Day 1: Tuesday, July 7

Artist: Jon Cohrs (Eyebeam Resident): Recording engineer and visual/sound artist

Workshop: Part performative and part DIY culture, this workshop will expose students to hacking electronics and urban exploration. Much like Gold, the value of Black Gold, or oil has grown rapidly for the last 50 years. In many urban areas, industry has left behind resources that are written off as toxic spills. We’re going to prospect our urban environment using DIY urban prospecting tools. Put on your rubber boots and lets get knee deep in urban toxic wealth.

Critical Frameworks: Urban research, creative intervention, hacking, performance

Resources: Urban Prospecting http://urbanprospecting.net/ + http://splnlss.com/

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Digital Day Camp: Day 1
As we trickled into Eyebeam one by one, our first day was a flurry of new faces and new experiences. After getting over our initial awkward greetings, learning each other’s names, and icebreakers, we moved right into discussion about the
interactions between art and activism. As the theme for this summer’s Digital Day
Camp is “ creative activism in an urban environment” this jump-started our meeting
with Jon Cohrs, a creative activist and artist who has created “Urban Prospecting”,
an idea with which he has refurbished old metal detectors to find oil and toxic waste
beneath the surface of New York. As a team, we went out on the High Line in search
of toxic waste and oil with the hopes of not only finding such things, but also making
a scene and raising awareness of the pollution, as a large group of teenagers with
metal detectors stormed the High Line. Talking to strangers, making friends, and
making trouble with security, we raised awareness. After a quick pit stop at the ice
cream truck we went back to Eyebeam and had one final discussion before
wrapping up our first day.

Article and Image by Zoe and Luis.

Luther detecting toxins!