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“Visual arts and environmental activism converge” - Dutch artist Daan Rooseg-aarde used large-scale light projections to draw awareness to the climate crisis. Looking into distance through the virtual waves is one of New York’s famous housing projects. This unedited layering of scenes juxtaposes the extreme conditions of climate change (rising sea water) against the unequal impacts of climate change on the majority of our urban societies all over the world.

“The Homeless Projection” - Washington in the (humble) act

The site specific art-projection by Krzysztof Wodiczko took place in Union Square, New York City in 1986. The installation was developed three years after a major replanning of the park and was accompanied by a collaborative salon to address the issues raised.

Professor at Barnard and urban theorist, Rosalyn Deutsche, recalls a gesture of cultural rescue through the use of projection to overlay the statue’s patriotism on the current reality of the lives of the ‘people without homes.’

“Architectural efforts to preserve traditional appearances also hide the proof of rapture” - Rosalyn Deutsche

One of Wodiczko’s more recent interventions at Union Square also features audio as well as projections, giving a literal public voice to those marginalized.

‘Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran’ took place in 2012 consisting of 14 veterans from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan sharing their memories and experience serving in the military and the difficulties in transitioning back to civilian life.

Krzysztof Wodiczko - Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection by Maria Niro (c) 2012 from

Do you think that Wodiczko’s projections are an effective way to protest?

Robert E. Lee Statue Intervention in Richmond, Virginia- uncommissioned work by lighting artist Dustin Klein

Statues celebrating Confederate-era military figures have been coming down, either surreptitiously through protests or by local government action, initiated by local governments or through petitions from the affected communities. The Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia has had one of the most convoluted paths towards removal while opposing publics battle their reasons in court. 

Due to its size and location, protestors were not able to topple it and it is scheduled to officially come down at an unknown date in the future. Meanwhile, local artists have taken upon themselves without commissions or permission to project images and videos on the monument, creating a rallying point for peaceful conversations.

The now-famous projections by the lighting artist Dustin Klein, who does not normally make political art,  was moved to participate in an unobtrusive way after witnessing peaceful protestors being tear-gassed. His media includes images of those killed by police brutality and historical videos of Black civil rights leaders as well as quotes and the BLM logo, all gathered freely online. 

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Projected is an excerpt from (1964) Malcolm X’s Speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity

“...it was my intention to work among the 22 million non-Muslim Afro-Americans and to try and form some type of organization, or create a situation where the young people – our young people, the students and others – could study the problems of our people for a period of time and then come up with a new analysis and give us some new ideas and some new suggestions as to how to approach a problem that too many other people have been playing around with for too long.”

George Floyd and Virtual Anti-Racist Street Art

Uncommissioned street art can transform urban landscapes quickly during times of civil unrest, creating impromptu places for memorialization, dialogue, and celebration. After the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, a flurry of creativity in street art and public memorials communicated in a quick and unfiltered manner what the public was feeling during a national crisis.

The ephemeral nature of this type of work calls for quick action in archiving before they are permanently lost. The online platforms presented both archive and disseminate these works in diverse types of interactive online experiences. Presented are three of these experiences, an interactive map, a vast online archive and a 360 degree immersive tour.

Mapping Street Art Inspired by George Floyd- September 2020, Curated story map of street art items from the neighborhood near George Floyd’s death, University of Saint Thomas Urban Art Team, Saint Paul, Minnesota.

https://georgefloydstreetart.omeka.net/

George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art - A Global Online Archive maintained by the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul, Minnesota. It provides a global searchable database of art inspired by the movement.

https://cdn.instavr.co/html/F4M0eOX0FUrMYDRWA8kF_app.html?bust=d30raf75e94

Black Lives Matter Fist- The anonymously erected public memorial of a wooden fist in Minneapolis can be visited via a 360 degree experience of the site, placing us at the center of where the movement began. By Urban Art Mapping Research team with photographer Annie Vitale.

Black Lives Matter AR Mural Experience

Using Augmented Reality technology, entire buildings painted with murals can be virtually placed right in your living room with the mobile app, taking  street art out of context and commodifying it into a precious item to be  exhibited like artifacts in a museum.

Produced by Nani Sahra Walker for the Los Angeles Times, featuring 4 works by Misteralek, Alexandra Allie Belisle, Amanda Ferrell Hale, Noah Humes, PeQue Brown and Shplinton, Alfonso Garcia, Shane Grammer. All murals painted in June 2020.

Follow the link to the AR experience, best on mobile devices.

https://www.yahoo.com/immersive/blm-murals.html?site=latimes

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall (The Wall)- Digital Interactions

The Wall in Washington, DC, designed by then 21-year old student Maya Lin,  has inspired visitors to leave  behind hundreds of thousands of mementos of loved ones whose names are inscribed on its shiny black marble surface, creating its own museum of items. If unable to visit in person, the public can access the virtual Wall of Faces where comments and photos can be uploaded  and a request made from the National Park Service for a “name rubbing” frottage - a piece of paper drawn over the etched name will be sent to them directly, taking a piece of the memorial home. The Wall has created its own economy of physical and digital objects that expand its meaning to a personal level.

https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (The Holocaust Memorial)

Monuments are supposed to be permanent commemorations or reminders but they exist in an ever-changing cultural landscape in which the public interacts with and modifes these structures in unexpected ways.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, known more simply as The Holocaust Memorial is a modern-day monument built in 2004 by architect Peter Eidenman, created through an architectural competition. It utilizes a tectonic rather than the traditional representative aesthetics of memorialization and incorporates a strong performative component as well. It staunch polemics during construction for those very reasons, and years later the controversies still continue online.

The Holocaust memorial is located in a busy city block in Berlin, and has become a type of playground in the physical and digital realms as people jump and picnic on its surfaces; the site of many “selfies” where people take photos of themselves in the maze of stelae and post the images online on social media. Although this ludic component was intentional by Eisenman himself, many people deem this behavior offensive and blame both the design and the public for what they consider to be disrespectful of the immense importance of the event it memorializes. Israeli artist Shahak Shapira went viral with his ‘Yolocaust’ parody website questioning selfies at the monument. 

Our Streets! “This Space Occupied”

A photograph taken from Occupy Wallstreet, 2012, for protesters’ tents who squatted in Zuccotti Park before they were forced out by the New York Police Department. Nevertheless and despite the attempt of the state government to enforce a media blackout that prevented protestors from reporting their eviction to others, the protest continued online and at a global scale.

The photograph has been edited by simple digital effect to decontextualize the dissemination of physical space of protest and reframe Occupy Wallstreet as an algorithmic glitch in a larger automated system of the capitalist market.

In NYC, public architecture proved to be physical and virtual simultaneously.

Public Faces in “Public” Spaces

These graphs show a growing trend in internet use. It is estimated that internet traffic has increased by 30% over the pandemic. Social Media users alone increased by 10%, which means that as of this year, more than half the people on this planet are involved with a social platform.

These graphs will hopefully highlight the increasing importance of the digital world and help reflect on our participation in those increasing numbers. Perhaps, we will also notice if we participated online, who recorded their participation and what that means about how their “public face” has been used.

Public Algorithms for Private Apropisms

Algorithms are the bricks-and-mortar of online platforms. These automated systems play a significant role on the content and ads we see online. It is exactly the latter which works to keeps us interested, what keeps us scrolling for hours while instagram is cashing in money from our viewing time. The more we utilize the platform, the more the algorithms get to know us––our personality, gender, race, demographics and even our disorders. These personalized yet unregulated filters can become problematic as users have difficulty spotting biases used against them, which in turn can lead to the reinforcement of a wide range of behaviours (e.g silencing certain populations, impulsive buying, eating disorders, poor sleep habits...) that could be counterproductive to themselves and to the greater public. If instagram is so good at identifying our behaviours, then why not try to encourage and support healthier choices?

Who do you think is the authority online? What would that implicate about the “publicness” of the internet as a whole. 

Real Fake News

It is well known that Facebook had a big role in the 2016 US election due to it creating and reinforcing political echo chambers. Along with that, fake news was widely spread. This comes once again as a result of algorithms who feed people with what they want to hear instead of the true facts and varied  opinions. In this image we witness the very different suggestion results of two users.

Image Source: The Social Dilemma, documentary on the creation and problematic modernization of social platforms.

Colour Blind?

Once again, this artifact calls into question the structure and function of algorithms. Yet this time, it brings in a case that is particular to bias against race. 

Question:

Why is it that when we look up professor style, only white men appear? Are they the only ones that can pull it off? 

#BlackoutTuesday

June 02, 2020 Blackout Tuesday was a viral phenomenon that took place on June 02, 2020 at the height of the protest movement. The online protest was organized by two executives, Brianna Agyemang and Jamila Thomas, Senior Marketing Directors for Atlantic Records. The hashtag took over all of social media, most notably Instagram, with global participation of posting a single black square instead of their usual content.

The initiative was originally planned to feature #TheShowMustBePaused as the unifying hashtag and major corporations all jumped onboard to show their supposed support with the plight of the Black community. However, the use of the “correct” hashtag for #TheShowMustBePaused quickly devolved into #BlackOutTuesday, then all posts were tagged with the #blacklivesmatter hashtag essentially silencing the flow of information that protestors and activists needed to see in real-time in order to organize both online and offline.

This public mass action was intended to show solidarity for the Black Lives Matter movement. However, the majority of users posted this and nothing else topical to the movement throughout the time period of intense protesting- the singular act rang hollow as "virtue signaling" and trend-following without commensurate action.