This week’s highlights include a discussion about Buckminster Fuller’s still-relevant ideas, an update on restoring the kelp forest off the coast of Palos Verdes, an exhibition on Asian American movements in Los Angeles, a historic tour through Silver Lake’s bohemian past, and a re-imagining of the French animated Sci-fi epic Chronopolis.
1) Talk: Skyping with Buckminster Fuller
R. Buckminster Fuller was one of the 20th century’s most original thinkers and an inspiration to many designers. Arts journalist Jori Finkel will lead a discussion Tuesday evening about how his inventions “are alive and well in 21st-century culture and commerce today.” Guests Kulapat Yantrasast, wHY architect; Lauren Bon, artist and Metabolic Studio founder; and Jonathon Keats, LACMA Art + Technology Lab grant recipient and author of You Belong to the Universe will consider such concepts as his Dymaxion car and principles of biomimesis; the geodesic dome and experiments in microclimates; two-way TV and extreme interactivity; the geoscope and data visualization; and the world game and world-changing ideas.
When: Tuesday, January 17 at 7:30 pm
Where: Bing Theater, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90036
Tickets: Free; reservations required.
2) Tom Ford presents “The Palos Verdes Kelp Restoration Project”
Ask experts for solutions to rising seas and one of the answers you will hear is simple: restore the soft edges along our coastlines such as wetlands that have been largely destroyed. Historically, Palos Verdes was wreathed by hundreds of acres of kelp forest, supporting hundreds of species of fish and invertebrates and serving as sponge for tidal movement. Since 2013, The Bay Foundation has lead a team aimed at restoring 150 acres of kelp forest. Tom Ford, Executive Director of the Bay Foundation and Adjunct Professor of Environmental Science, has helmed the project for over 15 years and will give an update Tuesday evening at the first Faculty Pub Night of Spring 2017.
When: Tuesday, January 17 at 7:30 pm
Where: LMU’s Seaver College of Science and Engineering
Tickets: Free; more information here.
3) Silver Lake Bohemia: A History
Silver Lake has long been a magnet for iconoclastic writers, designers and political activists. Michael Locke and Vincent Brook will talk about their new book Silver Lake Bohemia: A History in which they write about: architects dating back to Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the Hollyhock House for socialist and oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, and Richard Neutra have tested ideas in residential design there; the Black Cat bar and Harry Hay’s Mattachine Society that were central to the early gay rights movement; how literary artists Anäis Nin and James Leo Herlihy made the neighborhood their home, as did other notables like first lady of baseball Effa Manley and “Hobo Millionaire” James Eads How.
When: Thursday, January 19 from 6:30 – 7:30 pm
Where: Los Feliz Branch – Los Angeles Public Library, 1874 Hillhurst Ave, Los Angeles, California 90027
Tickets: Free; more information here.
4) Vidiots presents Chronopolis, Rescored
David Wexler is an audio-visualist with Strangeloop Studios. While working at Vidiots a decade ago, he discovered Piotr Kamler’s 1983, French, animated Sci-fi epic Chronopolis which “tells the story of an enormous city, lurking in the sky and colonized by immortals jaded with eternal life.” Wexler considered this “a completely unique work of genius science fiction, imaginatively executed stop-animation weds with a symbolically dense narrative about time, higher intelligence, and the nature of reality” and has joined forces with Gavin Gamboa of Laskfar Vortok to re-score Kamler’s work. Inspired by the groundbreaking work of Pierre Schaeffer, whose music is featured in the original score, Gamboa and Wexler will “utilize a combination of electronic and acoustic sounds to re-imagine the sonic landscape of Chronopolis and bring the work to a contemporary audience.” This event is produced by Vidiots in association with The Institute for Cinema Studies and Teaching Machine.
When: Wednesday, January 18 at 7:30 pm
Where: Vidiots, 302 Pico Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA 90405
Tickets: $6 General Admission (FREE Students and Seniors); get more information here.
5) Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968-80s
The public is invited to the opening reception of the Chinese American Museum’s newest exhibition, “Roots: Asian American Movements in Los Angeles 1968-80s,” exploring the artistic and political movements at the intersections of gender, race, and class that shaped Asian American Los Angeles, f rom Little Tokyo to Chinatown to Historic Filipinotown to the West side.
When: Opening reception, Thursday, January 19 from 6 – 9 pm; drinks and snacks will be served
Where: Pico House, 424 N. Main St, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
Tickets: Reception free to the public; get more information here.