Top Three Reasons to Care About UCSB’s State of the Arts Conference

The University of California’s first-ever State of the Arts
conference goes down at UCSB this weekend, May 18-20, as the annual
event of the UC Institute for Research in the Arts, a program that
gives grants to UC faculty and students for projects that will make
significant artistic and cultural impact. Like most conferences,
much of the weekend — which is being attended by folks from all
over the state — will be taken up by panels and lectures, but
there’s also some seriously experimental art going down too. Here
are three reasons to take note. See www.ucira.ucsb.edu
for more.

{1} MAKROLAB: This experimental art and science
project — which is housed in shipping containers; has toured
Europe, South Africa, and Australia; and was designed by a team of
architects supervised by UCSB’s Marko Peljhan — will overlook
Campus Point for the conference’s duration.

{2} The Tactical Ice Cream Unit: Roving the
streets of UCSB on May 18 and Isla Vista May 19, this ice cream
truck-cum-social-activism mobile headquarters disperses knowledge,
gas masks, and goodies to those in need. See tacticalmagic.org.

{3} The Monument Project: With participation
from teenagers, UCSB students, I.V. Live!, the S.B. Museum of Art,
seniors from the Friendship Manor, and MacArthur Award-winning
playwright Luis Alfaro, this project presents art and performance
that symbolize the community.