Something Unfinished About Us: Traces of a Particulate Configuration
Curated by M Jiang + ***X Lee 
Holland Project Galleries 
Reno, NV 

A configuration of people, of moving parts, of 433 fragments and 33 cooperating particulates, of these actors coming together for a brief moment in time, never fixed for too long, always piling forward into the continuous aftermath of now, staying just long enough for us to get some information out of them. We flatten each fragment into a data point, and map it out like true paper pushers, or architects, or astronomers, constructing constellations out of disparate stars — these are the random spillovers of a mass-produced black hole that’s been naturalized into invisibility. We are that point that has pinched time, the dot in the hourglass, and from this here and now we’ve configured a mythology of all these glimmering fragments — at once out of our control and deeply, microcosmically, materially connected to our particular situation in space and time, in this world, in our little bodies. We know progress as that lie they tell us before we go to sleep each night, and the past comes at us like a nightmare, as that catastrophe that lurks behind our closed eyes. When we look again we see what’s been latent all along, and we pick it up, in our hands, and we squeeze it, before it all piles up, before it turns to dust again.

It’s been an experiment in curation without direct selection. Every fragment was either submitted by a Particulate or directly encountered by us — in the street, out of free piles, at estate sales, in the world. Attended to, but never chosen outright. Once these fragments were gathered, their arrangement was left up to random selection as well. A bureaucratic identification system leveled each fragment upon retrieval. These limitations helped us stay receptive to our environments, rather than demanding of them. The result is a constellatory blueprint that is both factual and fictional, unique to our situational context. The configurations remain as undefined and airborne as the drifting fragments themselves, like smog, and translate into an interactive, fluid installation that shifts and resettles over the course of the show. 




Cooperating Particulates:
M + ***X, Rhamier Shaka Balagoon, Sasha Gordon, Rosalie + Barnie , Tara, Julien Nicolosi, Mei Mei + Buttons, Kiki Rosine, Maxwell Barry, Maya , ASV ACID , Josha Michael Paulin, Jax, Kindall Almond, Abrax, Rita Salt, Lola Dement Myers, JMF, DDKK, Emily Manning, W.G.M., Ryan Cardoso, John Garcia , Laith, c.q.l., Summer Ester Orr, Corey Gyll, Coworker Dave, Miyako Bellizzi, Dan Svenokovi


Something Unfinished About Us: Traces of a Particulate Configuration



Fragments


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m log / working methodx log / working method
SLAGS










Configuration 1 






Configuration 2







Final Configuration (Resolution)
At the closing reception attendees were encourages to take home SLAGS from the show. Anything that remained was built into a Final Configuration. The Final Configuration was taken to the Lockwood Dump.


Syncronized Mapping of Ghosts (S.M.O.G.) 
an experimental sound + space (re)configuration featuring
CITIES AVIV (NYC)
RHAMIER BALAGOON (NYC)
M0N1K3R
BRANDON T. NGUYEN 
M + ***X


You are a particle that’s drifted in the door, compelled to follow the magnetic lull of noise and ghosts (what is there but cannot be seen.) S.M.O.G. was a performance extension of Something Unfinished About us that took place during the 2nd Configuration of the show. As the installation particles begins to drift apart like dust, so does the sound + movement of us (particulates) around the space. SUAU samples physical fragments to map out an image of the present built from a contemporary aftermath. S.M.O.G. fills the space with performers who use sound fragments that have been sampled, cut, looped, warped, layered, and recontextualized. The directness of sampling extraction creates throughlines in time, a mapping that pins here to there to then to now. The first performance by M + ***X began in the gallery, where direct samples from Notes Logs + filing cabinet books were recited along with a collage of samples. As particulates hear sounds coming from the showspace, which is blocked off by a giant paper wall, they were prompted to puncture the wall and enter into the showspace for Brandon T. Nguyen’s modular synth performance. Particulates then flowed back into the gallery to interact with M0n1k3r’s touch sensitive cooking performance, where contact mics interpreted the sounds of spinach and eggs being made. The last two sets by Rhamier Balagoon + Cities Aviv took place on the main stage. Performances flowed between the gallery and the showspace , synchronizing the movements of particulates as they drifted through the space but allowed serendipedous responses as well.






M + ***X

Brandon T. Nguyen


M0n1k3r



Rhamier Balagoon 
 





Cities Aviv