Presented as part of “AUNTSforcamera” and R&D Season: CHOREOGRAPHY.

An important interactive component of the installation of “AUNTSforcamera” at the New Museum includes a series of nine artist-devised tours, which have been organized using AUNTS’ chain-curation model. Nine artists have been invited by “AUNTSforcamera” artists to create a response to the exhibition in the form of a tour, which will be performed exclusively for and with participating audiences. Benjamin Kimitch was invited by Larissa Velez-Jackson.

In Velez-Jackson’s three-channel work Star Crap Method via Lens (2014), process and product exist outside of their binary extremes. The Star Crap Method of the title is an ongoing research practice developed by Velez-Jackson through which she and her dancers embrace failure as a tool for generating artistic material. In response to this work, Kimitch’s tour for “AUNTSforcamera” will harness his fear of failing as a tour guide to explore the generative potential of that eventuality. As Kimitch writes, “In the context of a museum tour, I will subvert expectations of myself as performer and tour guide while challenging those on the tour to subvert their expectations as participants. The result may be an expansion of how we are able to experience the exhibit. Or it may be a pleasant failure.”

In keeping with the spirit of AUNTS, the currency of exchange for attending these tours is not monetary; instead visitors must provide proof of submission to #auntsforcamera, an interactive work by Karl Scholz included in the “AUNTSforcamera” exhibition. #auntsforcamera utilizes the downloadable app OchoVideo to record eight-second user-generated video clips to become part of a sequenced single-channel video installation (on view in the New Museum lobby) that accumulates over the course of the entire project from September 8, 2014, to February 15, 2015.