department (Store)

Department (Store) Closing Party!

2008-12-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

The Department (Store) is closing on December 12th, 2008...

Please join us for a
Closing Reception on Friday, December 12th from 4:30-7p.m.

Please join us for a Special Edition of Read: 75 with Katie Lennard

2008-11-18T16:55:00.001-08:00

Katie will be leading an informal discussion in the "Player's Lounge" of a text taken from the Department (Store) Library. Katie is a second year Visual and Critical Studies student with a special interest in embodied "thingness" and disembodies presence.

Read:75 will meet in the "Player's Lounge" of the Department (Store) Exhibition
4:15 - 5:30 PM on Wednesday, November 19, 2008

2008-11-04T05:42:00.000-08:00

FEATURED CASE!
#035-6-056
October 17 - December 11, 2008

Winzeler Gear's art, Devotion @ 50 RPM, is a kinetic sculpture blending two technologies--photography and geared power transmission--and depicting two seemingly disparate concepts—prayer and propulsion.

A prayer wheel is a 'wheel' (Tibetan: 'khor) on a spindle made from metal, wood, leather, or even coarse cotton. On the wheel are depicted or encapsulated prayers, mantras and symbols. According to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, spinning such a wheel will have much the same effect as orally reciting the prayers.

Imagine the reaction from most religions if prayer could be so automated: A repeating audio recording of the Lord's Prayer or passages from the Koran to relieve the faithful of the tedium of devotion would be denounced as blasphemy, yet the high mountain Buddhists of Tibet send these wheels merrily spinning and are no less devout.

To learn more, go to: http://www.winzelergear.com/press.html

To have your case featured, send image(s), case number, dates of subscription and a brief statement to the Supervisor of Interconnectivity at ealder@saic.edu.

Time to Play!

2008-10-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

The end of this week marks our halfway point through the Department (Store) entanglement. On October 16th and 17th almost all of the cases will be changing over as a new host of participants move in.

If you are scheduled to move into a case for this term.

Please make an appointment with the Store Manager at deptstore@saic.edu on or shortly after October 17th to install.

Please bring with you the completed forms you have received from us.

Another good idea is to make sure your installation is compliant with the school’s guidelines on appropriate material for the space, so have this ready to explain when you email for an appointment.

Some rules to know/remember:

Everything should be contained within your case.
Fridays and Saturdays are installation days.
You need to install or make an appointment to install within three days of your installation date.
You must have an appointment to install

Cases Still Available!

2008-09-30T12:16:00.001-07:00

Cases are going fast, but there are still 2 week and 4 week cases available for a variety of dates throughout the end of the semester. Email deptstore@saic.edu to subscribe before its too late!

Information for Players

2008-09-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Department (Store)!
Welcome, Players!

We are preparing for our first movement of Department (Store) cases on September 6th in the Sullivan Galleries. We wanted to start to contact y’all with a few things to consider as the first iterations of this gaming are about to occur.

Listed below are some things to ponder:
What is important? What is the case you would make? And how would you display it?

• Cases are available for use on a first-come first-serve basis
• We encourage collaboration
• You are responsible for installation of your case and any care or maintenance it might require through its expiration date (cleaning, rearranging, etc.)
• Some cases will gently move every three days according to the project algorithm, so please secure your items and check them from time-to-time.
• No glass shelves can be used in the cases unless you come in every three days to dismantle the shelves and reinstall. You may use acrylic or wood if you’d like.
• Seven of the cases with a 112-day expiration don’t have locks or even doors, so make sure you check out your case after it’s assigned to you to see if it is one of these; if so, consider it to be a “generosity case,” but if you need a different case, just ask!
• Your start date for your case is the same as your installation date. You will need to make an appointment to check-in your work and can begin installation on that day. Please contact Store Manager, Rachel Moore, for this appointment to arrange to come in (deptstore@saic.edu).
• The last day of your case is the end date for your installation; you will need to move your belongings on that day, so that the next player can begin.
• Cases are rented and cannot be damaged in any way, as they need to be returned.
• Nothing should be on the exterior of the cases, but you can affix to the inside of the glass with tape or other removable adhesive.
• Transparency is crucial - we want to be able to see the display.

In the Case(s) of Collision, please note:
The movement of cases will at times create a “collision” where cases meet. Then:
• We encourage you to have a dialogue with any case (players) that you may collide into.
• This could be in person, by phone, or via internet.
• At this time you are also encouraged to reassemble items and the terms of your respective cases with consideration to each other, through exchange or collaboration.

Let the Game begin!
Most friendly,

The management

Invitation to Play

2008-08-17T14:25:00.001-07:00

Department (Store)
A collaboration of
All Departments (programs, collections…) of
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
with J. Morgan Puett

Please accept our invitation to be a part of this new project which is a playful game-entanglement with and in the site of the Sullivan Galleries on the 7th floor of 33 South State, SAIC’s Sullivan Building.

In Department (Store) we will engage with over 100 classic glass horizontal display cases, which we will fill with things (of all sorts), but what form that takes is exactly the question we put forth to you– the potential participants in this project.

At SAIC there are many aspects of departments, programs and individuals not on view; departments within departments, special collections, and things of material culture. Working with the each and any part of the institution, we could expose what is hidden and make them for a time transparent.

We ask:
What is important? What is the case you want to make? and How will you display it?

Further, we will ask a series of questions of the site—the new Sullivan Galleries and historic Louis Sullivan Building. By doing so, we will set up a game of rules and these rules will cause the cases to move in different directions. This will be an emergent process that will reflect a complex and rich dialogue within the institution and among persons at the school, and potentially the museum(s), alums, the city, and so on.

A listing–flowing–churning of processes, algorithms, people, and things will activate a constant motion: in essence, a stop-frame experience from day-to-day, finding new arrangements of things and people throughout the fall semester.

The interiors of the cases will be shifting, changing, filling—coaxing us toward a shared experience of exchange and collaboration between us and things
Come play!

To play: Please contact deptstore@saic.edu starting August 11th

[All movements and rearrangements are meticulously monitored by a store manager and a schematic on the main wall of the Department (Store) gallery will chart the course of this project.]

School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Sullivan Galleries
33 South State Street, 7th Floor
Chicago, IL 60603
Tel. 312.629.6635
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11 am– 6 pm