Public EngagementMachine Artist Project in Hammer ResidenceMuseum Contents INTRODUCTIONS Needlepoint Therapy Foreword, by Ann Philbin 5 Machine Project in Residence in Ann Philbin’s Office Getting Started: Public Engagement A.I.R. at the Hammer, Soundings: Bells at the Hammer by Allison Agsten 7 Intaglio Printmaking Workshop Working with Museums, by Mark Allen 11 Houseplant Vacation Level5 PROJECTS 17–22 Giant Hand Fanfare/No Fanfare Annie Okay FungiFest Enormous Microscopic Evening Paleolithic Skills Workshop Table Tennis on Lindbrook Terrace Little William Theater: Micro-Concerts Hammer Staff Birthday Poetry Readings and Personal Concerts Little William Theater: Festival of New Music Hammer Staff in Residence at Machine Project Live Personal Soundtrack Giant Guestbooks and Tiny Guestbook A ROAD MAP Valentine’s Day Songs of Triumph or Heartbreak Record of Our Experience, Subtle Bodies Series by Allison Agsten and Elizabeth Cline 24 Tablacentric Dream-In INTERVIEWS Nap-In BIG PICTURE Singing by Numbers Allison Agsten 33 Hammer Staff Pet Portraits Chris Kallmyer 42 Machine Project Hammer Report 3 Contents REEVALUATIONS AND COLLABORATIONS Elizabeth Cline 49 Liz Glynn 121 Maria Mortati 56 Brody Condon 127 STRATEGIES OF ENGAGEMENT Adam Overton 132 Joshua Beckman 61 Emily Lacy 65 INFRASTRUCTURAL IMPACT Cat Lamb and Laura Steenberge 69 Ali Subotnick 138 Anthony McCann 73 Andrew Werner 143 Eric Klerks with Chris Kallmyer 78 Julia Luke 147 Joshua Greene 84 Morgan Kroll 150 Eric Avery 89 Portland McCormick 154 Luke Storm and Ashley Walters 93 Jenni Kim and Margot Stokol 158 Nick Didkovsky 96 Jim Fetterley 163 REIMAGINING THE MUSEUM APPENDIXES Philip Ross 99 The Hammer Museum: Mission, Vision, and Values 171 Corey Fogel 104 Machine Project: Vision and Values 172 Asher Hartman with Haruko Tanaka and Jasmine Orpilla 107 The Experiential Record, or How To Do Things with Matt Jones 111 Documentation, by Andrew J Lau 174 Chandler McWilliams 114 Acknowledgments 182 Nate Page 118 Machine Project Hammer Report 4 When the Hammer Museum embarked upon its Public Engagement program, thanks to a generous grant from the Irvine Foundation, we were afforded the opportunity to consider the roles of art, of artists, and even of visitors from a fresh perspective. It was a unique chance to put aside long-held notions of what guests often expect a museum experience to be—static and monologic at worst—and to enact what it can be at best—dynamic, with visitor and institution in conversation. Through Public Engagement, visitors have been able to step outside of their traditional roles as observers and to become participants. Similarly, we have been able to open up our process for working with artists and to collaborate on creating a new sphere, one that often exists beyond standard exhibitions and performances. Public Engagement has been one of our greatest experiments to date at the Hammer, coming at a pivotal moment in the history of the institution. The Hammer is entering its twenty-first year, and when we take stock of our accomplishments so far, it seems clear that we have reached adulthood. I am pleased that the institution has become known for its adventurous programming and proclivity for risk-taking, evidenced by the initiation of Public Engagement and other endeavors. As time has passed and we have grown to accommodate such programs, we have also developed systems and processes to support our larger size. In this moment, as our systems are ossifying, it is vital that the structures that we Foreword have set up to support our burgeoning institution do not weigh too heavily on our natural tendency toward advancement and experimentation. Public Engagement revealed to us a sometimes difficult by-product of maturity: our own bureaucracy. So while the programs have dramatically enhanced the museum experience for our audience, Public Engagement has also illuminated internal issues that had not so directly challenged us before. In other words, since the initiation of Public Engagement, we not only have looked outward but have taken a hard look inward as well. Coming to terms with our internal workings is just one illuminating aspect of supporting and growing a program like Machine Project Hammer Report 5 Public Engagement. As with any good experiment, we have already learned so much more than we set out to learn. Through Public Engagement and our first artist residency with Machine Project, we came to a greater understanding of what our visitors respond to, of how to bring our secondary spaces to life, of new ways to charge our existing programs, and even of what our shortcomings might be. We have embraced what Machine Project taught us, carrying on the most successful ideas to the second year of the program, and we have tested our own tolerance for risk. The Hammer’s evolution continues, and around us, other institutions are also beginning to look toward the future of museum practice and audience engagement. As we collectively begin to reconceptualize the role of visitors and, in our case, the role of artists as well, we present to you the first chapter of our investigation into this emerging area of work. Of course, none of this would be possible without the generosity of the James Irvine Foundation. The grant we were awarded has allowed us to do the work we otherwise could only have dreamed of. Our deepest gratitude goes to Machine Project as well. Director Mark Allen and his collaborators have been true partners throughout, and we have all benefited as much from the collective’s thoughtful work as we have from its lively spirit. Ann Philbin Director Hammer Museum Machine Project Hammer Report Foreword 6 Getting Started: Public Engagement A.I.R. at the Hammer, GETTING STARTED by Allison Agsten Over the past year and a half, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with many colleagues at other institutions about Public Engagement at the Hammer. While each museum has its own impetus for asking about and potentially pursuing this work, the inquiries themselves have been mostly aligned. Typically, the first question I receive is about the premise: what do we mean by public engagement? This is followed by a number of practical questions regarding the genesis of the program and its execution to date. As we learned in our first year, manifesting a new program like this requires substantial legwork: infrastructure must be configured and processes put into place to support projects that are outside the boundaries of the Museum’s regular curatorial operation. I offer here a basic road map that should be of practical value to other institutions that choose to pursue similar initiatives. The answer to the broader question about the nature of public engagement depends on who you ask. The differing interpretations of the newly developed initiative are central to the development of the program, as well as evident in many of the tensions that emerged along the way. I will further address this issue later in the report, but first, some background. In 2009, the Hammer Museum’s Artist Council, a group of artists who advise the Museum on wide-ranging topics, began discussing a new way to address many of the ongoing visitor services issues the Museum had been grappling with. For example, the Museum’s lobby still felt corporate and hollow, ticketing occurred upstairs in a counterintuitive space, and there wasn’t staff in place dedicated to guest experience. What would happen, the Council wondered, if the Hammer collaborated with Introduction, AA artists to consider these concerns through their lens? Not long after this conversation occurred and with the Council’s idea in mind, the Museum applied for a James Irvine Foundation Arts Innovation Fund grant (http://irvine.org/evaluation/program- evaluations/artsinnovationfund). That same year the Museum was awarded a substantial grant to be used in part to create of a new model for visitor engagement. At the core of this grant is the Public Engagement Artist In Residence (A.I.R.) program, which encourages contact between visitors, artists, and Museum Machine Project Hammer Report 7 staff, and activates the Museum in unexpected ways. Museum staff, the Hammer and Machine Project coexplored This new endeavor felt like a logical next step for the hundreds of ideas for the first year of the program. Over the Hammer, which strives to be an artist-driven institution and, course of the Residency, 26 projects were executed, ranging under director Ann Philbin, has developed a certain level of from intimate musical performances for one to a microscopy comfort with—and even an aspiration toward—risk-taking. festival for hundreds. In total, more than 300 artists participated Further, the Museum had just wrapped up its first Irvine in Machine Project’s Residency. Later in the report, Elizabeth Foundation grant, which was used, in part, to create the very and I will outline the processes we developed, provide a sample council that conceptualized what would become the basis of the production schedule, and explain the other ins and outs critical second Irvine grant. Both the council and Public Engagement to the realization of Public Engagement from an institutional are concerned with problem solving, and both emerged from perspective. the same core commitment to involving artists in the institution in a substantial way, certainly beyond the galleries. With the DEFINING PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT new Irvine grants in place and a solid foundation of institutional From the beginnings of Public Engagement and continuing experience with experimentation, the Museum was ready to up to this moment, even Museum staff had differing opinions move forward. Philbin selected Echo Park collective Machine about the precise role of Public Engagement and various ideas Project to be the Museum’s first A.I.R. Machine Project’s director, about what it might look like.