A failing economy has decided the recent fate of 21 Monitor Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Formerly a nun’s convent, the grand three-story house now stands uninhabited due to the declining membership of St. Cecilia parish and its sister school. Rather than let the building fall into disrepair th... Read more
A failing economy has decided the recent fate of 21 Monitor Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Formerly a nun’s convent, the grand three-story house now stands uninhabited due to the declining membership of St. Cecilia parish and its sister school. Rather than let the building fall into disrepair the parish has found ways to breathe new life into it through a rotating schedule of film shoots, screenings, dance performances, and art exhibitions.
Taking its cue from the friends-of-friends network that has allowed access to 21 Monitor Street, system:system is a three-day event that reflects on the nature of associations between parts of a whole. The title is a play on the term “complex systems,” which are characterized by their connections and tendencies toward unpredictable behavior. The organizing of this event evokes these qualities and embraces the small world phenomenon of strangers being linked through minimal degrees of separation to form a dynamic structure.
The unoccupied nun’s living quarters will now showcase work that experiments with the building up and/or breaking down of systems: mathematical, scientific, social, economic, and otherwise. Much like the social and economic factors responsible for this event, the behavior between the separate elements—artistic interventions and performances—will result in an atmosphere of emergent interconnectedness. The act of creating artistic content in a temporary context will feature prominently, remaining true to the fluid way in which these works were executed.
