Source: http://andrewchee.com/work/micro-utopias
Mixed-media installation design and build; concept, strategy, 2D/3D design, coding, writing; with Form& New York in collaboration with IAMW17, Barcelona.
Presented 27–30 April 2017 for IAM Weekend 17 in Barcelona. More details on the IAM websiteand journal. Case study and video on the Form& website.
Early prototypes explored ongoing activity per micro-utopia as live graphs, to be revisited in future iterations: c04, c07, c08, c09, c10.
More images: May 1, April 30A, April 30B, April 28, April 20, April 13, April 11.
In collaboration with Manuel Dilone and Yumi Nakamura on the installation; in addition to Jim Schachterle, Carolyn Centeno and Steve Winchell on concept; Jill Lin on the print catalog; Rebecca Lim on the print posters; Josephine Tansara and Cody Guilfoyle on media curation and photography; and Megan O’Malley on event planning and production.
“Avant gardes were about utopias. How is it possible to transform the world from scratch and rebuild a society which would be totally different? I think that is totally impossible and what artists are trying to do now is to create micro-utopias, neighborhood utopias, like talking to your neighbor, just what’s happening when you shake hands with somebody. This is all super political when you think about it. That’s micro-politics.” ¹
–Nicolas Bourriaud ²
I want to spend the rest of my life everywhere, with everyone, one to one, always, forever, now.³ I want to relate to you better. I want to feel what you are feeling. I want to hear what you are hearing. I want to live your story. And I want you to live mine. I am becoming you. And you are becoming me.
Can the hyper-connected environment afforded by the internet further unite previously divided ideals through propagation and expansion, resulting in more positive, meaningful, and inclusive conversation? As we feel more of what others are feeling, hear more of what the other is hearing, where we can live each other’s stories as they happen, are we becoming the internet and the internet becoming us? And what does that mean for our future?
Form& presents a site-specific installation exploring the speed, manner, and ephemerality at which micro-utopias form, coalesce, disperse, and form again. Micro-utopias are projection-mapped to a sculptural topology visualizing ongoing dialog, versions of alternate futures, communities brought together by common beliefs, language and frequent interaction.
Inputs include real-time text, images and video, pulled from various sources including news, social media and Google searches using specific terms that resonate with particular micro-utopias. The interplay of both intentional and unintentional juxtapositions play out upon triangular "facets" to form a geometric, ever-changing landscape.
¹ Referenced in “Micro-utopias: anthropological perspectives on art, relationality, and creativity.” Ruy Blanes, Alex Flynn, Maïté Maskens and Jonas Tinius. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
² Author of “Relational Aesthetics.” Les Presses Du Réel, 2002.
³ Reframing the title of Damien Hirst’s book as an expression of the Singularity originally coined by John von Neumann.
