035 — A hardcover catalogue. A position on the advisory board. Hats, grants, dinner parties, and performances galore. 

DISPASSION is a newsletter about art, digital media, and emotional detachment produced by NOR RESEARCH STUDIO.

BEHIND THE SCENES

The last few months have been the busiest of the year for NOR RESEARCH STUDIO. With summer winding down and the working season about to restart, we’ve been bouncing between new projects and important celebrations that mark significant touch points our collaborators. The updates below skim the surface of our activity and foreshadow even larger announcements to come, so stay tuned for more news in the next few weeks. 

If the anecdotal commentary we’ve heard from friends and clients is any indication, 2024 has been a difficult year for even the savviest of artists, culture workers, and independent professionals. We’re grateful to have plenty of work and a packed schedule, and we hope to spread that bounty to others as our business continues to grow.

As a creative studio, we’re open to many forms of collaboration and are particularly interested in working with other artists who may want to contribute to our newsletter. If that’s you — especially if you’re interested in a small accountability group with three to five other artists — please don’t be afraid to get in touch with us via email (studio@nor.la). In the meantime, we’ve gathered some recently completed projects, client accomplishments, and forthcoming events below so you can see what we’ve been working on and who we’ve been collaborating with.

Sincerely,
Wyatt Coday, Research Director

YEAR X CATALOGUE WITH ART + PRACTICE

Last year, NOR RESEARCH STUDIO celebrated the tenth anniversary of Art + Practice, the Leimert Park nonprofit founded by artist Mark Bradford, collector Eileen Harris Norton, and activist Allan DiCastro. The studio has helped Art + Practice edit and develop their annual catalogues since 2018, and we’re super proud of our work on the Year X book, which you can view here. Graphic design studio ELLA devised the book’s layout and the resulting hardcover is a tour de force and compelling example of why documentation is currency in the art and culture industries. You can pick up a copy at Art + Practice on October 12 for the opening of KAOS THEORY: The Afrokosmic Media Arts of Ben Caldwell, an exhibition produced in partnership with California African American Museum.

HATS AND GRANTS WITH BEMOVING

I recently joined the advisory board of Los Angeles dance education nonprofit BEMOVING. Working with BEMOVING to secure grants and establish earned income streams, I’m a proud supporter of the wildly successful PAY DANCERS campaign spearheaded by BEMOVING dancers Bret Easterling, Julia Eichten, MT Laaperi, and Austin Tyson. The California Arts Council recently published its recommendations for how grant funds should be distributed and ranked BEMOVING among its top Impact Grant applicants, suggesting the dance org should receive 90 percent of its $25,000 request. If awarded, the funds will help support BEMOVING’s unique Ghost Light Residency, which invites Los Angeles performance artists into unused venues where they can produce new work and generate documentation with the aid of a tech crew and professional photographer. 

You can also catch Bret’s performance ON SECOND THOUGHT at REDCAT in November as part of the New Original Works Festival. More information and tickets here.

SAVE THE WORLD IN CHICAGO

We’re excited to share the successful launch of SAVE THE WORLD EXPERIMENT in Chicago. Last Saturday, Matt Gamalinda and Jo Opsenica, founders of the project, hosted a dinner party in the home garden to celebrate the arrival of fall. With produce generously provided by OTIS Fresh and Comer Crops, Chef Steffen Watts served a five-course dinner with refreshments and dessert. 

EDEN AT LAST PROJECTS

Artist and curator Emily Lucid has invited me to show new work for EDEN, a group show at Last Projects. The lineup includes many amazing Los Angeles queer artists who I’m lucky to call friends or colleagues including CadeMoga, Casey Dennison, Luka Fisher, Kyle Patrick Roberts, and Sammie Veeler but also artists I’ve been watching with admiration from afar like Nat Decker and Dorian Wood. The work I’ll be showing will excerpt parts of my in-progress project, THE ABOMINATION, and be among the first instances of me singing in public as an extension of the research into hormonal disorders that I’ve conducted over the past two years. 

READING NOT ONE BUT TWO BOOKS

After many years of willful avoidance, I have decided to once again read books. I picked up a copy of Thor Magnusson’s Sonic Writing: Technologies of Material, Symbolic, and Signal Inscriptions at Perfect Circuit. My good friend Henry Giardiana has also requested that I review a recently published Renee Gladman novel — an opportunity I could not turn down.

— AFTERS —

NOR RESEARCH STUDIO PROGRAMMING

← Forthcoming workshops and events

RESOURCES

← Rhizome Net Anthology
← Filip Magazine
← Holo Magazine
← The Content Technologist on Productization and Templates
← Hyperallergic Opportunities Listings
← Creative Capital Opportunities Listings
← Pick Up The Flow Opportunities Listings

JOB LISTINGS

← Arts for Los Angeles Job Listing
← New York Foundation for the Arts Job Listing

— FIN —

WYATT CODAY is intersex and autistic. She lives between Los Angeles and Chicago, where she is a practicing financial dominatrix. She is the director of NOR RESEARCH STUDIO.

NOR RESEARCH STUDIO is a design research studio that develops didactic media, exhibitions, publications, and other forms of intellectual property for artists, nonprofits, and creative businesses.