“The Cube” is a 10-day, around-the-clock, performance installation and Fluxus-inspired piece in which Brazilian-born artist Manuel Lima will integrate daily life, artistic creation, and interactions with passers-by. He will live in a self-designed, sparsely furnished translucent cube to be built around the base of a shade tree in a municipal parking lot on the Sunset Strip (8775 Sunset Blvd., 90069). Running from 9AM on Friday, August 12 through approximately 10PM on Sunday August 21, “The Cube” (http://bit.do/TheCube) is presented by the City of West Hollywood through its WeHo Arts’ “Art on the Outside” public art program.
A Sao Paulo native whose graduate studies in the United States were fully funded by the Brazilian government, Lima just earned his Performer-Composer DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, CA. Lima was studying classical piano when existential questioning caused him to interrupt that practice, experiment, and take his process out of a formal space. He did a 10-day trial for “The Cube” in the Val Verde hills in Valencia this spring, and he sees the project as a meditation of sorts. With the West Hollywood iteration, including the vagaries and variations of urban life, he will undergo a profoundly personal and creative transformation in a very public space.
Lima’s hand-written, hand-drawn “score” for “The Cube” offers a broad stroke schedule for a process that allows for the unpredictable unfolding of each successive day. Lima says, “I want to reach a point where work, life, and art are all the same. I want to be present. I want to be away from my phone and social media and have my heart on one thing at a time” (view the score: http://weho.org/home/showdocument?id=27099).
Each morning following a shower, breakfast, and run (his only time away from the cube except for short meal and rest breaks), Lima will perform his “Sunset Blvd.” composition from 9AM – 5PM (with a 12 – 1PM lunch break). He says he will “work as a transducer of radio waves,” repeatedly moving from left to right on the FM dial, improvising five-minute piano segments riffing off of what’s being broadcast. From 5 – 7PM, he will greet guests for tea just outside the cube; the public is welcome to drop by to join him for conversation. After a 7 – 8PM dinner break, Lima will perform “Red Light Piano,” an original sound and light composition comprising 60 piano loops, performed with a sub-bass and a red light. Each loop is one to five minutes in duration, with variations increasing its length each day. Near midnight, he will sleep.
In concluding the score, Lima writes, “’The Sunset Cube’ performance ends on the evening of the tenth day. At 8PM I will perform the “Red Light Piano” one more time and step outside the cube for a drink.”
The City of West Hollywood delivers a broad array of arts programs through WeHo Arts – the City’s Arts Division
and the City’s Arts & Cultural Affairs Commission – including:
Art on the Outside/Public Art ● Summer Sounds ● Winter Sounds ● WeHo Reads ● Free Theatre in the Parks
Arts Grants for Nonprofit Arts Organizations ● Library Exhibits and Programming
One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival
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