Who: Paul Auster, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Tina Brown, Kiran Desai, Andrea Elliott, Amanda Foreman, A. M. Homes, Siri Hustvedt, Hari Kunzru, Colum McCann, Douglas Murray, Andrew Solomon, Gay Talese, more What:Public reading of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses Where:The New York Public Library, Fifth Ave. and Forty-Second St., and online When: Friday, August 19, free, 11:00 am Why: “‘To be born again,’ sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ‘first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Ta-taa! Taka-thun! How to ever smile again, if first you won’t cry? How to win the darling’s love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again . . .’”
So begins Salman Rushdie’s 1988 Booker Prize finalist and Whitbread winner, The Satanic Verses, which famously led the Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa on the Indian-born British-American novelist, calling for his death, complete with a multimillion-dollar bounty. While others associated with the publication of the book have indeed been murdered (Italian translator Ettore Capriolo, Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi; Norwegian publisher William Nygaard and Turkish translator Aziz Nesin survived attacks), Rushdie spent years in hiding but ultimately emerged to become a leading international literary figure. But on August 12, Rushdie was stabbed ten times as he prepared to give a talk and lecture at the Chautauqua Institution; the alleged assailant, twenty-four-year-old Hadi Matar, claims to have read only two pages of The Satanic Verses but decided to try to kill Rushdie after watching numerous speeches of his on YouTube.
Rushdie, who has been writing and speaking about human rights and free speech around the world for decades, will be celebrated on August 19 at 11:00 am when a group of his friends and colleagues gather on the steps of the New York Public Library in Midtown for a public reading of his most famous book; there was also a public reading of the work a few days after the fatwa was declared, some thirty-three years ago. Organized by PEN, the NYPL, PenguinRandom House, and House of SpeakEasy, “Stand with Salman: Defend the Freedom to Write” will include such authorial stalwarts as Paul Auster, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Tina Brown, Kiran Desai, Andrea Elliott, Amanda Foreman, A. M. Homes, Siri Hustvedt, Hari Kunzru, Colum McCann, Douglas Murray, Andrew Solomon, and Gay Talese. The grassroots event is open to all and will be livestreamed as well; in addition, you can post your own reading of a short passage on social media using #StandWithSalman and tagging @penamerica.
“We are again facing a watershed moment,” Foreman wrote in a statement. “The war against freedom of expression is gaining strength. Globally, over two thousand writers and journalists have been murdered since Rushdie was sentence to death by Iran. On August 19 we have an opportunity to make a stand: courage breeds courage.”
A 4K restoration of Keane, starring Damian Lewis, comes to Lincoln Center beginning August 19
KEANE (Lodge Kerrigan, 2004)
Film at Lincoln Center, Francesca Beale Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Opens Friday, August 19 www.filmlinc.org grasshopperfilm.com
Lodge Kerrigan’s remarkable third feature, Keane, is mesmerizing, always teetering on the brink of insanity. Damian Lewis, years before Homeland and Billions, stars as William Keane, whom we first meet as he rants and raves in the Port Authority, filled with anger, paranoia, and a twitchiness that immediately sets you on edge and never lets up. He is trying to figure out what went wrong when his daughter was abducted from the area, but he now acts like just another crazy at the bus depot. As he befriends a desperate woman (Gone Baby Gone’s Amy Ryan) and her daughter (Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin), you’ll feel a gamut of terrifying emotions rush through your body. The cast also features such familiar faces as Liza Colón-Zayas, Christopher Evan Welch, Chris Bauer, Frank Wood, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and others in tiny roles.
With Keane, Kerrigan, who made a big indie splash with his 1993 debut, Clean, Shaven, has created a brilliant psychological film centered on one man’s obsession that will leave you emotionally and physically spent. Filmed on location in 35mm with a handheld camera (with only one shot per scene) and natural sound, Keane has a taut realism that will knock you for a loop. You’ll love this film, but it will also scare the hell out of you.
A selection of the 2004 New York Film Festival, Keane is back at Lincoln Center beginning August 19 in a brand-new 4K restoration supervised by Kerrigan and TV and film editor Kristina Boden; Lewis and Kerrigan — who has made only one film since Keane, 2010’s Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs), instead concentrating on directing episodes of such series as Homeland,The Killing, and The Girlfriend Experience — will participate in a Q&A following the 6:30 screening on August 20, moderated by Christopher Abbott.
Limitless AI immerses audiences in a barrage of digital imagery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
LIMITLESS AI
ArtsDistrict Brooklyn (AD/BK)
25 Franklin St., Brooklyn
Thursday – Sunday through November 20, $44.50 – $49.50 artsdistrict.live online slideshow
There’s a big-time new artist in town, but it’s not a human being.
Apps such as DALL-E 2, Craiyon, Artbreeder, and Deep Dream offer anyone the opportunity to create a virtual masterpiece by feeding descriptive text into an artificial intelligence generator that then uses an algorithm to output a digital image. The app Midjourney recently found itself in the news when a user named #postpoopzoomies made a series of works in which Emmy-winning Last Week Tonight host John Oliver married a cabbage.
Meanwhile, immersive art experiences have taken off around the world, large-scale, Instagram-friendly installations in which canvases come to life, filling massive rooms with pieces by van Gogh,Magritte,Klimt, and other international favorites.
Turkish artists Ferdi Alici and Eylul Alici of Istanbul’s Ouchhh Studio take both to the next level with Limitless AI, the centerpiece of the new ArtsDistrict Brooklyn (AD/BK) in Greenpoint. The twenty-five-thousand-square-foot space on Franklin St. features three immersive experiences along with a café and an outdoor bar; the cofounders and executive producers of the NYC destination are the Toronto-based David Galpern and Charles Roy.
Limitless AI is a sixty-minute experience divided into five sections; visitors can sit on benches or movable chairs or wander around the ten-thousand-square-foot room, where an ever-changing panoply of spectacular images are splashed onto walls, pillars, and the floor by more than sixty 4K laser projectors. There’s also a mezzanine with a nifty view. Be sure to walk to the various corners to enjoy different perspectives, but be warned that if you look down at the floor as you proceed, you might get a little dizzy, but in a good way.
The show begins with “Poetic AI,” consisting of a barrage of words, letters, and phrases from Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and others, in black-and-white. “Data is the paint. Algorithm is the brush. Architecture is the canvas,” a robotic voice announces. “Twenty million lines of visionary text, unspooled into data, processed by a mechanical mind.”
“Leonardo da Vinci: Wisdom of AI Light,” set to an original score by beloved Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi and multidisciplinary Turkish-Canadian musician, composer, and DJ Mercan Dede, celebrates the genius of Leonardo and such other Renaissance artists as Michelangelo and Caravaggio with digital re-creations, using billions of pieces of data from the paintings, of some of their most famous works, from the Mona Lisa to the Pietà to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; here, Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, in which the fingers of God and the first man nearly touch, evoke the future of artificial intelligence, as if the Supreme Being is passing the torch.
Classic Renaissance paintings are re-created through AI algorithms for immersive Brooklyn installation (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
“Data Gate” repurposes millions of images taken by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, while “Dark Machine” uses data compiled by the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The voice asks, “What goes through the mind of an atom when it explodes? Maybe this.”
Limitless AI concludes with “Superstrings,” which adds a human component. A wide column opens up to reveal a three-piece band performing live; one of the instrumentalists is wearing a headset that monitors her real-time EEG brainwaves, while the algorithm is also picking up information from the people in the crowd, resulting in what the voice describes as “the flickering waves of human consciousness, transformed into light.” The finale is unique for every show.
As with the dueling immersive van Gogh presentations, I find it a strange way to experience classic art; even in the age of Instagram and TikTok, there’s still nothing quite like seeing the originals up close and personal in museums and churches. But the non-art sections of Limitless AI don’t have the same restrictions, letting loose with the unexpected.
It’s sort of like the old days of Laser Floyd and Laser Zeppelin, psychedelically grooving out at planetariums, but replacing rock and roll with visual and mathematical data as the baseline for the imagery. It can be ultracool and beautiful as well as repetitive and head-scratchingly bizarre; it’s best not to get too caught up in taking photos and videos and let the sound and images waft over you, literally.
There are two other immersive installations at AD/BK, set in a pair of side-by-side forty-foot-long white shipping containers in the outdoor back patio. Created by London’s Darkfield, Flight and Séance each takes place in complete darkness, with the audience wearing binaural headphones that make it seem like characters and events are actually present in the real space around you. The twenty-five-minute Flight is reminiscent of Martín Bondone’s Odd Man Out, in which the seated, blindfolded audience goes on a mock plane trip narrated by an Argentine guitarist returning home from America, as well as Simon Stephens’s Blindness, a postapocalyptic tale about strangers trying to survive after an epidemic robs most people of their sight.
Digital images flash on walls and floors in Limitless AI (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Flight involves a meticulously constructed replica of a plane interior. The setup is definitely economy class, right down to the uncomfortably small distance between seats, but the production values are first class, with a series of sounds and videos that all-too-convincingly simulate a sketchy airline and life-changing outcome. Musings about Schrödinger’s cat and the nature of reality make for an enjoyable if puzzling ride.
For the twenty-minute Séance, the audience is arranged on two sides of a long, narrow table, with chandeliers hanging from above and lots of red velvet. Everyone has gathered to attempt to contact spirits; a medium guides the Victorian story as creepy things start to occur, and not just through your headphones. Be sure to sit near the end of the room if you think you might need to suddenly run out.
So, what’s the future of AI art? In 2019, the US Copyright Office ruled that AI art cannot be copyrighted because it “lacks the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim.” Attorney Ryan Abbott, representing AI pioneer and Imagination Engines president and CEO Stephen L. Thaler in his request for a new hearing, recently told Artnet News, “We disagree with the Copyright Office’s decision and plan to appeal. . . . AI is able to make functionally creative output in the absence of a traditional human author, and protecting AI-generated works with copyright is vital to promoting the production of socially valuable content.”
If the flurry of immersive art presentations have proved anything, it’s that these experiences are all about socially valuable content, particularly when it comes to marrying a Brassica oleracea or other species of wild vegetable.
Interactive experience immerses fans into the creepy world of Stranger Things (photo courtesy Netflix)
STRANGER THINGS: THE EXPERIENCE
Duggal Greenhouse
63 Flushing Ave., Building 268, Brooklyn
Wednesday – Sunday through September 4, children $64 – $96.80, adults $84.90 – $129 strangerthings-experience.com
If you’ve been watching or are up to date with Stranger Things on Netflix, you might have found yourself occasionally having trouble sleeping, especially after certain particularly frightening episodes of the sci-fi horror hit, set in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, in the 1980s. Unsurprisingly, the citizens of Hawkins are having their own slumber issues, which is the premise behind Stranger Things: The Experience, an immersive adventure that continues at the Duggal Greenhouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard through September 4.
The Hawkins National Laboratory (HNL), part of the US Department of Energy, is conducting a sleep study to find out just what is going on in “the Best Small Town in America” — as if they didn’t already know that it has to do with killer creatures and the Upside Down, an alternate dimension where evil, unexplainable events are happening, brought about by the lab itself.
Subjects — er, ticket holders — are led through a series of rooms that begins as a scientific research study into paranormal powers, testing various skills, but quickly turns dangerous. Suddenly the soothing, instructive words of Dept. of Energy executive Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) and HNL head Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine), affectionately known to his patients as Papa, seem disingenuous as new perils await around each corner.
Beware the demogorgon at Stranger Things experience (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Meanwhile, a group of kids are trying to help, consisting of the goofy but determined Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo); the always serious Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin); the fiercely independent Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink); the deeply sensitive Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), who went missing in season one; Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), who undergoes the biggest coming-of-age changes over the course of the show; and, at the center of it all, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a mysterious young girl with special powers who appears virtually out of nowhere in the first episode. Just as an fyi, you won’t encounter Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour), Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton), Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson), or Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) during the journey, but to say any more would venture into spoiler territory.
Stranger Things: The Experience is like a series of escape rooms, except there is always a way out. The show, created by the Duffer Brothers, has presented thirty-four episodes over four seasons since its premiere on July 15, 2016; each of the uniquely detailed spaces in Duggal Greenhouse is like a new episode, with its own storyline as well as prompts to make sure participants make it through safely.
Although children as young as five are allowed to enter, there are four-letter words, and several of the cool special effects can be legitimately scary for some people of any age, so be prepared. Netflix clearly went all-in on this sixty-minute production, which includes a 3D room that, like the show, makes you question reality. Everything is original to the experience; it does not repurpose existing material. It also knows exactly what fans want, so arrive with an investigative spirit that can lead to a few little bonuses that others might miss. But you won’t be lost if you haven’t finished season four yet. (The fifth and final season is not scheduled to air until 2024 or 2025.)
The experience concludes with a re-creation of the Starcourt Mall, complete with the Scoops Ahoy Ice Cream Parlor, Surfer Boy Pizza, the Time-Out Arcade, a video store, a 1980s-style telephone booth (alas, there’s a dial tone but you can’t make a call), the Hellfire Club merch shop, Rink-O-Mania, the Byers living room (with fab details that need to be seen up close), and the Upside bar, where you can order such drinks as the Demogorgon, the Upside Down, Friends Don’t Lie, the Hopper, and Yuri Gonna Love This and check out a few original costumes and props. There’s also a bonus photo opp room.
Tickets are expensive — $64-$84.90 for standard admission, $96.80-$129 for VIP skip-the-line access, which includes a free drink, a tote bag, and a discount on merchandise — so it’s really meant for the true Stranger Things fan. But for those loyal devotees, some of whom come dressed as characters — everyone is encouraged to dress like it’s the ’80s — it’s wicked fun, a bitchin’, righteously gnarly good time.
To keep up the strangeness, Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical returns to New York City in an updated, immersive, in-the-round production starting September 12 at Playhouse 46 at St. Luke’s. Directed by Nick Flatto and with book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Hogue, the hundred-minute show features such songs as “Welcome to Hawkins,” “The Dad I Never Had,” “Getting Closer,” “In These Woods,” and “Where There’s a Will.”
Who: Jeff Ross, Jessica Kirson, Alex Edelman, Jared Fried, Leah Forster, Gary Guz, T. J. Miller, Eric Tabach, Zarna Garg, Yohay Sponder, Ofer Shechter, Nissim Black, Kosha Dillz, Moshe Reuven, Laivy, Elon Gold, Modi What:The Chosen Comedy Festival Where: Coney Island Amphitheater, boardwalk at West Twenty-First St. When: Tuesday, August 16, $36-$500, doors at 6:30 (festival begins August 12) Why: So a bunch of Jews walk onto a beach . . . There are a lot of directions for that joke to take, but in fact it’s the setup for a special show at the Coney Island Amphitheater on August 16 as part of Stand Up NY’s inaugural Chosen Comedy Festival. The festival began August 12 at Stand Up NY on the Upper West Side and continues August 13 at 8:00 ($25) with Lauren Hope Krass, Raanan Hershberg, Tom Thakkar, Nicky Paris, Kosha Dillz, and Gianmarco Soresi, followed by a 10:00 showcase ($15) with Jonathan Randall, Nathan MacIntosh, Kosha Dillz, Pat Brown, Danny Polishchuk, and Dante Nero. On Monday night, August 15, at 8:00 ($25), Elon Gold and friends will celebrate with a “Kick Off Party” at Stand Up NY.
The main event, however, is in Coney Island on Tuesday night, a benefit for the Ukrainian Emergency Performing Arts Fund, an organization that “supports independent scene performing artists staying in Ukraine during the time of war.” Hosted by Gold and Modi, the show boasts comedy and music by an all-star lineup that includes Jeff Ross, Jessica Kirson, Alex Edelman, Jared Fried, Leah Forster, Gary Guz, T. J. Miller, Eric Tabach, Zarna Garg, Yohay Sponder, Ofer Shechter, Nissim Black, Kosha Dillz, Moshe Reuven, and Laivy. During the pandemic lockdown, Stand Up NY put on more than five hundred comedy shows in city parks; now they’re heading for the sun and sand to raise money for an important cause that is not very funny.
Who: Uptown Dance Academy, Unveiled Unlocked, IMPACT Repertory Theatre, Mama Foundation’s Sing Harlem! Choir, the Isn’t Her Grace Amazing! Choir, Lord Nelson, Shemar Levy, Lorenzo Laroc, the Bengsons, Kenny Lattimore, Ray Chew & the Harlem Music Festival All-Star Band What: Annual Harlem Week celebration Where:U.S. Grant National Memorial Park, West 122nd St. at Riverside Dr. When: Sunday, August 14, free, noon – 7:00 pm Why: One of the centerpieces of Harlem Week is “A Great Day in Harlem,” which takes place Sunday, August 14, as part of the opening weekend of this ten-day summer festival. There will be an international village with booths selling food, clothing, jewelry, and more, as well as live music and dance divided into “Artz, Rootz & Rhythm,” “The Gospel Caravan,” and “the Concert Under the Stars.” Among the performers are the Uptown Dance Academy, Kenny Lattimore, Unveiled Unlocked, IMPACT Repertory Theatre, the Sing Harlem! Choir, the Isn’t Her Grace Amazing! Choir, and electric violinist and composer Lorenzo Laroc. In addition, the Bengsons will play songs from their show Where the Mountains Meet the Sea; there will be a tribute to Tobago-born calypsonian Lord Nelson, with Shemar Levy and Nelson himself; and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On album will be honored by Ray Chew & the Harlem Music Festival All-Star Band.
Harlem Week runs August 12-21 with such other events as the Percy Sutton 5K and 1.5-mile Harlem Health Walk (August 13, 8:00 am), Great Jazz on the Great Hill in Central Park with the Jimmy Heath Legacy Band, the Antonio Hart Quartet, and Tammy McCann (August 13, 4:00), the livestreamed Charles B Rangel Systemic Racism Summit (August 16, noon), the ImageNation Outdoor Film Festival (Marcus Garvey Park, August 17, 6:00; St. Nicholas Park, August 20, 6:00), the livestreamed talk “Ta-Nehisi Coates and Dr. Julius Garvey: A Harlem on My Mind Conversation” (August 17, 7:30), the livestreamed Arts & Culture/Broadway Summit (August 18, 3:00), Harlem SummerStage (August 18, 5:30), Summer in the City with the Jeff Foxx Band, Donnell Jones, EPMD, Freddie Jackson, and others (August 20, 1:00), and the grand Harlem Day with Dru Hill, Slick Rick, Doug E Fresh, Levell, Grandmaster Caz & Melle Mel, MJ the Musical, and more. All events are free.
Battery Dance Company hosts annual festival August 13-20 (photo by Steven Pisano)
BATTERY DANCE FESTIVAL
Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park, Battery Park City
20 Battery Pl.
August 13-19, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
August 20, Schimmel Center at Pace University, $10-$75, 6:00 batterydance.org
The forty-first annual Battery Dance Festival is back fully in person this summer, with live presentations from three dozen companies from around the globe, including several New York City and world premieres. Free performances take place August 13-19 at 7:00 at Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park in Battery Park City and will be livestreamed as well; the festival concludes August 20 at 6:00 with a ticketed indoor closing celebration and VIP reception at the Schimmel Center at Pace University ($10 for performance, $75 for VIP with priority seating and preshow Prosecco toast). Dance enthusiasts will be able to check out multiple disciplines, from tap and classical ballet to circus and Afro-Brazilian, from the US, Canada, Romania, Singapore, Denmark, Spain, and elsewhere, with some programs featuring live music.
“Lady Liberty might be tempted to shimmy and shake as dance companies from near and far take the stage at Wagner Park once again this summer. Audiences will have a tough time deciding which performance to attend,” Battery Dance founder Jonathan Hollander said in a statement.
Below is the full schedule.
Saturday, August 13, 7:00
Sydney Burtis, The Difference
Zachary Seto, Nostalgic Beings of Synesthesia
Camryn & Courtney Spero, Distance
Kate Louissant, For Love
Lerato Ragontse, In Between Change
Anya Susan, In Conversation
Myles King, The Last Foundry
Shannon Harkins, Dreams and Nightmares of a Mutant People
Sunday, August 14, 7:00
The Dancing Wheels Company, Unconquered Warriors
Ballet Nepantla, Let Down & Huasteca Suite
Linotip, Diagonal and Cain
Gaudanse, Nanibu
Peridance Contemporary Dance Company, Just Above the Surface
The Vanaver Caracan, Vanaver Caravan retrospective
Monday, August 15: India Independence Day, 7:00
Anjali Dance Company, Nagendra Haraya,Pranavakaram, and Tillana
Siddendra Kuchipudi Dance Company, Naumisatam,Sringaralahari,Chandra Sherkaram, and Keedaragoula
Tuesday, August 16, 7:00
Christina Carminucci, The Solidarity Series IV: Free Spirits Suite
Linotip, Diagonal and Cain
Fairul Zahid & LaSalle Dance Singapore, Allocentric
Buglisi Dance Theatre, The Threads Project #1: “Universal Dialogues”
Boca Tuya / Omar Roman de Jesus, Los Perros del Barrio Colosal
Wednesday, August 17, 7:00
Xing Dance Theater, Citizen
Julienne Doko, Lost Memories (Mémoires Perdues)
Tati Nuñez, Touch — Returned
Dos Proposiciones Dance Theatre, Pacto de Fuga
Ntrinsik Movement, Kindred Spirit
Ballet Inc., Touche
Alison Chase/Performance, Tsu-Ku-Tsu
Thursday, August 18, 7:00
Demi Remick & Dancers, That’s Entertainment!
Floyd McLean Jr., Cold
Battery Dance, A Certain Mood
TeaTime Company, Stick-Stok
Fairul Zahid & LaSalle Dance Singapore, Allocentric
Tina Croll + Company, Balkan Bacchanal
Friday, August 19, 7:00
Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Face What’s Facing You!
Lanecoarts, Swerve
Dos Proposiciones Dance Theatre, Pacto de Fuga
I Kada Contemporary Dance Company, Unfolding
Battery Dance, Wind in the Olive Grove
Compagnie Virginie Brunelle, Les Corps Avalés
Saturday, August 20, Schimmel Center at Pace University, 6:00
Boca Tuya / Omar Roman de Jesus, Los Perros del Barrio Colosal
Battery Dance, Above Deep Waters
Julienne Doko, Lost Memories (Mémoires Perdues)
TeaTime Company, Stick-Stok
Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Face What’s Facing You!
Compagnie Virginie Brunelle, Les Corps Avalés
