Markus Kayser’s “SolarSinter” is part of “Adhocracy” exhibit opening at New Museum during Ideas City festival
The second biannual Ideas City festival takes place May 1-4, with more than one hundred programs featuring conferences, workshops, seminars, panel discussions, walking tours, live music and dance, interactive art installations, a street festival, and other events tackling urgent urban issues at home and around the globe. Following up on 2011’s Festival of Ideas for the New City, this year’s theme is “Untapped Capital,” exploring ways to better use available resources to provide better infrastructure and general societal needs. On May 1, the keynote address will be delivered by MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito at the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, who will examine the internet’s role in untapped capital. On May 2 at the Great Hall, four prestigious panels will examine “Ad Hoc Strategies,” “Waste,” “Play,” and “Youth,” with such impressive guests as Jeffrey Inaba, Emeka Okafor, Thaddeus Pawlowski, Nancy Lublin, Barry McGee, Charles Renfro, and Carlos Motta. On May 3, the Old School at 233 Mott St. will host a series of workshops, including “A Discussion about the Armed Forces and the Arts,” “Social Mirroring,” “Hack City,” “Wherefore Store and Designing for Future Economies,” and “Revitalizing Space — Unlocking Creativity,” while “Pitching the City: New Ideas for New York” will be held at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. Among the projects on view throughout the four-day presentation are the Uni Portable Library, “TrafficCom” by Tomorrow Lab and Change Admin, “In Art and Cooperation We Trust!” by Trust Art, and “The Plastic Bag Mandala” by what makes you move. On May 4, the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral will host “Music of the Invisible”; the talk and performance “Big Art in All Spaces” occurs at Dixon Place; Downtown Art will stage the roaming outdoor opera The Great Struggle for Cheap Meat; and First City Green will screen the multichannel video Urban Exquis III. Also on Saturday, Streetfest offers dozens of fascinating presentations downtown, including Art in Odd Places 2013: “NUMBER,” “Ask a Prisoner,” “Dance for DNA,” “Raw Candy Innovation,” “Sewer in a Suitcase,” “SUSTAIN: Steering Urban Sustainability through Action, Innovation & Networks,” “Truck Farm,” “Unboxed,” and “The Urban Habitat Project.” Home base for the festival is the New Museum, where you can catch “The Money Shot: Roundtable with Karen Finley” on May 3 at 1:00, “Performance Beyond the Limits: Short Works” with Erin Markey, Sally May, Brigham Mosley, and Tobaron Waxman on May 3 at 7:00, a screening of Robert Garcia and Kevin Couliau’s Doin’ It in the Park, followed by a Q&A with the director on May 4 at 8:00, “Change of State” video projections on the facade of the museum on Saturday night, and other special events.