Text for The X Initiative Yearbook by Elizabeth Dee and Cecilia Alemani, featuring Dome Colony X in the San Gabriels, published by Mousse Publishing, 2010
Dome Colony X in the San Gabriels was a temporary intentional community, a simulated mountain settlement, a shifting encampment, a colony of four geodesic dome tents around a center stage, surrounded by walls painted with a continuous silhouette of Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Mountains, echoed by a continuous perimeter seating platform. An open call invited anyone to colonize, to make a clubhouse, a headquarters, a home away from home, a temporary studio, a living room, a lounge, a place to host regular meetings, intimate organized activities, stage events, make work, rehearse, and perform.
DRUMS & SKINS DOME
Headquarters for Tom Tom: A Magazine About Female Drummers became an exposed workplace where we ran daily operations like editing copy for the magazine, or teaching drums to passerby – sometimes ending with a jamm session involving other dome colonists.
– Mindy Seegal Abovitz
Hogan Community was our part of the curatorial jumblebeast which included making light reactive photo pants, painting nail art, and life coaching, all within the loosely defined Colony spaces which enabled a surreal and fleeting utopia, like we were all roommates at a really bizarre college.
– Travis Boyer
Feral Childe & Friends reunited old co-conspirators, including Dome-mate Mindy; opening night guests Jade Gordon (My Barbarian), Stebbie (Pick and Roll 2000), and Emily Roysdon (2004 L.A. Schindler House show); culminating with a Company Picnic, imbibing some Jebediah’s, making braids, and trying on our latest collection.
– Alice & Moriah, Feral Childe
ECOLOGY DOME
The Biodome of Curiosities was a manifestation of my desire to collect and display, expressing my vision of the universe and more specifically of New York City, but I often felt like I was on display too.
– Noel Rose
Cyborg Nation had over fifty conversations with visitors and saw the Cyborg evolve, augmenting movement, perception and consciousness. Somebody asked “isn’t all human consciousness Cyborg in origin?” and someone else became part of the Cyborg.
– Culture Push, Inc
GASTRONOMY DOME
N.S.A. Think Tent: Mildly matching + dressed for takeover. We are internal colonists. We sample your DNA. You sample our candy. Share your secrets. We sell them. Sit down and study tomes of random research. Real adventure starts at teatime.
– N.S.A. (No Standing Anytime)
Bean Agency: Make a big pot of beans, and in exchange for peoples’ stories about beans, I give them a bowl of beans and try to convince them to cook a pot of beans from scratch. – – N. Dash
LITERARY DOME
Artbook @ X hosted fifteen projects in six weeks at our Literary Dome, including installations, performances, book releases, poetry readings, while discovering dynamic new ways to engage and expand our community.
– Allie Pisarro-Grant
CENTER STAGE
Coyote Dome: The Five Toe Spirits Stand Up for Themselves was about a coyote who pioneered New York. Though nature wasn’t actually present in the colony, there was at times an air of western pioneer community.
– Dillon de Give
Solorio Studio Presents… was like the Dome Colony itself, an organic laboratory that offered anyone a platform with the freedom to both succeed and fail – inspiring and refreshing in a city more devoted to dead rather than living artists.
– Niko Solorio
Sound for the Soundless
Breathe in / Breathe out
Occupying space through sound
A Home
with
no walls
no ceilings
no floors
no windows
no doors
– Kol Solthon