throwntogetherness presents screenings in Philadelphia, PA and Portland, OR, co-organized by local new media collectives Mobile Projection Unit (Sarah Turner and Fernanda D’Agostino, joined by Ariella Tai and Jaleesa Johnston, Portland) and Lino Kino (Michael Ipsen, Emilie P. Slater, Boothe Carlson, Erin Gordon, & Saskia Globig), in dialogue with curator and artist Jaleesa Johnston and writer, curator, and art historian, Laurel V. McLaughlin.

During the pandemic, the collectives speculated upon commonalities in new media practices from Philadelphia and Portland—the DIY spirit, emphasis on ritual (whether formal, spiritual, or everyday), and new media experimentality—and proposed a bicoastal collaboration. The screenings exhibit works that emerged prior to and during the experience of the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic.

Ultimately, throwntogetherness asks: what does it mean to make mediated work from a place, space, and time? Pre-COVID-19, this question might have been answered through regional specificities, collaborations, and shared aesthetics; but during COVID-19, answers remain in flux as local mobilities, livelihoods, and ideologies shift on unstable terrain.

Despite new media’s mobile nature, practitioners create works from, of, and with sites, registering the affect of a place just as much as its geographical expanse. In turn, the works disclose relational negotiations of space-time, or what feminist geographer Doreen Massey qualifies as “throwntogetherness,” or complex “negotiations of space-time.” From various space-times, the participating artists negotiate the physical, temporal, and psychic valences of place-being and place-making—translating their speculations through the lenses of new media.

In the execution phase, the collectives will produce two screenings in each city concerning “throwntogetherness” across two weekends in August 2022 in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania and the Bok Building Philadelphia and Building 5 in Portland. On the first evening in each city, the co-organizers will present a combined program of video work by artists from the respective cities. On the second evening, the groups will stage a projection-mapped screening featuring live and prerecorded input. The Portland screenings will be held on August 5th and 6th at Building 5. The Philadelphia screenings will be held on August 12th at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts Plaza, and on August 13th at the Bok Building.

throwntogetherness is supported by a 2021 Sachs Program for Arts Innovation Project Grant and the Ford Family Foundation.