My work illuminates the tensions between the sensed world and the conceived world. By altering the tempo and context of everyday sensations it puts in relief the cadences of ordinary life. I hope that this sensorial re-experiencing of the world will catalyze dialog about human physicality and our relationship to the natural world.
Eco-Dérives are public walks to explore the ecology of human-altered spaces, during which we stop to investigate the interplay between human and non-human influences. Following in the tradition of the Dérive, our focus is more poetics and the nature of our perception, than science. To this end, during the walk I lead one or more exercises in perception.
Afterwards we may gather to discuss our findings and the intellectual traditions available to frame them.
The last walks were held on Governors Island, in New York City, as part of the Urban Soils Institute Symposium. Here is the paper I presented there, The Pristine and the Sullied.
Emergent Scores Lab is a weekly meeting of artists working in temporal media. Our meetings are investigations of the spontaneous development of structures in these forms.
Alley Performances are periodic shows that take place in alleys. The audience sits in a spot and views several short pieces that flow past like traffic.
Urban Bushwacking is a walking journey, and a sort of sociological/science experiment. Wearing headphones, each individual participant follows prerecorded directions to perform the same group of actions twice: once in the city and once in the wilderness. Half the group does city first, the other half wilderness first.
Artist’s Statement
Jack Magai makes performances for and with audiences that address the boundary between the natural and the non-natural in their normal surroundings. He does this by employing sites, materials and methods traditionally beyond the theatrical.
Contact
magaijack AT gmail.com