PARTICIPANT INC presents Pepe & Puntar’s Lucid Dream Lounge with Special Guests… For their first collaborative installation, Sheila Pepe and Diana Puntar build a field of operation incorporating light, shadow, drawing, and multiple sculptural elements. They will launch their built environment into real time by inviting a select group of performers to activate, inhabit, and re-contextualize the space. Upon entering the gallery, visitors are greeted by a ‘70s era television relic - a prop chandelier made of plastic cups, suggesting a lobby. Just beyond, a porous wall with a portal-like entry divides the space, formed from black rope and rubber bands stretched across space, comprising a web that continues up and hovers overhead like a drop ceiling. Through the divide, one enters a cave-like set, also informed by period variety shows. A mostly black and gold environment, crocheted tendrils sprawl throughout, attaching themselves occasionally to fixed objects--intermittent rain walls, rain columns, and an oversized rain lamp. The opportunity to lounge is suggested by modular seating, floor coverings, and sit-upons brought to human scale, placing focus on the affect of entertainment. Including a sculptural stage, this scripted environment is activated by frequent guest performances, and personalized with idiosyncratic shadow drawings.

Special guest performances:

Sunday, May 6, 6-9pm
SKOTEFRIEZE New York Downtown Night

Sunday, May 13, 7-10pm
Nathan Long (reading erotic haiku)
Kevin Sport and Mark Katsaounis (percussionists)

Saturday, May 19, 7-10pm
Sarah East Johnson & Nancy Brooks Brody (Merce Drawings 2)
Jessica Segall – Younger Sister (country music)

Friday, May 25, 7-10pm
The Dressing Parlor by Jennifer Minniti
With designers Susan Cianciolo, Liz Collins, and Elisa van Polen
DJ Scott Ewalt
Gogo dancers Ryan Harman & Laurel SparksZ
A special movable feast by Cat Chow

Thursday, May 31
Walter Dundervill (dance)
Sister Anne (soul/punk band)