EXHIBITIONspace opening

Next week is the opening of my new installation piece titled: 'EXHIBITIONspace'. Through the use of sensors, projection, sound, a prehistoric lithic artifact and other media I will be focusing on the existence of the gallery space itself. I have spent the summer working on an interactive system that will detect and respond to the location of the viewer, allowing the audience to 'perform' the work even as they experience it.

The opening is Wednesday, September 6 from 7-9, you can download a press release here. It will be in the Fine Arts Gallery, downstairs in the Fine Arts Building, directions to GMU in Fairfax can be found here. After the opening, I will upload photos and video clips to my website.

In short, my goal with this installation was to make the viewer aware of the physical space of the gallery and how that space is reconfigured to create specific responses in a viewer. Museums have been referred to as a liminal space, a place of transition from one state of mind to another and it is the transitional nature of the room itself that I find interesting. To create this installation, I decided to focus on exposing what exists or has existed in the geographic space of the gallery, tweaking it to be sure, but also using the space as raw material and inspiration.

The installation is open 9-6 M-F, through September 14. On Saturday, September 9th it will be open from 11-5.

Exhibition and Narrative

I just found out that the Scope II conference being held in Vienna this fall is dedicated to 'the context of sites and subjects which produces history and narrations', which is basically the story behind cultural heritage. I think this will be an interesting topic and very related to my upcomine Thesis show; Exhibition SPACE. More on that soon!

Scope will feature talks by Peter Weibel and Homi K. Bhabha amongst others.

Another festival on my radar for it's inclusion of interactive media work is the Collision 2006 symposium. There are several works included that reference the performative aspect of digital arts.

Relationship of Museum to audience

I'm always interested in how space and transitional spaces effect our behavior, Ulla-Maaria Mutanen has written an interesting take on this in her blog entry Web 2.0.

Dorkbots DC

I just found out that DC has it's very own chapter of Dorkbots. That's an international organization dedicated to interactive art and robotics. Looking forward to meeting all the other dorks out there!

Theremin update

Still working on converting my Theremin to a people proximity sensor. Couple of notes:

1. Theremins do not work when resting on the ground.... I had no idea about this and it took forever to figure out, turns out that the ground must act as a ground or something for the volume antennae...

2. It's hard tuning a giant Theremin antannae, mainly because while tuning it you are also in range. Trying to attach a cable to move the antannae away creates a sort of shadow sound....

Maybe I should stick to Legos...