AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

Los Angeles Road Concerts: Sunset Boulevard
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Los Angeles Road Concerts is seeking artists of all kinds to install or
perform site-specific works along the entire length of Sunset Boulevard for
its third annual road concert on September 18, 2011. Submissions may be
sent directly to laroadconcerts@gmail.com or through the event submission
form on the LA Road Concerts website (laroadconcerts.co.cc).

Los Angeles Road Concerts has shown work from over eighty Los Angeles
creative people in unused public outdoor spaces along the entire lengths of
Washington Boulevard’s 27 miles, from Whittier to Venice Beach, and San
Fernando Road's 23 miles, from Sylmar to Lincoln Heights. Participating
artists perform works, display installations, facilitate carpool happenings,
host spontaneous readings, and make music in unexpected spaces, such as on
the sidewalk, between dumpsters, along railroad tracks, as well as inside
the audience’s cars as they traverse one of LA’s very long streets. The
audience can choose how long they want to spend at each spot, whether or not
they want to park or get out of their cars, skip spots or drive at different
speeds between them. Audience members are additionally invited to car pool
with artists and to switch car pools at their leisure.

Los Angeles Road Concerts seeks to investigate the possibilities of LA's
lengthy streets as sites for artistic exploration while using the street
itself as a cross-section to observe the city's diversity of landscapes and
people, how the Los Angeles metropolis grew, and the massive in-between and
negative spaces it left behind as it expanded. How can we generate a new
kind of LA experience, utilizing its car culture to find meaning and bring
attention to a collection of less obvious destinations? Additionally,
through a wide open call process, Los Angeles Road Concerts brings together
art school graduates, working artists, local residents and other creative
people to realize a broad array of kinds of interactions with the sites.
Participants find unlikely audiences, people who may have never been to a
gallery space but who ultimately take great interest in participants' work.

Sunset Boulevard is perhaps the most famous of LA's streets, starting
downtown and passing through an ironic/iconic combination of the most
densely populated, touristy, famous and wealthy parts of the city. The
previous two road concerts were on lesser known streets: Washington
Boulevard and San Fernando Road. This year road concert alumni held a vote
and Sunset Boulevard was the winning pick. The 24-mile stretch starts in
the Disneylandified apartment sprawl of Downtown, goes through the
gentrifying Echo Park and hipstery Silver Lake neighborhoods, past the
Scientology headquarters, through touristy Hollywood, music and film
landmarks, the Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills, then forming UCLA's north
boundary before a very long meandering through affluent Bel-Air and Pacific
Palisades neighborhoods and then running into the PCH and beach. (Click here
for an exact map of the drive.)On September 18th from noon to 6 PM, audience
members are invited to drive the length of Sunset Boulevard on a loose
schedule, arriving at each spot to experience an interaction with and/or by
each artist. Each artist will state an earliest and latest time to arrive
at their respective spots, which will be listed in the downloadable event
program and map. Times are loose and overlap so the audience can be on
their own schedule: to find parking, to stop at a drive-thru to get a
blended ice coffee from Coffee Bean, to choose how long they want to spend
at each spot, skip spots, to daydream or drive off-track for anonymous
wandering through the winding roads of the Hollywood Hills. It'll be
arranged so that the most easterly spot starts first, and for spots to be
later in the afternoon as they move farther west, suggesting a direction (to
avoid too much zigzagging) but not so strict that a caravan forms. The
later or farther west you are, the closer to sunset and darkness it'd be, in
case you're going for a particular kind of lighting. Your piece can last for
as short as a millisecond or longer than the day of the event itself, and
you don't need to be physically present or in just one location.

Alternatively, some participating artists may choose to make a site-specific
performance or installation (or text score, CD, multimedia-what-have-you)
for the inside of cars as they drive the length of Sunset Boulevard. For
instance, at the first road concert David Earle made an insightful
historical San Fernando audio tour on CD with half-true stories. Or
audience members could be encouraged to car pool with artists, and to switch
car pools at their leisure between spots.

Maps and info about the concert will be obtainable at
http://laroadconcerts.co.cc a week before the audience embarks on Sunday,
September 18th, as well as at the beginning of the street (corner of Sunset
and Figueroa). If you want spectators to download something as part of your
piece before they embark, we can put it on the website in addition to
handing it out at the first concert stop. In the program there will be room
for optional program notes, your bio, a description of your piece,
instructions, or else some esoteric wordplay, a quote, whatever you want so
as to entice the audience. Some artists provide little information, just a
title, and the element of surprise becomes part of the fun. You may not
even want to be in the program.

There will also be an event blog, and you are encouraged to post
documentation to it, live or afterward, via e-mail or text message. An
e-mail address will also be listed in the event program so that your
audience can post directly to the event blog during the concert.

Please submit a rough proposal by August 30th.

Previous road concert projects can be viewed through the website:
www.laroadconcerts.co.cc

Please contact us with any proposals or questions at
laroadconcerts@gmail.com. Or feel free to call me (Stephen van Dyck) if you
like at 505-331-9588 to discuss your potential submission. Please also let
us know if you have any suggestions! And please forward this along to
anyone who you think would be interested in getting involved.

Los Angeles Road Concerts

from LA Culture Net