Held on the last Tuesday of each month, RAPID RESPONSE is an open and undetermined platform for quick response to events that have transpired over the last thirty days.

8/26/2008 RAPID RESPONSE: BEIJING AIR

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games were shrouded in controversy: not least by smog, as sports commentators and scientists alike have speculated whether athletic performance is being hampered by pollution, if the July construction ban has had a positive impact on air quality, and how Beijing air compares to that of other global cities.

Sarah Williams presented her current work in Beijing with Carbon Footprint: a device built by attaching a carbon monoxide air quality sensor to a GPS unit, then clipped onto the belts, backpacks and bicycles of researchers as they traverse the Olympic city. This way, Carbon Footprint matches air quality readings with spatial locations, allowing for highly localized investigations of urban environments. Williams discussed this project, and the measurement of air quality at different times: before the games, throughout their duration, and (presented here at Studio-X) two days after their torch was extinguished. Response by David Benjamin.

Sarah Williams is Director of the Spatial Information Design Lab at Columbia University GSAPP, where she also teaches. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Venice Biennale.

David Benjamin is co-founder of The Living, an architecture practice based on open-source research and design. He teaches at Columbia University GSAPP, where he is Co-Director of the Living Architecture Lab.

Sponsored by Barefoot Wines.

Read about this event in Dossier: http://dossierjournal.com/2008/08/rapid-response-at-studio-x/

9/30/2008 RAPID RESPONSE: PUBLIC SPACE

157 people were arrested at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, followed by 818 more arrests during the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities, including members of the mainstream and independent press and peaceful demonstrators. I-Witness Video, a New York-based collective that harnesses video to protect civil liberties and the right to use public space, surveyed police activity at both conventions. Eileen Clancy of I-Witness Video discussed their early-September house arrest in St. Paul and the gunpoint entry of police forces into their home. Later, I-Witness's offices were raided under false accusation that the group was holding hostages inside. This footage and more from outside of the convention walls was screened at Studio-X, to question how extraordinary policing alters public space as an arena for the exchange of ideas, and in so doing, affects the political process.

Sponsored by Wine Cellar Sorbet.

10/28/2008 RAPID RESPONSE: COLLAPSE!

Collapse! explores the spatial consequences of the "new" economy--the panic of 2008 as well as the last two decades, and the last two years--at a variety of scales: the NYSE trading room to Manhattan, the city to the suburbs, the United States to the world. Network Architecture Lab Director Kazys Varnelis will lead a discussion with Daniel Beunza, Assistant Professor, Management Division, Columbia Business School and Micah Fink, Emmy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker. We will be airing a segment of a film by Fink originally produced for a PBS New York Voices special on the mortgage crisis.

Collapse! is produced in collaboration with the Network Architecture Lab.

Refreshments provided by Barefoot Wines

RSVP: gdb2106@columbia.edu
Free and open to the public

11/25/2008 RAPID RESPONSE: I NEED MY SPACE

Visual and performance artist KAREN FINLEY will lead this group meeting, featuring invited and volunteer testimonials sharing our emotional responses to the election and the various needs for space--physical, social, cultural and psychological--that it exposed. How do our national political relationships inform or dialogue with the workplace, family, community and friends? How do the race, gender, class and identity issues raised in the campaign continue to be discussed? Finley will also address the transformation of the memory of Chicago's Grant Park (and the 1968 Democratic Convention) from a site of pain and loss into one of celebration and unity on November 4th, as well as legacies of Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights Movement embodied in that space.

Audience participation in the meeting is encouraged. I NEED MY SPACE will last approximately one hour, with the hope of providing a therapeutic and supportive group environment for those needing space in their own lives.

Refreshments provided by Barefoot Wines