This week the international Center of Photography introduces The ICP Lab, with two programs in which visual artists take center stage and push the boundaries of augmented and immersive experiences in public forums.

Night Flights is an intimate, interactive open stage where emerging visual storytellers experiment with innovative approaches to live experiences. The program launches tonight with a presentation of The Parallel State, by British Photographer Guy Martin, a multi-layered investigation that took place in Turkey from 2012 to 2016. Martin has assembled a body of work that chronicles the massive and often violent events unfolding on the ground.

© Guy Martin, courtesy the International Center of Photography

Running parallel to this, he has documented the fictional world of Turkish TV and soap opera sets that mirror Turkey’s recent history. Adding this additional layer has enabled him to delve deeper into the story and reveal the powerful relationship between TV, computer screens, and people’s actions on the street. When witnessing tragic events, he was left wondering whether anything had in fact not been carefully stage-managed. Physical and virtual worlds overlay, conflict, betray, and manipulate each other.

In this program, Martin guides the audience through a multi-layered experience designed to illuminate the different pathways through which he investigated the troubled political and social state of Turkey, and by implication, the possibilities for performing similar work in other nations and states around the world.

Night Flights | The Parallel State by Guy Martin, Thursday, March 1, 6:30 pm. ICP Museum, 250 Bowery, NY, NY Free with Registration

In Critical Jamming, creative thinkers perform a visually constructed conversation around compelling themes and routes of investigation in which moderators and speakers share different angles and stories around a theme; their words are supported by visual and audio references. These events produce an inclusive and inviting space for the audience to witness and take part in the conversation..

First and last Sundays of the month from 3–5:30 PM, starting this weekend with From The X-Files to The Matrix: Reality Disintegrated.

The 1990s was an era of hope bracketed between the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the fall of the two World Trade Center towers (2001). New aspirations of politics, technology, and culture gradually vanished, prefigured by the dark conspiracy theories of The X-Files and The Matrix, where the known world is an illusion. In this roundtable discussion, moderators and speakers will introduce different angles and stories around the theme of reality disintegrated. Through references to pop culture, counterculture, and activism, they will rebuild the zeitgeist of an era in an oblique, improvisatory fashion. This conversation will offer a post-modern magnifying glass in which to reflect upon the times we live in. In an effort to activate this exchange, the audience will be invited to participate through responses, comments, and suggestions.

Moderators: Matthew Carson, ICP Head Librarian and Archivist; Bernard Yenelouis, ICP Librarian

Speakers: Aron Morel, London-based indie publisher ; Janette Beckman, photographer; Nick Waplington, artist and photographer; Cathy de la Cruz, writer and member of the riot grrrl movement and Sister Spit; Avram Finkelstein, artist, writer, and activist

Critical Jamming | From The X-Files to The Matrix: Reality Disintegrated, Sunday, Marcy 4, 3 pm. ICP Museum, 250 Bowery, NY, NY Free with registration