on the format, the works are incorporated into our exhibitions, publications, presentations, education projects, and website. Collaborating artists include Eve Mosher, Frtiz Haeg, Josh Kit Clayton, Jon Santos, and others.

40°, 73° is made possible through the support of the Brooklyn Arts Council and the Micro Museum.