OPEN SPACE

……………………………………………………………"That bottle keeps its blink on its side red from horizon." Clark Coolidge………………………………..

Last Thursday eve was round two of Tony Labat’s I WANT YOU project: They came, they performed, we scored, and five winners were chosen from the original pool of 54, to have their slogans printed on posters and plastered around town.

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

Top-scorer of the night (at 872 points) Ms. Sadie Lune, with the handsome & charismatic Mr. Tony Labat himself. (An excerpt from her winning slogan: “I want you. I want you to be nice to sex workers. I want you, I really do. Vote Yes on Prop K!”) At 861 points: Miss Nicole Mills-Novoa, also known as “Bird,” who warbled her way through a charming act with hand-puppets:

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

Tara Jepsen & Beth Lisick, in third place, with 860 points, as Don & Phil: (”We just want you to have a little class.”):

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

Poet Hazel White, with 805 points: (”I Want You/ to End Racism/ thought by thought/word by word.”):

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

And Kali Eichen, with 782 points, who said, “I WANT YOU to smile at a stranger. Right now. Go on. Turn around. Find someone you don’t know, look them in the eye and smile.” [We did. Everyone in the audience did make smile at strangers nearby.]:

The voting was done scantron-style, and over 200 ballots were added up live onstage at the end of the evening (that’s the Education Department’s own Megan Brian, in patriotic red/white/blue, making good with the scantron machine).

And with inter-act cabaret by sparkling chanteuse of the fabulous shoes, Ms Veronica Klaus:

Photo: Aimee Nicole Friberg

A huge thank you to all the contestants who turned out to perform, to the audience for voting, and to emcee Jason Mateo. The Flickr set is here.

The project’s not over: look out around town for the posters which should be going up soon. Likewise, we’ll be screening Tony’s video of the auditions on election day, November 4th at 6:30 in the Wattis theater, and again on December 2nd at noon; both of these screenings will be free and open to the public.

I have heard tales in the corridors here of total madness/spectacle about to unfold on the Wattis stage. Tonight at 6:30 THIRTY-THREE CONTESTANTS chosen from last week’s solo auditions for Tony Labat’s I WANT YOU project will perform for your vote. The performances are set to be staged in three rounds, hosted by poet/activist emcee Jason Mateo, and with inter-act entertainments by local chanteuse Veronica Klaus. The audience will choose five winners via old-fashioned school-style scantron ballots that will be tallied up live onstage at the close of the eve; as each winner is announced, he or she will be whisked away to be immediately photographed for their poster+slogan, with the audience watching the  backstage proceedings over closed-circuit live feed.

The Finalists: Johnny Bicycle, Jeffrey Brown, Kym Coffey, Nathan Conrad, Donald Daedalus, Veri Severe, Peter Dobey, Kali Eichen, Misty Epperson, Erica Gangsei, Rebecca Goldfarb, Nalani Hernandez-Melo, Dale Hoyt, Tara Jepsen & Beth Lisick, Lauren Kronemyer, Peter Max Lawrence, Suzanne L’Heureux, Sadie Lune, Nicole Mills-Novoa, Lady Monster, Sahar Mozaffar, Henry Neill, Johnny Rogers & Shalo P, Kendra Russo, Brandon Santiago, Shreya Sethi, Stephen Shearer, Andrea Slattery & Elizabeth Deters, Angela Thornton, Alexis Luna, Ian Treasure, Zurab Tsintsabadze, Hazel White

I WANT YOU: TO SHOW UP AND VOTE!

At least fifty auditionees/sloganeers turned up for round one of Tony Labat’s I WANT YOU project this Thursday last, to deliver their I Want You to…imperatives to Tony and his team of celebrity(esque) judges. The bound, wailing creature above was one of the more curious and dramatic of the auditions but, interestingly, not the only performer to eschew actually speaking a demand.

Outside the theater, the Atrium looked a bit like any downtown casting call:

The auditions themselves were a bit unlike anything the Wattis stage is likely to have seen before:

And there was at least one inside job:

Overall it was a deeply SF/Bay-style set of demands & performances: There was a lot of half-nudity, a fair amount of enviro-positive, sex-positive demand (I want you to ride your bike, I want you to be nice to sex workers), a bit of silliness (I want you to eat your vegetables; I want youtube), and—at least in the round of 20 or so auditions I got to see—a surprisingly small amount of sloganeering directly addressing the upcoming presidential election.

One of the more amusing moments of the night, for me, came backstage, where I was standing in the stairwell text-messaging myself notes on the auditions. A woman in a black sparkling dress, next up to perform, was being outfitted with a wireless mic but explaining to the tech that she was going to take her dress off when she got on stage. A curious conversation ensued, regarding the limited options as to where this bit of technology might then most logically be affixed. She delivered her imperative (I want you to love your fat, beautiful body) while performing an old-school trick with tassles.  One judge’s response? “Now there’s a poster!”

Of course, this was only the first round, and the public performance/vote-off is still ahead. The judges have narrowed the field to THIRTY FINALISTS who will compete THIS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11th, onstage, American-Idol-style, in front of a live audience (THIS MEANS YOU). The audience will choose the five winners, who’ll have their slogans made into posters Tony will plaster around town between now and the November election.

All photos: Aimee Friberg. The Flickr set is here.

It’s high-stakes election time. What do YOU want YOUR PUBLIC to DO?

Riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns of World Wars I and II, TONY LABAT wants you to make your own demands of the public. What if you had one minute to seize the voice of authority?

Would you want it?  would you take it? what would you do with it? what would you say?

The idea? Everyone is invited to compose and deliver a slogan that tells all of us what you really want us to do:

• I want you to do the dishes AND clean the catbox.
• I want you to get Russian troops out of contested regions in Georgia.
• I want you to imagine what life would be like if you didn’t have to pay a mortgage, file taxes, drive in cars, or work for a living.

THIS THURSDAY NIGHT.

YOU deliver YOUR slogan in solo auditions in the Wattis theater, before a panel of judges and Tony’s camera. The judges pick 50 finalists, who will compete in front of a live audience, American Idol style, next week, on September 11. Five winners will find themselves & their slogans transformed into I WANT YOU posters to be plastered around the city before the November elections. Everyone who delivers a slogan on September 4 will be videotaped, and Tony will turn the footage into a new video piece he’ll debut at SFMOMA on Election Day, November 4.

I’ll tell you what. Suzanne wants you too. I am deeply curious to know what people will propose they want me (the public) to do. Who is going to win? and will we do what YOU tell Tony you want US to do?  Who is the we and who is the you? I WANT YOU TO SHOW UP AND TELL ME WHAT TO DO. Think about it:

See you Thursday.