Sue Huang of Knifeandfork

Over the last 18 months, the art collective Knifeandfork has raced wifi-enabled toy cars in and among expensive artworks, invited people to play miniature golf in the offices and loading docks of a museum, and staged a soccer game at the foot of Nancy Rubin's giant "Airplane Parts" sculpture in the courtyard of the Museum of Contemporary Art. All three projects were part of a residency at MOCA in 2009, and according to LA-based media artist Sue Huang, who joins Brian House in comprising Knifeandfork, each project wrestled with structures, systems, transformation and space.Huang, who earned her MFA in the Design | Media Arts program at UCLA in 2007, traces a long history of influences in describing what motivates her work. These include the intriguing and layered stories of Jore Luis Borges, the experimental writing practices of Raymond Queneau, the cut-up techniques of Brion Gysin, and the repetitions in storytelling epitomized by films such as Groundhog Day and Rashomon. However, she's also very interested in what happens when you engage these ideas in public space, and when you call attention to - and transform - often invisible social practices.

Take "Emptiness Is Form (Golf and Donuts)" from Knifeandfork's recent residency. Huang and House installed a miniature golf course that traveled through the normally unseen areas of MOCA. "We avoided the gallery spaces and went into the bowels of the museum," she says. "Players ended up in the storage area, on the loading dock, in the board room, out on the roof, and down in the stairwells." Each of the balls in the game had an RFID tag that was linked to the cell phone numbers of participants. As each ball went into a hole, a donut hole was made, and players received calls and heard an odd and poetic message that created another layer of narrative and play. "The piece is really one giant donut-making system," says Huang, who explains that she and House were interested in uniting two well-known practices, namely miniature golf and museum-going. "We knew people would understand both of the two structures but merging them created something different." They were also interested in allowing people to see the spaces of the museum that they don't normally see.

For the project titled "MOCA Grand Prix,"participants raced remote-controlled cars through the museum, and viewers witnessed the museum exhibition from the point of view of the cars. "This project dealt with ideas of perception and scale," says Huang, "and with the idea of museum-going. We were interested in dealing with perception - how does the altered scale and act of viewing the paintings from the ground change the experience?"A key aspect in all of Knifeandfork's work is the interaction of participants. "Audience interaction often takes central stage, but we avoid approaching work that's just about interaction as a goal in itself," she says. Instead, the pair enjoys situated and relational interaction, in which there's attention paid to social codes and infrastructures, and how the slightest shift can radically alter behavior. Huang notes that adding Astroturf to MOCA's sculpture plaza immediately created a space for play and relaxation, for example.

When asked what appeals to her about patterns and repetition, Huang offers two connections. First, she says that she grew up in Saudi Arabia, where patterns are a core component of art and aesthetics. Second, she studied classical music, which is all about pattern and variation. "There is this idea that if you can understand a work through all of its permeations, you will understand the universe."

Knifeandfork will bring their playful and provocative experiments next to Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions on Sunday, September 26, when they will host "Relay Drawing," in which the pair will, in their words, "explore the psychogeography of Hollywood using mobile telephone interactions in a generative process." All are welcome - RSVP: rsvp@welcometolace.org

Relay Drawing with Knifeandfork
LACE
6522 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
September 26, 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.