Christina RAY invites you to damage DCKT Contemporary by proxy through her enactment of collected requests. Prior to the opening of the show, the DAMAGE interactive website (http://damageproject.christinaray.com) will allow visitors to mark a spot to be damaged on a virtual map of the gallery and to submit a message, poem, story or other text relating to the concept of damage. Based on the submissions, RAY
will inflict physical damage points on the actual wall space which will generate the pattern for a large-scale wall drawing.

The collected damage messages will inform an audio environment designed by RAY and Brooklyn-based band My Best Fiend. A video piece relating to the installation co-produced by RAY and music video director Robin Antiga will be screened as well. RAY will also present a series of studies for the wall drawing as part of the exhibition.
DAMAGE builds on RAY’s previous work in which she utilized observed actions of urban pedestrians and street traffic as public space pattern generators for drawings. As action-at-a-distance turns into something real, the participants will become materially connected to the interior space. The roughed-up wall surface, painted paths
and acoustic triggers will translate the participants’ web experience of clicking and typing into a tactile, located experience. The inclusion of the public as well as a production team for the web, audio, and video components of the exhibition reflects Ray’s process of working collaboratively, which is an important element of her
practice.

The exhibition will be on view at DCKT Contemporary, 552 West 24th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea. Hours are 11am to 6pm, Tuesday through Saturday. There will be a reception for the artist on Friday, April 7 from 6 – 8 pm. For further information, please contact Dennis Christie or Ken Tyburski at the gallery.

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Paul Beckman, contributor of three darkly witty flash fictions in Mad Hatters' Review, Issue 3, received an MFA from Bennington in 1999. Paul lives just over the border in Connecticut. He's the father of poet Joshua Beckman. Paul has writings in The Connecticut Review, Other Voices, Playboy, Northeast Magazine, 5 Trope, Exquisite Corpse, Del Sol Review, and many other journals. His stories have been published in Germany, New Zealand & Ireland. Paul’s also a four time nominee for a Pushcart Prize.

Amy King, a future Mad Hatter contributor, is the author of the poetry collection, Antidotes for an Alibi (Blazvox Books), a Lambda Book Award finalist, and the chapbook, The People Instruments (Pavement Saw Press Chapbook Award 2002). She currently teaches Creative Writing and English at Nassau Community College and a workshop of her own design, "Making the Urban Poetic," at Poets' House in Manhattan. Amy King's poems have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, TheMississippi Review, Tarpaulin Sky, Milk Magazine, and No Tell Motel, among others. She is the managing editor for the journal, MiPOesias. Please visit www.amyking.org for more.

Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media studies at NYU, where he directs the Project on Media Ownership. A well-known media watchdog and frequent contributor to The Nation, he’s the author of Boxed in: The Culture of TV, The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, and, Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order. Most recently, Miller wrote Fooled Again, a call to election reform, in which Miller argues that it wasn't moral values that swung the last election -- it was theft. Miller wrote and performed in "A Patriot Act," a chilling indictment of the movement to subvert the US Constitution and replace American democracy with religious values. Mad Hatters' Review will be publishing a review of Fooled Again in our fifth issue. See www.markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com.

Edgy & enlightened writers interested in being featured in the series should show upon April 7th bearing a couple of writing samples.

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House party is right. In that deep, funky, old school NYC house that keeps you dancing all night. This is one of the best spots to get down on the weekend without the mess, hassle, and door charge of the city's larger venues (and better music). Marlon D and Jellybean Benittez - who have been bringing deep house to NYC since the Paradise Garage and Studio 54 days - continue their aptly titled monthly. This monthly packs the Union Square Ballroom with people sweating from the rafters until sunrise.

Listen to a Marlon D set from 1994 (Real)

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