Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea is a series of seven interactive, floating sculptures that will embark from Troy, NY on August 15th and travel down the Hudson River working their way to the New York City Harbor, occasionally stopping to for performances and finally ending up at Deitch Studios in Long Island City, Queens on September 7th.
The project is being organized by Brooklyn street artist Swoon, in collaboration with musician Sxip Shirey, showman and confusionist Chicken John Rinaldi, artist collective Kinetic Steam Works, the band Dark Dark Dark and playwright Lisa D’Amour. Here’s more on the project from Chicken John.
Swimming cities of Switchback Sea is a flotilla of seven intricately hand crafted vessels that will navigate the stretch of the Hudson River between Troy and the New York harbor this August 15th – September 7th. Imagined as a hybrid between boats and bits of land mass broken off and headed out to sea, the Switchback vessels will make stops in towns along the river bringing performances and music. Over the course of three weeks they will make their way toward their home port – an invented landscape tucked into a niche along the East River in Long Island City, Queens.
In 2006 Swoon and the Miss Rockaway Armada organized a similar trip down the Mississippi River which was featured in The New York Times.
UPDATE 1: Chicken John and Eddie Codel created a video about Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea selling “Tickets to the Moon” to help support the project.
UPDATE 2: The New York Times has an article by Julie Bloom about Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea: “A Floating City With Junkyard Roots”
Related Posts:
- Speakeasy, A Fundraiser For The Swimming Cities of Serenissima
- Update on the Swimming Cities of Serenissima
- Time Travel Posters by 826LA & Echo Park Time Travel Mart
- John Law on The History Channel’s Cities of the Underworld
- Bacardi Rips-Off The Cacophony Society With Salmon “Swimming Upstream” Commercial
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey!
You can keep up with what is going on with KSW while they are on the river by checking out their new blog:
http://kineticsteamworks.blogspot.com/
I’m amazed that thing floats!
I’m amazed that thing floats – but at least it’s green travel
Wow, I too am amazed that that beast floats. Where do people get the time and energy to do these things?
they are privileged to do so so, have plenty of connections and go into debt.
only to hopefully sell some art during the exposition