chance encounters for a third try: attempting a house party on the moon

By Kyle Bellucci Johanson


Text below taken from https://kylejohanson.com/private/629894873207701504/tumblr_WdDuEvgxiwvoFTkxK


06/20/2020 Attempt No. 01: value and people

07/04/2020 Attempt No. 02: timespacematters

07/18/2020 Attempt No. 03: systems of cultural production

this work was commissioned for the exhibition:

Another Idea, an actual conceptual art exhibition,

organized by Zachary Cahill and Michael Schuh
The Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry
University of Chicago, Chicago IL

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chance encounters for a third try: attempting a house party on the moon is a performance architecture in which my flat in Chicago was reconstructed on the surface of the moon – Earth’s natural satellite. I imagine, with the cosmic radiation and ultraviolet light, there isn’t any Covid-19 on the moon so it’s probably a good place for a house party. I originally went to the moon back in July of 2019, to see if it was a site for revolutionary becoming, and if it could offer possibilities outside of subjugation and capitalism that feel impossible on earth. This may be a good time to revisit those questions. What does it mean to “be together?” What do we do when we can’t do what we do?

This architecture was activated three times over the course of June and July 2020, in order to attempt a house party on the moon, the first-second-third of its kind (but that doesn’t really matter).

Each attempt hosted various activities to uncover the necessary and sufficient conditions of a house party. This site-responsive work/party dwelled on the various roles that isolation, distance, and technology play regarding daily social life and domestic experience for people on Earth. Have we found ourselves in a time and space when matters of existence have never been more precarious and policed, isolated and interconnected, informative and confusing? We’ve witnessed black death, gone live, worn our masks, hidden inside our apartments, assembled in our streets, filed for unemployment, zoomed out, baked bread, sanitized, and got thoroughly screened, but there is still no vaccine.

So we came, had a drink, listened to the DJ’s music, danced, were wallflowers, smoked on the porch, caught another’s eyes, and had a chance encounter. We lingered in the kitchen, if you felt antisocial there were plenty of books and places to snoop around. Oh, and Tim asked if he could use the bathroom. We talked about what we care most about, we imagined the future, and contended with what we never really left behind. Maybe we found new comrades, maybe we found work, maybe we found life together, in many ways we surely failed.

After all, we were all beside ourselves.

The house architecture used for the third attempted house party can be accessed through the following site: partyonthemoon.house

This work would not have been possible without the participation, collaboration, contribution, and support of these lunar and terra comrades:

Tim Tsang, Vlad Avesalon, Tyler Ann Liegmann, Samuel Zalanga, Adam Feldmeth, Charles Gaines, Nyeema Morgan, txgen meyer, Andre Keichian, Carmen Amengual, Mary Coyne, Gabriela Barreto Lemos, Gregory Bae, Joestine Con-ui, Lily Kind, Liang Luscombe, Paul Rosero Contreras, Sherwin Ovid, Anna Pangalou, Sebastian, Tamara Becerra Valdez, Smokee Goddinson, Annika Haas, Matthew Lax, Will Lee, Zachary Cahil, and Mike Schuh

The work was documented through the following screen shots and written reflections made by people who attended the attempted house parties.