Where Life is Worth Living

November 29, 2024 Ben Sisto

A collection of postcards containing the phrase “Where Life is Worth Living.”

PET-SCII

November 20, 2024 Ben Sisto

Portraits of pets, rendered in PETSCII.

The Classic

May 17, 2024 Ben Sisto

Design, branding, logos, and shirts for The Classic, a breakfast and lunch cafe in Providence, Rhode Island

Providence Commemoration Lab

March 5, 2024 Ben Sisto

Funded by the Mellon Foundation and the American Rescue Plan, The Providence Commemoration Lab is a program co-administered by The Department of Art, Culture and Tourism (ACT) and the Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS). The Lab sites and stages new, temporary projects on public property that invite unexpected ways of understanding commemoration as a communal process of historical redress and spatial reclamation.

Gallerie All Together

January 25, 2024 Ben Sisto

Gallerie All Together, which is the name of a room at the RISD Museum for one day only, is a space for kids to be curators. We collected a bunch of art from artists living and working around Providence, and kids get to look at it, decide what they like, and then put the art somewhere in the room.

atac

October 2, 2023 Ben Sisto

atac is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization in downtown Framingham, MA. Home to community-centered creative programs, artistic development, and work and volunteer opportunities, atac facilitates new possibilities for their community to access the transformative power of creativity. In different capacities, I worked at atac from the summer of 2022 to the fall of 2023.

Soft Opening

September 17, 2023 Ben Sisto

Soft Opening is a freeform music night with Deejay Robert Rhymin’ taking place on second Fridays at Myrtle in East Providence, Rhode Island. RR plays a loose mix of genres; things with a good beat. The venue is a friendly local bar with nice vintage decor; the kind of place you might meet someone new.

Reinsulator

June 17, 2023 Ben Sisto

Reinsulator is an amateur archive of vintage publications related to the hobby of insulator collection. The collection contains titles like Crown Jewels, Drip Points, and Cross Arms, plus a number of one-off DIY zines, guide, and books. Currently there are about 750 items.

PLURAL

April 14, 2023 Ben Sisto

PLURAL
Recent paintings and digital images by Willa Van Nostrand and Ben Sisto

The Gallery at City Hall
25 Dorrance Street, Providence, Rhode Island
May 18 – August 15, 2023
Reception May 18, 2023 from 4–6 PM

Satellite Show

December 4, 2022 Ben Sisto

Satellite Show took place on April 24, 2015 and marked the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble space telescope. I wrote a loose score / set of ideas for Ben Greenberg to play off, with the idea being he’d perform improv, for up to 97 minutes—the duration of one Hubble orbit around the earth.

Performance Credits:

Live Music by Hubble (Ben Greenberg)
Mylar balloons by Confections Ltd: Mylar balloons
Reading of Carl Sagan by Denise Kupferschmidt
Video loop by super/colider
AV Tech: Ask out to Eric Sheppard
Photos by Seze Devres and Ben Sisto
Concept and score: Ben Sisto

Initial Score:

00:00:00 - A reading of Carl Sagan by artist Denise Kupferschmidt
00:01:00 - Hubble begins playing lightly in back of reading

00:07:00 - Begin movement 1: Mirror Mirror
00:07:00 - Consider initial planning, funding, and launch
00:20:00 - Consider error; a flawed mirror
00:30:00 - on the triumph of science, pushing through adversity

00:40:00 - Begin movement 2: Do the Butterfly
Consider images of the following celestial bodies while improvising

40:00:00 - Butterfly Nebula
50:00:00 - Horsehead Nebula
01:00:00 - Eagle Nebula
01:10:00 - Helix Nebula
01:20:00 - Carina Nebula

01:30:00 - Begin movement 3: Orbital Decay
For the final 7 minutes of the performance, imagine the telescope in the Smithsonian Museum in the year 2050. Score some background music for a visiting field trip of young students.

01:37:00 Performance ends

Helen

December 4, 2022 Ben Sisto

In 2017, I worked with atmospheric scientist Campbell Watson (IBM Research) to install a small weather station on the roof of Ace Hotel New York. With a great unobstructed view of the Empire State Building, Helen recorded local conditions and took photos of the sky. Helen was named after Helen Hunt, who portrayed Jo in Twister.

In 2018, Watson invited new-media artist Lee Tusman up from Philly for a live event called Live Coding the Weather, in which the duo interpreted atmospheric readings, live data streams and other inputs, sculpting them into a sonic / visual landscape via live coding.

Above: A sample of data saved by Helen

Downstairs Film Club

December 3, 2022 Ben Sisto

A few screenings to beat the heat, summer 2018

Downstairs Film Club featured a dozen free screenings on Sunday nights during the summer of 2018. Presented by Ace Hotel New York in partnership with The Breslin and a quartet of big-picture curators — Nordic International Film Festival, NewFest, POV by PBS and CLOG —the series showcases campy cult classics, science fiction, powerful docs and works by emerging indie talents in Liberty Hall. Two beers and a small popcorn for ten bucks.

Program Schedule

Nordic International Film Fest (NIFF) Shorts, June 3, 2018
NewFest presents: Wigstock: The Movie, June 10, 2018
POV presents Quest, June 17, 2018
CLOG presents Bladerunner, June 24, 2018
NIFF presents Till We Meet Again, July 1, 2018
NewFest presents But I'm a Cheerleader, July 8, 2018
POV Shorts, July 15, 2018
CLOG presents Her, July 22, 2018
NIFF presents The Salton Sea, August 5, 2018
An Evening of Films with NewFest, August 12, 2018
POV presents 93Queen, August 19, 2018
Clog presents Westworld (movie) August 25, 2018

Untouchable Numbers

December 3, 2022 Ben Sisto

I can’t believe they let me…

In 2017 I pulled off one of my all time favorite happenings: Untouchable Numbers. All nine then-existing Ace Hotel locations let me broadcast a 24-hour John Cage playlist in their lobbies, in partnership with Mode Records and the John Cage Trust.

216 total hours of Cage:

Chicago
London
Los Angeles
New Orleans
New York City
Palm Springs
Pittsburgh
Portland
Seattle

Original Promo Copy

“In 1952 a composer called John Cage told us there was music in silence, and the world hasn't been the same since. Today, the gradual wearing away of stone by water, the echoes of gravitational waves, and the caloric metamorphosis of food into energy may all be understood as musical works, a privilege for which we are indebted to Cage.

September 5, 2017 would have been Cage's 105th birthday, and to commemorate and honor our favorite sonic philosopher, Ace Hotel and the John Cage Trust, in partnership with Mode Records, present Untouchable Numbers, a 24-hour listening event beginning at 12am. Cage's sounds, and silences, will play throughout public spaces of all nine Ace Hotels as the earth completes one full rotation, freely and open to the public. In New Orleans, you can hear the tunes playing back in our Lobby.

Learn more about where to hear Cage across our properties here, and consider booking a room with the promo code SILENCE, valid for stays from 9/4-9/6. RSVP suggested but not required. Seating in public spaces is first come, serve.

Listening is a radical act.”

Ace Hotel: Reader

December 3, 2022 Ben Sisto

When I began at Ace Hotel in 2013, the brand had already carved out a unique space for itself in the blogging world, thanks largely to the efforts of Valentine Freeman. Until about 2017, Ace maintained a Tumblr for all interviews, fun posts, and news. Then, I began helping transition away from Tumblr and more towards a stand-alone editorial platform called The Ace Hotel Reader. I left Ace in 2019, and it seems they got Reader up and running a short time later.

My initial pitch was to focus on longer-form editorial, in depth interviews, and to widen the scope of people we were talking to. I developed programs with Justin Strauss (Just/Talk), Sophia Cosmodopolous (Inside Job), and others. Below is a record of some of the subjects; I’m not sure if these are all archived somewhere by Ace.

- Caroline Polachek, January 2016
- Anna Sui, February 2016
- Joakim, April 2016
- Kim Ann Foxman, June 2016
- Imogene Strauss, July 2016
- Wolfgang Tillmans, October 2016
- Johnathan Galkin, November 2016
- Todd Terje, January 2017
- Andrea Anarow, February 2017
- Bethann Hardison, March 2017
- Michel Gaubert, April 2017
- Sparks, May 2017
- Joe Goddard, June 2017
- Trevor Jackson, July 2017
- Nancy Whang, September 2017
- Matthew Higgs, October 2017
- BICEP, November 2017
- Lenny Kaye, January 2018
- Fab 5 Freddy, February 2018
- Honey Dijon, March 2018
- Roisin Murphy, April 2018
- Horse Meat Disco, June 2018
- Jerry Schatzberg, July 2018
- Inflagranti, September 2018
- Kasper Bjorke, October 2018
- Jenny Schlenzka, January 2019
- Raquel Albarran, January 2018
- Michael Pellew, February 2018
- Carlo Daleo, March 2018
- Julia Ross, April 2018
- Mary T Bevlock, May 2018
- Tyrone Davis, June 2018
- Chase Ferguson, July 2018
- Myasia Dowdell, August 2018
- Rudy Bansraj, October 2018
- John Martin, November 2018
- Frownfelter, December 2018
- Hector Jones, January 2019
- Chen Chen, April 2018
- Erika L. Sánchez, May 2018
- William Brewer, June 2018
- Aimee Nezhukumatathil, July 2018
- Geoffrey Hilsabeck, August 2018
- Hafizah Geter, September 2018
- Jenny Xie, October 2018
- Stephanie Burt, November 2018
- Wendy Xu, December 2018
- Jennifer Chang, January 2019
- Ben Burkert, February 2019
- Natalie Shapero, March 2019
- Jose Olivarez, April 2019
- Got a Girl Crush, 2018
- Roundtable Magazine, 2018
- Quoted Magazine, 2018
- Marti Gould Cummings, March 2018
- Peter Dunn, May 2018
- Cory Camperchioli, June 2018
- James Michael, October 2018
- Daniel Avery, April 2018
- Claire Evans, 2018
- Playlab, 2018
- Mason Saltarrelli, 2018
- Camen Winant, 2018

Bound by Chance

December 3, 2022 Ben Sisto

A dice-rolling zine for Ace Hotel, 2014, 2015

Concept and Production: Ben Sisto
Layout and Design: Peter Bowen
Author Curation: Word Bookstores and Book Riot

Dice and Staples

At the invitation of Ace Hotel New York and Word Bookstores, 16 authors crafted short works in the second-person narrative voice. Each begins and ends with the entering and exiting of a room. Where one story ends, the next starts. Quantum Leap-style, sort of. 200 copies of each were printed and assigned a number, 1 – 16. These stacks were positioned neatly down the grand study table in the lobby of Ace Hotel New York.

Local artists Dhemerae Ford & Sarah Awad designed a custom 3D-printed, large format dice which was placed on one side of the table. At the other, a stapler and some stamps. Event guests — a mix of people who came specifically for Bound by Chance and general passers-by — were asked to roll the dice 8 times. With each roll, they received a corresponding page. Those 8 pages got stapled together with some cover stock and, there you have it.

Since you are wondering, if a participant rolled the same number twice, that page was given twice. A return to a previously-visited location of the labyrinth. Possibly, one remain stuck in the same room forever.

If a “W” was rolled, then the participant won all 16 pages. If, over the course of their turn the letters A, C, and E were all rolled, we gave that guest a delicious coffee.

Live events took place on March 8, 2014 and August 29, 2015

2014 Photos

Participating Authors

- Bill Cheng
- Myke Cole
- Nick Douglas
- Chad Felix
- Rachel Fershleiser
- Roxane Gay
- Chelsea Hodson
- Kat Howard
- Edan Lepucki
- Thomas Page McBee
- Sarah McCarry
- Dolan Morgan
- Travis J Nichols
- Raj Paremeswaran
- Danniel Schoonebeek
- Emma Straub
- Emily Asher-Perrin
- Justina Ireland
- Alaya Dawn Johnson
- Liam Lowery
- Nina MacLaughlin
- Jenn Northington
- Diana Pho
- Stephanie Saulter
- Bijan Stephen
- Charles Yu

... (dot, dot, dot)

March 12, 2022 Ben Sisto

A digital artwork produced in response to the Media Archeology Lab at the University of Colorado, Boulder’s open call for works produced with Kid Pix software. By Ben Sisto, 2022.