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Concept
Project Proposal for Zone 3; Gegenort: the Virtual Mine
Scott Townsend
Associate Professor
Dept of Graphic Design
College of Design
NC State University
Raleigh, NC
USA
27695-7701
telephone- (01)919-515-8337
fax- (01)919-515-7330
email- sttwn@unity.ncsu.edu
World-wide, the economic and political factors that have shaped a new global community have also created a vast exodus of people. The "zone" in which I live (roughly the north american continent) is a shifting population of languages, customs, ethnicities from around the world. While these new communities have diverse histories and backgrounds, the people within them often share similar stories about what it is to emigrate, to be at risk, to survive a series of cultural and economic transitions while preserving their identity. The geographical insularity from which much of Zone 3's identity was historically derived has disappeared.
In “Interstate”, these ideas become concrete transcripts of recent political and economic refugees. Based on factual recordings and other collaborative initiatives that I have made working with recent arrivals to "Zone 3", "Interstate" attempts a partial reconstruction of the various anecdotes of economic and political migration. In “Interstate”, a setting of a house in a landscape and its interior acts as an entry-point to clusters of text. By selecting one of four different images in the interior of the house, the viewer can maneuver to four locations where a series of narratives are presented about travel through “the {political} landscape”. In these texts, the idea of crossing borders (four real anecdotes, one fictional) is explored, which touches upon the very real global dilemma of the economic or political refugee. These stories are written from the vantage point of a character’s recent memory, as various digital sound, video, and animation vignettes create a sense of reflection on the recent past. The writing- which is anecdotal rather than overtly critical, and the interface present the viewer with alternative juxtapositions of the texts. As different configurations of text occur, images and sounds shift, evoking different environments attributable to the characters stories.
Additionally, a section can be accessed that shows the "hits" or visits that are made from various parts of the globe on the web. At the start of the installation, the continents are proportional to their actual physical size. As the installation progresses, "hits" are recorded based on the geographical location of the users and translated into larger or smaller continental landmasses- thus dramatizing the inclusion or exclusion of people from the
suppossedly democratic "world-wide- web". There will be also be three different versions that can be accessed, with either english, german, or spanish as the primary language.
(this is an adaptation of an already existing body of work that has premiered as an installation in Chicago recently)
Scott Townsend bio-
Scott Townsend is an Associate Professor in the Department of Graphic Design, North Carolina State University, where he teaches "New Media", photography, and graphic design. His research in general focuses on the intersections between the individual and the community; of issues of personal identity and history, and the use of narrative and imagery. His work is divided between academically based research and electronically based installation art, and other
hybrid projects between different media and disciplines. In the last ten years, he has exhibited in 47 national and international group and solo exhibitions in the Czech Republic, Berlin, Hamburg, New York, and Chicago. He has created visual projects and authored writings for such journals and publications as Zed, Statements, Art Papers, Rethinking Marxism, and Design Issues. He has also been a featured presenter at "Politics and Languages of Contemporary Marxism in the United States, "Visions Plus 2 and 3" sponsored by UNESCO in Austria, and at the University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland. In mid 1998 he began the electronic installation anthology "The Boardroom", which now consists of fourteen separate interactive pieces, digital video, still images, and sculpture. The main concept of "The Boardroom" is in how we use representation; images, gestures, simple ideas and cliches, often
moderated by photographic and video-based mass media and its impact on how we understand the world. The Boardroom is a virtual space that the viewer/user participates in, moving from interactive piece to interactive piece; from subject-to subject; ranging from topics such as the supposedly non-political issue of "landscape" to the personal politics involved between people in public spaces.
*****addendum
technical needs are based on gegenort's conception of interconnectivity through the web. The installation in the container consists of an LCD or DPI projector and microcomputer with web access. Viewers within the container may interact or watch passively the interaction that occurs with the piece through the web. Interconnection is essential:
there are two versions for different web interconnections- one version is written as dhtml while the other is based on a faster rate of access through the web. The data gathered through the visualization of the earth's landmasses as "access to information" can be gathered and printed out as a documentation of the event- in whatever case- it will be used as data for the evolution of the piece.
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