Exhibition

What happens when the physical properties of space become intangible and discourse becomes the main material?

This is the question Anne-Laure Fayard and Aileen Wilson are exploring in Building_Space_With_Words, a multimedia interactive installation, which investigates the metaphor of virtual space.

Their work creates co-existing virtual and physical environments supporting simultaneous reflection on issues related to communication and space while inviting the visitors to reflect on their experience while interacting in both virtual and physical realms.

“Like its co-creator, Anne-Laure Fayard, a social scientist whose background spans the disciplines of philosophy to human-computer interaction, Building_Space_with_Words doesn’t fit into a neat category.

The month-long art installation set to premiere at Polytechnic Institute of NYU on March 4 is part experiment, part research artifact, part think-piece.

Ms. Fayard, an NYU-Poly assistant professor of management, and co-creator, Aileen Wilson, an associate professor of art and design at Pratt Institute, designed Building_Space_with_Words as a hybrid offline/online environment that asks:

What happens when the physical properties of space are changed and discourse becomes the main material?

In other words, how do people build a sense of place (or what the artists describe as “we-ness”) in online settings (e.g., Facebook, blogs, Gchat) when, unlike in the offline world, all they have is words?

See
Ms. Fayard and Ms. Wilson will transform an ordinarily staid space into a maze of semi-transparent hanging panels covered in flickering digital text. Some text is expected to stream in real-time from blogs and other online venues focused on topics related to the creations and interactions that take place in virtual communities/exchanges.” Read more, Offline / Online Art Installation to pose questions about virtul interactions by Erin Newton)

About the Artists
Anne-Laure Fayard, Assistant Professor of Management at NYU-Poly, is a social scientist with a multidisciplinary background in philosophy and cognitive science, and experience in ethnography, human computer-interaction, and organizational studies.  Her main research interests are: discourse, socio-material practices, space, distance collaboration and culture. Prior to moving to New York, she was a faculty member at INSEAD, both in Singapore and in Fontainebleau.

Aileen Wilson is Associate Professor, Art and Design Education at Pratt Institute. Her research looks at drawings by adolescents and the role of violent content in their work. Her involvement in Building Space With Words grew from an interest in the role of online communities in education and in visualizing research design in art education. She will be on sabbatical from Pratt in Spring 2009, working on Building Space with Words and on her doctoral research.

Interactive Design
Ardis Kadiu, Brooklyn Idea Foundry and NYU-Poly

Graphic and Sound Design
Guilhem Tamisier  www.bazartropicando.com

Location
NYU-Poly Wunsch Building
311 Bridge Street (entrance on MetroTech Center Plaza)
Downtown Brooklyn, NY 11201

Live: Webcam

On the process:

Video: Conversation between AL Fayard and A. Wilson

Dates and Times
March, 5 to 27 2009:
Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday 12:00-6:30
Thursday-Friday 12:00-4:00

For more information, please contact Liz DiNapoli: dinapoli@poly.edu