Building on the work of “The Politics of Attention: Art, Time, Technology, Action,” held in August of 2019 at Mildred’s Lane (itself a follow-up to the “Practices of Attention Symposium” at the 2018 São Paulo Biennial), a small group of invited participants will Zoom-convene on August 14th and 15th of 2020 for a set of discussions on the history, ethics, and techo-politics of our current attentional regime.

Following on the “Practices of Attention Symposium” that took place in Brazil in November of 2018 (as part of the 33rdSão Paulo Biennial), a small group of invited participants will gather this summer at Mildred’s Lane to continue work on the Politics of Attention in our time.

Marx for Cats; in residence with their ongoing project, Caroline Woolard, Or Zubalsky, and critical theorist Leigh Claire La Berge whimsically explain keywords in contemporary capitalism; an artwork designed to both educate and entertain. Juxtaposing the time of foregone capitalism with the anticipatory time of catpitalism.

Bibliophantics, featuring the Mildred’s Lane Library; a project wrapping around the Narrowsburg Deep Water Literary Festival, with Aaron Hicklin of One Grand Books. Pablo Helguera, Dannielle Tegeder, Nina Burleigh, and other celebrated artists and authors in town during the festival.

Wilding, Wasting, Workstyling; ongoing dialogs and workshops with Marek and Krystyna Milde, Amy Lou Stein, Athena Kokoronis, Amanda Heidel, Laura Silverman, Deborah Davidovits, Kimberly Webb, James Voorhies and other contributing artists, local naturalists, gardeners, botanists, and beekeepers.

D. Graham Burnett, Jeff Dolven, Sal Randolph, David Richardson, Leonard Nalenz and many other indiscreet associates of The Order of the Third Bird will continue their investigations into experimental protocols of Practical Aesthesis and methods of Sustained Attention. The Attention Lab is part guerrilla seminar and part meditative and kinetic practicum. A discipline of the senses is pursued. Beginning with available traditions and protocols of the Order, the group’s aim will be to develop and test new experimental practices of attention.

For the Alchemist’s Shack Session V – Williams will revisit The Rural Uncanny and explore high strangeness at Mildred’s Lane, and search for the Great God Pan. Through building and art making, reading, discussion and excursions, he will examine the tropes of the rural uncanny within the land, and drawn from popular cultural sources. In this, the final phase of the Alchemist’s Shack, the great work will be completed.

During Sessions 2017, research fellows discovered new information connecting the site to Connecticut Settlers, in the 1750s. The original owners of the location were the Lillie family, who, amongst others, settled at Cushetunk on the Delaware River. Lillie Archaeology is the continuation of the dig around the historic structures which yielded such a remarkable amount of curious material last year, and the installation produced by fellows at The Mildred Complex(ity) Project Space was our most popular exhibition to date.

In this session participants will investigate the bathroom through multiple perspectives including cultural, psychological, and gendered. What if “the bathroom” functioned simultaneously as a functional, bodily space as well as an archive of a site's identity; its social and cultural histories, related scientific data, physical and environmental attributes, and a record of the histories and activities of Mildred's Lane

Wildcrafting is a term conscientiously defining food as naturally medicinal, and always concerned with sustainability. Fellows are engaged in detailed studies of the dynamic landscape at Mildred's Lane, practicing forage routines with focus on stylistically transforming food/waste systems and critically processing plants throughout the seasons. 

D. Graham Burnett, Jeff Dolven, Sal Randolph, David Richardson, Leonard Nalenz and many other indiscreet associates of The Order of the Third Bird will continue their investigations into experimental protocols of Practical Aesthesis and methods of Sustained Attention. 

Petra Lange Berndt, Joanna Ebenstein, Robert Marbury, James Prosek and others work together gazing into the history of taxidermy. We will discuss how and where methods of taxidermy are employed in art, natural history, museums, contemporary art and local applications.

Mark Dion, J. Morgan Puett, with local and visiting historians and artists continue to study the site of The Mildred’s Lane Transhistorical Society and Museum, an ongoing project at the heart of the greater Mildred’s Lane project. 

Paul Bartow, Cameron Klavsen, J. Morgan Puett and local artisans collaborate to build a small springhouse larder outbuilding: a vernacular inspired structure that will utilize solar energy, onsite spring, and locally sourced building material. This design-build project will harness the attributes of sun, water, and earth; an exercise in adaptive use/reuse involving off-the-shelf technologies coupled with emergent and low-tech methodologies.

J. Morgan Puett, Athena Kokoronis with artists, local naturalists, gardeners, botanists, beekeepers and other contributing artists will workshop around topics including beekeeping, collecting, pressing, tincturing, planting, mycoremediation, soil biology – wildcrafting; while focusing on the redesign and dynamic transformation of the Mildred Garden and the Radical Apiary, both adjacent to the Mildred’s Lane TransHistorical Society and Museum.

The Alchemist’s Shack is a large-scale site work, part of the OM: Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum project, ongoing at Mildred’s Lane since 1998. The project grows with every iteration, grafting new Fellows in collaboration with Robert Williams (UK) in the exploration of the many tropes and emergent themes arising from Alchemy I-III. We will continue towards the final interior installation of this wonder-room in its liminal setting. 

In this one-week session, indiscreet associates of The Order of the Third Bird will continue their investigations into experimental protocols of Practical Aesthesis and methods of Sustained Attention. The Attention Lab is part guerrilla seminar and part meditative and kinetic practicum. A discipline of the senses is pursued. Beginning with available traditions and protocols of the Order, the group's aim will be to develop and test new experimental practices of attention.

The TOWN sessions include a series of workshops and interventions on Main Street USA with contributing artists; navigating “the complex relationship between the city and the countryside by investigating the place the rural world occupies in the projections, fantasies, economy, and antagonism of the cosmopolitan set.” We will apply the tools of contemporary social practice toward shifting beyond the critiques, illusions and prejudices that have supported city and country as disconnected realms of shared experience. Workshop details TBA.

This has been a radically innovative project where we have collaborated with artists, engineers, hydrologists and architects to conceptualize a plan for a complete aquatic environment by integrating systems of landscape design, aqua-cultural dwelling and notions of earthworks, sensitively considering humans and non-humans.

Delve into Mildred’s landscape history as we intertwine previous PondhouseSpringhousePond sessions now so relevant with a freshly dug earthwork. Contributing Guest Practitioners and fellows will discourse, workshop, and incubate ideas around landscaping new projects that will unfurl over the session and years to come. 

With Paul Bartow, Gary Graham, Jeffrey Jenkins, Cameron Klavsen, J. Morgan Puett, Rebecca Purcell and David Wood

Collaborate on a large-scale, transhistorical project, featuring a study of Transcendentalism while conflating roles of labor and workstyles at Mildred’s Lane.

Fellows will contribute to conceptualizing, crafting, costuming, building, filming as we create the continuing series of Labor Portraits of Mildred’s Lane that will be on show in 2017. 

Wildcrafting is a term that conscientiously defines food as naturally medicinal, always with concerns for a sustainable future. Fellows will be engaged in a detailed study of the landscape at Mildred’s Lane while practicing forage routines with focus on stylistically transforming new food and waste systems; and, critically processing botanicals throughout the seasons.