Context:
Contribution:
Duration:
Solo installation at temporary art space
Artist, technologist
12 weeks (part-time)
For this installation project at a temporary art space in LA’s McArthur Park neighborhood, I explored algorithmically rearranging the visual cues of a unique and confusing exhibition space.
Printed banners displayed a reshuffling of photos of the building, while a two-channel video game challenged players to work together to find points of interest within a virtual environment.
Exploring the virtual space required collaboration between two people looking at different screens. One person could see a view refracted through a kaleidascope, which made it difficult to navigate, but held the controller. They also saw a readout with points awarded and information about the next destination. The other person could see a more traditional view and provide turn by turn directions.
The view for the seated viewer
The view for the standing viewer
Large, hanging print-outs displayed the output of a feature recognition algorithm run on image search results from photos that I took of the building. I used Google Image Search’s similarity feature to gather a host of images that were “related” to photos of the building and processed these with Python scripts and OpenCV. These became the large banners printed and hung in the space.
The exhibition space presented a unique opportunity to reflect on disorientation because it lacked cues like wayfinding graphics or other signage to organize its heterogenous and sparse business tenants. Renovation was also apparently underway but not indicated by any kind of signage. In getting to the show, viewers became aware of the missing visual cues that they would normally expect to orient themselves in a multi-purpose building like this one. The inevitable fallback of asking friends or the scarce building staff for help also made the social dimension of a psychological process (orientation) visible.
