Andrew Allen Wilson will curate a selection of devices and bury them around campus. Todd Margolis will geo-tag these objects into the android mobile phone application Auradust. The devices will serve as anomalies – forces of potential transformation for the collective arrangement of people. Throughout the day we will harness small clusters of conference participants as they leave one event and are considering what will come next. Interested parties will be assigned a smartphone with Auradust which will serve as a navigational guide to a specific device. The trowels we distribute will suffice as digging tools, as the devices and the holes they sit in will not be very large (this process is not labor-intensive). Auradust will then also serve as a mechanism for providing information and concepts as well recording the meaningful exchanges that result from participants’ experiences.
Affect here operates in the quest for an unknown device, the process of revealing, and the ensuing dynamic interconnections. Affect continues as it acts as a process of composition of not only viewing bodies of devices but also of participants in a continuously bifurcating system – a conversation, shared sensations. This participation becomes more valuable to each participant according to the affect it can accumulate – to the collective arrangements of components with varying intensities. This project does not totalize; it is an instrument for multiplication and it also multiplies itself.
Date: Dec 5, 2008
Start Time: 12:30pm
Duration:
Location: starts at Visual Arts Facility
Tags: affect, archaeology, becoming, clusters, device, discussion, hole, multiplication, participation, surprise, value
One Comment
“Stimulus Package” began as archeological expedition. The field guide was a hand-held electronic device operated by Todd Margolis, feeding the group a steady stream of information, leading them from one landmark to another. Throughout the duration of the piece, the audience was transformed from a group of passive observers into a group of active participants. They became the new authors of the piece, responsible for controlling and guiding its direction, collectivity determining its outcome. With the aid of simple tools and basic information, objects were located, uncovered, and discovered. A toy rocket was dug out of the ground and given flight after being transported to a busier, more contentious space. A bundle of library books were unearthed and divvied up (kidnapped) by all of the participants. The contact information of the participants was left in the hole, forcing a future interaction/conversation between participant and author, extending the scope of the piece outside of the given time frame into the unknown future; thus creating an alternative form of dialogical exchange that is surprising, compelling, and unpredictable.
~Noah Doely