MACHINE PROJECT: A Field Guide to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art On November 15, 2008, Machine Project took over the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to orchestrate ten hours of performances, workshops, and events experimenting with the museum’s encyclopedic collection and seven-acre campus. Machine Project: A Field Guide to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art includes documentation of more than fifty artist projects, interviews, and essays. Highlights include a nine- teenth-century description of the invention of the glass harmonica, a fragmentary history of LACMA’s architecture, instructional diagrams for various do-it-yourself mechanisms, a fruit salad recipe based on the museum’s collection, and a tour of the museum’s campus during the Pleistocene epoch. to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art A FIELD GUIDE MACHINE PROJECT: [...]... The map (right) traces her route from Machine Project to LACMA 15 MACHINE PROJECT MACHINE PROJECT LACMA LACMA MACHINE MODEL MACHINE MODEL LACMA MODEL LACMA MODEL 56" tall and 18" deep platform 28" tall and 24" deep platform 56" tall and 18" deep platform 28" tall and 24" deep platform 3/16” scaled distance from Machine Project to LACMA 3/16” scaled distance from Machine Project to LACMA Matthew Au The... school valet service, etc.) 11 We tried to think about LACMA the same way we would approach a project for a mall, a public park, a 7-11, or a dry ice factory We looked at all available space at the museum, from the galleries to the air conditioning ducts, as possible sites to work within The sheer volume of cultural information at LACMA made it a very easy space to work with, since there was an endless... shift a fair amount depending on who I’m working with; typical roles include cheerleader, enthusiast, fan, collaborator, irritant, and organizer These collaborations form an ongoing conversation that is at the core of Machine Project as a social organism The Machine Project Field Guide to LACMA started about a year before the show, when photography curator Charlotte Cotton invited us to think about doing... standing in an area that is extraordinarily rare and significant And it just happens to be the Miracle Mile along Wilshire Boulevard, but for a long time, none of this was here This area was part of a huge land grant from the Mexican government called Rancho La Brea Just a big piece of land that extended about 4500 acres, north from here up to the 101 freeway… And it was called Rancho La Brea because... horses and camels were native to the United States and eventually spread out over ice masses Columbian mammoths that migrated [north] from South America No wooly mammoths, there was no ice here Wooly mammoths were in Siberia and areas like that But we had American lions An American lion was larger than any modern-day cat And a saber-toothed cat, whose closest relative is a modern bobcat… Now when Rancho... very natural to take on a project like this Liz I understand that your grandfather had a lot of influence on your practice Did his approach to building have any influence on your approach to LACMA? Nate My grandfather made a living as a sign painter He built his house and continued to work it like a painting until he was forced to let it go when he was in his eighties He always used representations and... Rancho La Brea was broken up into Hancock Park, Henry Hancock recognized how important the asphalt was, and he realized he could sell the oil and asphalt He sold the asphalt for about ten dollars a ton or so He sold it to San Francisco to pave their streets, and a lot of the old sectors of San Francisco are still paved with asphalt from La Brea Eventually in the 1890s a professor from Boston came around,... them A lot of the bones were burned William Denton changed everything around and got a lot of attention on this area That’s when the Natural History Museum was founded in 1913, which used to be the Museum of History, Science, and Art… In 1915, Hancock realized how valuable the land was and donated it to the county and that’s why we have Hancock Park And so this area was originally founded to do excavations... turned out to be like a sea of wonky mausoleums in the [Grand Entrance] made from old office carpet, pedestals, and supplies Liz What happened with the carpet? Nate I saw tons of old office carpet in storage, about 1800 square feet on seven rolls It registered a few days later that the carpet was key for the project to make the scale of the space work I asked, and LACMA said I could have it Then about two... physical space interchangeably I think from a young age his house fascinated me because of the fluidity of inside and outside, representation and physical space I learned that you can work space like a drawing or painting and vice-versa (Top) Rendering of office carpet spread across the BP Grand Enterance (Middle) Leftover art shipping crates were repainted to match the ticket booth (Bottom) Nap area adjacent . Machine Project to LACMA. 14 28" tall and 24" deep platform 56" tall and 18" deep platform LACMA LACMA MODEL 3/16” scaled distance from Machine Project to LACMA MACHINE PROJECT MACHINE. PROJECT MACHINE MODEL 28" tall and 24" deep platform 56" tall and 18" deep platform LACMA LACMA MODEL 3/16” scaled distance from Machine Project to LACMA MACHINE PROJECT MACHINE. enthusiast, fan, collaborator, irritant, and organizer. These collaborations form an ongoing conversation that is at the core of Machine Project as a social organism. The Machine Project Field Guide