[dorkbotaustin-announce] Dorkbot - Opportunity to geek out TONIGHT through this weekend

[David Nunez]

Thank you to all that came out to our last dorkbot!

Here's a reminder for an event tonight that might inspire you to MAKE  
something new this weekend!

The original press release is below and the Austinist wrote up  
something as well <http://www.austinist.com/archives/2006/11/16/ 
dorkbots_and_playwrights_dork_this.php>

Come tonight to Mundi to check out the details...

**********************
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: October 30, 2006
Media Contact: Christina J. Moore, christi at scriptworks.org, 512-454-9727

WHO:
Austin Script Works and Dorkbot Austin

WHAT:
The Weekend Fling Playwriting and Dorkbot Challenge

WHEN:
Friday, November 17
6-8 PM
Café Mundi
1704 E 5th Street
ASW/Dorkbot Happy Hour
Ingredients Announced

Sunday, November 19
5:30 PM
Vortex Theater
2307 Manor Rd
ASW Salon
FREE Admission
Wine, beer, sodas and snacks available for purchase

ADDITIONAL INFO:
WHAT CAN YOU MAKE IN 48 HOURS?
The AUSTIN SCRIPT WORKS AND DORKBOT CHALLENGE
NOVEMBER 17-19, 2006

Austin Script Works, the regional advocate for playwright and new  
play development, and Dorkbot-Austin, a community of artists and  
inventors doing strange things with electricity, hereby issue an  
unprecedented challenge:

Dork This.

Starting Friday, November 17, at 6 PM, Austin Script Works members  
and area techno-artists will have 48 hours to write a 10 minute play  
or prototype a new dork creation. No matter who they are or what they  
make, they will somehow incorporate three “ingredients” that will be  
announced that day. On Sunday, November 19 at 5:30 PM, they will  
arrive at the Vortex Theater to show off their sizzling new projects.

Playwrights. Dorks. It’s a techno-theatrical, Franken-Gertrude Stein- 
ian, melding of the minds collaboration. And totally Austin.

“Every year, Austin Script Works offers a program called the Weekend  
Fling to member playwrights,” explains Artistic Director C. Denby  
Swanson. “They start on a Friday night and have 48 hours to write a  
10 minute play in response to a list of three special ‘ingredients,’  
which are usually provided by guest artists from around the country.  
Last year, we wrote 5-minute radio plays, which we produced with live  
foley sound during FronteraFest 2006. This year, we decided that it  
would be fun to make the same program as local and new and fresh as  
possible. And we decided to partner with other folks who make stuff.”

David Nunez, one of the instigators behind Dorkbot-Austin, agrees  
that this event will drive amazing work, “Dorkbot is all about what  
happens when people choose to tear their stuff apart and put it back  
together in new and beautifully strange ways.  We’re mad, renegade  
makers that sometimes have so many wildly divergent ideas that we  
struggle to get stuff done and out of our garage studios.   
Constraints, like deadlines or being forced to use a specific set of  
ingredients, create a focusing energy that fires up our engines of  
ingenuity.  Creating alongside the playwrights during the Weekend  
Fling is exactly in that spirit of collaboration – we find those  
unique, untried combinations, add heat, and stand back as we plug in  
our creations.  We want to be cheering as our robots and plays all  
come alive.”

Each short play and each dork invention has to somehow include the  
three “ingredients,” which will be announced on November 17 at a  
kickoff happy hour at Café Mundi. There are no other requirements for  
subject matter or theme – and playwrights and makers are encouraged  
to be as imaginative and expressive as possible, and to use the  
ingredients in unexpected ways. A show and tell will happen during  
the regular monthly Austin Script Works Salon, Sunday November 19 at  
the Vortex Theater, 5:30 PM. Playwrights should bring copies of their  
script; Dorks should bring prototypes of their interactive or kinetic  
art, machines, and robots.

In March 2007, Austin Script Works and Dorkbot-Austin will produce  
8-10 of the short plays in a festival of new work called Out of Ink,  
which will also feature the inventions, potentially as set pieces or  
strange characters or installations. “We expect that these new plays  
and dork creations will be presented together in some thrilling and  
electrifying and Austin-tatious combination,” says Swanson.

Friday, November 17
6-8 PM
Café Mundi
1704 E 5th Street
ASW/Dorkbot Happy Hour
Ingredients Announced

Sunday, November 19
5:30 PM
Vortex Theater
2307 Manor Rd
ASW Salon
FREE Admission
Wine, beer, sodas and snacks available for purchase

The events are free and open to the general public. However,  
playwrights must be members of Austin Script Works to participate in  
this event by writing a new play. New members can join at  
www.scriptworks.org.

Makers need to register through Dorkbot at www.dorkbot.org/ 
dorkbotaustin.

ABOUT AUSTIN SCRIPT WORKS
Austin Script Works is a playwright-driven organization that seeks to  
promote the craft of dramatic writing and protect the writer's  
integrity by encouraging playwright initiative and harnessing  
collective potential. ASW is funded in part by the City of Austin  
through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas  
Commission on the Arts, and individual donors. For more information  
about Austin Script Works call 512-454-9727 or email:  
info at scriptworks.org

ABOUT DORKBOT
dorkbot is a monthly meeting of artists (sound/image/movement/ 
whatever), hackers, designers, engineers, students and other  
interested parties who are involved in the creation of electronic art  
(in the broadest sense of the term). Dorkbot was started in New York  
in 2000 by douglas irving repetto and has since spread to over 40  
cities.   The Austin chapter is one of the largest in the world.   
Events are held on the second Thursday of every month at various  
venues in Austin. For more information visit their website at http:// 
dorkbot.org/dorkbotaustin or email: dorkbotaustin at dorkbot.org