Surplus Productions
Surplus is a video production company that specializes in the production and distribution of video that profile creative strategies of cultural production.
For the last five years Surplus Productions worked in conjunction with Not An Alternative and Eyebeam to produce videos featuring a wide range of artists, artivists, cultural producers including Reverend Billy, Greene Dragon, Natalie Jeremijenko, Brooke Singer, Picture The Homeless and Reclaim NYC. Surplus' most recent project, New Urbanism (produced in conjunction with the project initiator Kelly Loudenberg), focuses on culture oriented interventions in public space that raise issues regarding land use.
Eyebeam Feedback Exhibition, March 2008
A series of ten video’s commissioned for the Eyebeam Feedback Exhibition, March 2008.
The exhibition and series profiled work of Eyebeam Residents, Fellows and community collaborators working on projects covering themes such as energy consumption and production, water and air quality, waste and reuse, urban planning and environmental justice.
David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang’s Living City
If buildings could talk to one another, what would they say? Living City involves a prototype building facade that monitors local air quality, exchanges information with other buildings, and opens gills to control air flow and make visible the invisible effects of changing air.
Rebecca Bray and Britta Riley’s Drink.Pee.Drink.Pee.Drink.Pee
Scientists are working on mass solutions to the problems of overgrowth of algae and pharmaceuticals in the water supply. Their solutions are interesting, but they involve ripping up the entire infrastructure of our cities. As a way to inspire thinking through potential solutions Rebecca and Britta propose the Urine to Fertilizer Kit. Their project is an example of a way to take this out of the big R&D labs as a way to actually do it ourselves.
Natalie Jeremijenko’s Environmental Health Clinic and No-Park Prescription
The Environmental Health Clinic at NYU is a clinic and lab, modeled on other health clinics at universities. What differs is that at this clinic you walk out with a prescription not for pharmaceuticals but for specific art, design and participatory projects directed at understanding and improving your environmental health. The No-Park is an example.
Michael Mandiberg’s Real Costs
Real Costs is a Firefox plug-in that inserts emissions data into travel related e-commerce websites. The first version adds CO2 emissions information to airfare websites such as Orbitz.com, United.com, Delta.com, etc. Following versions will work with car directions, car rental, and shipping websites. Think of it like the nutritional information labeling on the back of food... except for emissions.
Fluxxlab’s Revolution Door
The Revolution Door is a modified revolving door that mechanically harvests a negligible amount of human energy, converting it to a tangible display through the use of a generator. Revolution Door directly communicate a single person's contribution to an energy cycle possible through the metabolic relationship between people, technology, and architecture.
Jeff Fedderson’s The Off-Grid Outlet
Fedderson teams up with students from New York City’s Little Red School House and Elizabeth Irwin High School to design and built The Off-Grid Outlet; a solar powered AC outlet and 12V DC power port. The Off-Grid outlet is to function as a charger for laptops and other portable devices in the courtyard of Brooklyn Ecoeatery, Habana Outpost where patrons will be invited to “plug into the sun” while visiting the restaurant.
Eve Mosher’s High Water Line Project
During the summer of 2007, Eve Mosher produced a project that communicated the immediate visual and local understanding of the affects of climate change by walking, chalking and marking almost 70 miles of coastline. The 10-feet above sea level line she drew in blue chalk marked the extent of increased flooding brought on by stronger and more frequent storms as a result of climate change.
Brooke Singer Superfund 365
An online archive profiling some of the worst toxic (Superfund) sites in the U.S. Each day for a year, starting on September 1, 2007, one Superfund site from the archive was featured as part of a journey that started in the New York City area and worked our way across the country, ending the year in Hawaii.
Andrea Polli’s Queensbridge Wind Power Project
Andrea Polli’s presents a vision of a future for New York City that integrates wind turbines into the landmark architecture of the Queensboro Bridge. For the artist meeting energy needs could be resolved with a solution that could at once enhance the beauty of a city while providing clean, renewable wind power.
Leah Gauthier Sow-In Project
As part of Leah Gauthier's Sow-in Project, the general public, along with community gardening groups, make seedling pots out of recycled materials and sow seeds of food plants on Slow Food's most endangered foods list and the Ark of Taste. Then together, we distribute 100's of seed pots to community gardeners across New York City.
Babelgum's New Urbanism Video Series
A series of videos that Surplus is producing in conjunction with Kelly Loudenberg, the initiator of the series.
As the global population shifts to urban centers, space – which is already at a premium in most cities and dwellings – becomes an even more pressing concern. Short of growing our architecture ever higher and spreading the creep of concrete, creative solutions that consider these size constraints alongside questions of environmental sustainability and human-centered design are still required. As a result, individuals everywhere are already exploring creative methods to address some of the associated problems – access to food, nature, and recreation, among others – as we begin to construct the future vision of city life.
Babelgum's series titled “New Urbanism,” profiles some of the ways that people are addressing these challenges through a synthesis of art and ad hoc invention. From rooftop farms and mini-cities that float to dumpster swimming pools and traveling parks, these short films serves as inspiration, encouraging us to look at our surroundings through a fresh (and often whimsical) pair of eyes. (abstracted from PSFK)
New Urbanism: Camper Kart
Brooklyn based artist Kevin Cyr inspires new ways of thinking about habitats and housing, recycling and ecology, exploration and mobility with his latest project, Camper Kart. While the thought of sleeping in a pop-up camper fused with a shopping cart may not seem practical for most people, it certainly takes the idea of a mobile home to a new level.
New Urbanism: The Waterpod
The Waterpod, a 30-by-100-foot barge, is a project studying self-sufficient water-based living. Four artists will attempt to live exclusively on board for the next five months.
New Urbanism: Rooftop Farms
A short documentary about a 6,000-square-foot farm on the roof of a warehouse in Brooklyn. With over thirty different varieties of fruits and vegetables, Rooftop Farms is larger and more experimental than most other rooftop farms and gardens. Now a commercial farm, they bike produce to nearby restaurants.
New Urbanism: Dumpster Pools
Three large trash dumpsters become swimming pools and an empty lot by the Gowanus Canal becomes an urban country club.
New Urbanism: Subway Opera
Raumlabor Berlin transforms the Eichbaum subway station into an opera house in direct confrontation with everyday conditions of the place.
New Urbanism: The Putting Lot
An in-between space, a crack between two buildings becomes a nine-hole miniature golf course centered around sustainability.
New Urbanism: Tent City
Inspired by the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression artists and activists take down a fence, transforming a vacant lot (owned by JPMorgan Chase Bank) into a living, temporary village.
New Urbanism: Grow Shelter
The Grow Shelter is a living environment where humans, plants, and animals can co-exist. It consists of three connected spheres covered in earth and seeds. The habitat evolves with the seasons showing the cycle of life.
New Urbanism: Rooftop Dwelling
Terreform, a nonprofit architecture collective transforms the rooftop of a building in downtown Brooklyn into a shelter and farm for urban refugees- people displaced by the mortgage crisis. Their two-week project, called Terrefarm, used only materials found in the building, and involved students and teachers from around the world.
Not An Alternative TV
A series of video produced conjunction with Not An Alternative featuring a wide range of artists, activists, cultural producersNot An Alternative is a production company with a focus on prop-making, public relations and organizing built on narrative driven campaign strategy. In the past four years of operation, The Production Company has collaborated with artists and cultural producers, NGOs, and grassroots community groups such as New Immigrant Community Empowerment, Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Oxfam International, and Greenpeace. The Production Company helps community groups with props production, the production of spectacle, and with shaping the foundation of their campaigns. The company does this by offering a conceptual framework for the messaging and symbols of a campaign, and assists community groups with the development of narratives to effectively present their issues. This function is a behind the scenes one – the Production Company can be considered campaign consultants. The company uses The Change You Want to See Gallery for meetings and production
Kleenex Gets Punk'd!
Not An Alternative working undercover with Greenpeace perform an amusing and effective intervention on a Kleenex commercial shoot in Times Square (March 24th 2007). Kleenex, responsible for vast old-growth forest destruction in Northern Canada, opened the door for this one.
The Change You Want To See - Intro Video
A video introduction to The Change You Want To See Gallery and Convergence Stage. A multi-purpose venue, managed and maintained by the Not An Alternative, where free and low-cost community programming occurs as well as trainings and a range of kinds of cultural production. Programming consists of lectures, screenings, panel discussions, workshops and artist presentations. The space houses a production workshop, filming studio and shared coworking office.
Greenpoint SuperFUNd Superfriends
The Greenpoint SuperFUNd Superfriendz clean up an Exxon Mobil and BP. An amusing intervention organized by Not An Alternative at a BP sponsored earthday festival in Brooklyn.
Picture The Homeless Tent City - Parts 1 and 2
Not An Alternative teamed up with Picture The Homeless, Reclaim NYC and others to stage an intervention on the urban landscape. The collaboration involved the production and installation of a homeless tent city in a vacant bank-owned lot in East Harlem July 23rd 2009.
As a diversion, folks dressed up as a film production crew shooting a music video. This was the cover story for the deployment of the tent city. More than 100 homeless people and allies occupied the lot for the duration of the day. The action resulted in 10 arrests by nightfall.
And for more info, check out the NY Times story below. It includes a great blow-by-blow of the day’s events.
Information & Contact
Jason Jones
Jason Jones, the founder of Surplus Productions, has been working as an art and activist organizer, curator, artist, and media producer for the last 10 years in NYC. After completing The Whitney Independent Study Program in 2001, he co-founded Black Out Media, a nationally syndicated TV show. In 2004 acted as one of the main organizers for The Arts and Action Clearing House in preparation for the Republican National Convention. After the elections, he, along with other from The Clearing House founded Not An Alternative, a non profit cultural production company and The Change You Want To See, a gallery based in Williamsburg Brooklyn. As the creative director of Not An Alternative, he has been invited to present in numerous panels and colloquium including the Pratt Institute, Brecht Forum, Public Address (Denmark/NYC), Creative Time and NYU.
Get in touch
Email: surplus@notanalternative.org
Phone: (646) 221-7845
84 Havemeyer Street, Storefront
Brooklyn, NY 11211