High-Tech Arts Complex Plugging Into Many Outlets

When film maker Gary Meyer takes a break from his work at the Empowerment Project, a small Santa Monica film and video studio, he frequently steps next door to catch a performance at Highways Performance Space, the 130-seat performance art gallery.

The directors of Highways, in turn, confer with neighbor Steve Durland, editor of High Performance magazine, about the graphic design for their press releases and newsletters. Durland can walk over to the Community Arts Resources office when he needs to look up information on a computerized arts database. And, of course, they all meet at the fax machine.

The Empowerment Project, Highways, High Performance magazine, Community Arts Resources and a high-tech communications center called the Electronic Cafe are housed in the 18th Street Arts Complex, a compound of tenants dedicated to redefining the boundaries of art.

The 55,000-square-foot, five-building center, linked by walkways, patios and small gardens, is home to the five community-oriented arts entities plus a variety of other commercial art and manufacturing businesses.

Highways, the best known of the five, is the only one accessible to the public. “We founded Highways to present new performance works that approach social issues and to promote collaboration between cultures, genders and disciplines,” said Linda Frye Burnham, who, along with performance artist Tim Miller, founded and directs the gallery.

Burnham said Highways keeps busy with four to six full-length productions a month, most of which run for two weekends. Burnham and Miller schedule some shorter pieces, including poetry, folk tales and dance, and the space is also used for literary events and benefits for activist organizations. Burnham says box office receipts pay all expenses.

Astro Artz, located in the building next to Highways, provides information to artists and the public about new, experimental and unrecognized art (a touring troupe of artists and homeless people, for example), chiefly through its quarterly magazine, High Performance. Burnham is former editor of High Performance, which she founded.

Claire Peeps, Astro Artz executive director, said: “When we were downtown, it was hard for people to visit us and we were fairly isolated. We’re much more in the center of things here and we feel like we have a better finger on the pulse of what’s going on. It’s been extraordinary for us to suddenly be thrust into the middle of the community and to have ongoing contact with other artists.”

In addition to publishing High Performance, which has about 5,000 subscribers, Astro Artz maintains an archive of performance documentation (mostly photos, artists’ resumes and biographical materials) and periodicals that is open to researchers and writers.

“There are a lot of things happening here from our rubbing shoulders with our neighbors, and projects are being born,” Peeps said. One project involves her neighbors in the Community Arts Resources office. Peeps said Astro Artz and the Community Arts Resources office, an information clearinghouse for people in the arts, plan to publish a book on how to self-produce arts events in Los Angeles, a project tied to the upcoming 1990 Los Angeles Festival.

“The complex is great because there’s a certain synergy to being with other arts organizations,” said Community Arts Resources associate Aaron Paley, director of Fringe Festival/Los Angeles in 1987 and the 1988 Festival of Masks for the Craft and Folk Art Museum. “We can talk to our peers and bang ideas off them. . . . We can get together and do something none of us could have done individually.”

While Community Arts Resources is involved in producing festivals, performances and arts tours, it also maintains and updates a database of arts information that was first compiled for the Fringe Festival.

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“One of the big issues in the arts world is getting information and sharing it,” Paley said. “We created this database because there was no good list available for artists to reach other artists and people interested in the arts. We’ve added to the original list and now we have about 15,700 names and addresses, classified by 40 different arts disciplines and organized by multicultural community groups, which we offer for sale.” Rates range from $25 to $100 for 1,000 names.

Electronic Cafe International is scheduled to open early next year. First developed by video artists Sherrie Rabinowitz and Kit Galloway in five community cafes for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics Arts Festival, the 1990 version of Electronic Cafe will be part of what Rabinowitz calls “an international cross-cultural, multimedia, multichannel teleconferencing network of real cafes.” The main activity, she said, “will be computer exchange, with computers as art-making machines. People there can exchange art or collaborate with people in other cafes. They’ll be able to draw or write together on an electronic writing tablet.”

With cafes planned for Paris, Tokyo and other cities, the network will function via satellite and telephone lines. “There could be a live performance at Highways that would be transmitted to Paris, and perhaps a live performance there transmitted to the Electronic Cafe here, and you’ll actually be able to watch and then talk to the performers afterward,” Rabinowitz said.

The Empowerment Project also works with video technology. A miniature movie studio, it is equipped for video and film production, post-production and desktop publishing. Production manager Meyer, who worked with co-directors Barbara Trent and David Kasper to produce the 1988 documentary “Cover-Up: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair,” outlined the project’s scope.

“We’re film makers, consultants, teachers and organizers,” he said. “We make documentary films on politically and socially progressive issues. We also extend our help to film makers who are working on similar issues and consult with them on distribution. In addition, we operate a post-production and video-editing facility, which is available to commercial clients, although we turn away people who are working on defense projects or pornographic material.”

Meyer added: “I consider it as one big compound that sort of belongs to all of us. You can’t go fax something or go to the High Performance office to shoot some graphics without getting the news about what’s going on.”