CONDUIT 742 Presents Its Next Pop-up Show “Less Art Cabaret #1” with Doug Harvey’s Moldy Slide Show at Mount Wilson Observatory

CONDUIT 742, a pop-up dedicated to presenting art by artists, presents the inaugural Less Art Cabaret—this time on top of a mountain—inside Mount Wilson Observatory’s auditorium on Saturday, April 4, 2026 from 2:00–6:00pm. Titled Less Art Cabaret #1, the afternoon program centers on Los Angeles multidisciplinary artist Doug Harvey’s long-running Moldy Slide Show project, accompanied by a live improvised soundtrack by legendary Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) founding member Rick Potts. Compiled from thousands of mold-altered 35mm transparencies rescued from an Edendale hoarder intervention some 25 years ago, the newly configured slideshow marks the first live projection of the work in a decade. 

Bay Area artist and songwriter Paulette Humanbeing serves as MC, introducing an afternoon lineup that also includes artists and filmmakers Daniel Hawkins, Marnie Weber, and Tom Christie, along with innovative artist/pastry chef Kelsey Kuykendall. Concurrently, Mount Wilson Observatory’s museum (located in the same building) will preview a new edition of three-color carbon transfer prints produced from a selection of the moldy slides, curated by Harvey and the master printer at The ƒ/Ø Projects. Tickets are $5; for more information or to purchase in advance, please visit https://mtwilson.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F39392.

Harvey—an artist, writer, and longtime Los Angeles art critic whose work spans painting, collage, found objects, film, sound, and performance—has presented variations of the Moldy Slide Show for more than two decades, periodically recombining the flood-damaged and fungus-altered images into new sequences accompanied by live music. This new event series is part of the ongoing evolution of Harvey’s long-running Less Art project, which began in the mid-1980s as a zine and later expanded into broadcast formats. For Less Art Cabaret #1, Rick Potts (also known for projects including Airway, Dinosaurs With Horns, Gothic Hut, Human Hands, Le Forte Four, Solid Eye…) provides the improvised soundtrack.

Attendees are encouraged to come and go (quietly) from the main presentation and explore the Observatory grounds. Bring a picnic lunch to enjoy.

Parental Discretion from the Producers: 
Though the show is family friendly, the program may contain spooky images, dark humor, and whale attacks. 

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS:

In addition to her MC duties, Humanbeing will present the first public screening of her visionary DIY musical-in-progress, The Worst Christmas Story, and fill in the technical gaps throughout the afternoon with her distinctive songcraft. The film follows a man who, after being knocked unconscious by a falling Christmas tree, awakens to a vision of God who tells him to quit his job and take his family whale-watching in Cape Cod. Antics ensue.

The program continues with a rare return to the screen for Marnie Weber’s short film Mel’s Hole, marking its first public showing since debuting in the 2008 exhibition Aspects of Mel’s Hole. The museum show was inspired by a story told by a caller to Art Bell’s talk radio program in 1997 about paranormal phenomena surrounding a supposedly bottomless pit on the caller’s own property in rural Washington. Weber’s film revisits the tale of that caller, Mel Waters, who claimed that the pit on his property in Ellensburg could—according to myth—bring dead animals back to life.

Another highlight of the afternoon is a rare theatrical screening of Daniel Hawkins’ film Desert Lighthouse: A Point of Origin, a documentary exploring the construction of, landscape surrounding, and local response to a 50-foot fully functioning lighthouse built in the Mojave Desert. Completed in 2017 near Hinkley, California, the octagonal steel-and-polycarbonate structure—illuminated at night—stands as one of Hawkins’ improbable landscape interventions.

The world premiere of Moving Serra, a documentary-in-progress by Tom Christie, rounds out the program. The film documents the transport of Richard Serra's 242-ton sculpture Sequence as it traveled 2,700 miles from Manhattan’s MoMA to L.A.’s LACMA in 2007, beautifully photographed and focusing on the personalities of the truckers who transported this massive work of art.
All filmmakers will be present at the screening.

For hungry attendees, Baking Praxis will provide artisanal baked goods by Kelsey Kuykendall, featuring unique offerings (possibly including faux-moldy cake).

For more information, please visit https://lessart.wordpress.com/2026/03/15/less-art-cabaret-1 and for tickets: : https://mtwilson.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events?path=%2Fportal%2Fevents%2F39392.