Applied Mechanics

By Maria Shaplin We ain’t gonna lie, its hard being a small performing arts organization. Applied Mechanics has been making weird and awesome performances for almost 7 years now. We have come a long way since our first show, which was produced with a $100 budget and a lot of sweat equity. Organizationally, we spend […]

By Maria Shaplin On Wednesday evening, as we were wrapping up the incubator at UArts, Becky was just a few blocks away bringing a new Mechanician into the world. At 8:30pm, Vernon Robert Shapwright joined this radical party called life, and this awesome family called Applied Mechanics. As a bunch of us lingered around after

Chronotope (noun): “the representation of time and space within the work of art, wherein time thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movement of time, plot, and history.” M.M. Bakhtin These past two months, Applied Mechanics has been in collaboration with University of the Arts students through

Applied Mechanics has been surfing a massive wave of super fun work this month. Last Friday we totally rocked the Women’s Way Gala at the Camden Aquarium. The evening began with a VIP party in the shark tunnel. Marie Curie, Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony, Sally Ride and Ada Lovelace mingled with the attendees and played

Our busy fall is off to a fun start!  We’ve started preparations for the Women’s Way Gala, at which we’ll be providing the entertainment. The theme of the evening is Trailblazers, so dressed as historical feminists and scientists, we’ll be singing Bandits songs, playing parlor games, and mingling with guests at the Camden Adventure Aquarium. Special feature: in

This Fringe, the streets of Philadelphia were invaded by Bernadettes. Blackmarket, our guerilla pop-up piece, traveled across the city this September. From the Fringe bar to the Franklin Flea to theaters on Broad Street to Parking Day 2015, cigarette girls in yellow skirts catcalled Fringe-goers and civillians alike, hawking $1 cookies and crackers with bawdy

RW: Thomas! You just left your full time job so you can spend more time being an artist. What art are you particularly excited about/inspired by right now? TC: I am inspired by urban spaces, both the transitioning of new buildings/complexes and the ongoing aftermath of abandoned buildings/ outdoors spaces which have laid empty for

AUGUST 28, 2015 By Rebecca Wright Every year as part of our fundraising efforts, Applied Mechanics raffles or auctions off the following prize: “Rebecca Wright will cook a 5-8 course meal for you and up to 8 of your friends.” This year, the prize was won at a silent auction during our Rites of Passage

By Jessica Hurley We live in wretched, beautiful times. Surrounded by ecological disasters, brutally visible state- sanctioned and state-inflicted violence and murder against black, indigenous, and trans communities, and the blatant profiteering of the ruling classes, the catastrophes of the present don’t require us to use our imaginations in the way that the threat of

At the end of July, Applied Mechanics set out to the New Jersey shore, to spend a day and two nights at the Rubin family beach house and Talk Things Out. This is our Annual Jamboree. It involves a bottle of Mount Gay rum and bathing suits and midnight runs on the beach and inventing

By Maria Shaplin Sooooo I went to Berlin and the Prague Quadrennial. It was totally rad! I received the 2015 Independence Fellowship in the Arts to attend both the PQ and the TBA Festival. Berlin was a sweet side-trip. I will report on that second leg of my fellowship after it completes in late September-

By Thomas Choinacky “We will share the same experience together, we will see the same performance, and afterwards we will find that none of us agrees about the meaning of the performance.”  -Jerome Bel Last month I visited Brussels and got to experience their remarkable arts scene. I saw a number of works within Kunstenfestivaldesarts. 

By Rebecca Wright The other day, I took a short walk with Amy Smith in Hungtingdon PA. We talked about grant applications, funding structures, and labor-sharing administrative work. We were walking to the final day of tech for a piece we created together with students at Juniata College. This collaboration is a pleasant by-product of

By Bayla Rubin My tendency in life was to play it safe. As I kid, I preferred watching TV to going out in the snow. In school I’d always choose the class or activity that I knew I’d be good at and avoid those that might be hard. I was so scared of roller coasters

By Jessica Hurley 05/05/2015 Time lies thick in Albuquerque. It is striated into the rocks that compose elegies in time’s medium; it races across the Great Plains alongside the clouds that turn light into ghost riders and uranium watercolors. Time is what this place is made of. I went to Albuquerque in February to present