April - May 2004
1st between San Fernando and Post,
San Jose, CA.

Curated by:
James Morgan, Matt Haberman,and Michael Brown

in collaboration with
Phantom Galleries, Anno Domini,
CADRE Laboratory for New Media

by James Morgan & Matt Haberman

The storefronts along First Street in San Jose have been abandoned in stages leading up to the present condition where the entire northern side is vacant. This formerly burgeoning shopping district lies along one of the most active thoroughfares in the city and directly across from the self proclaimed "Silicon Valley Financial Center." Many major bus lines and the light rail have stops along this stretch and many people pass along this section of street enroute to work, school and home. For over two years now Phantom Galleries has been putting art from local artists into these and similar spaces in an effective battle against blight and decay.

The initial purpose of the Downtown Exhibition was to create a networked set of art projects that reflected back on each other and on the intervening space. Conceptually the project was to act on some level as a whole but also to be interactive within the spaces and with the spaces around it. We envisioned a group of works that reached out beyond the more or less vacant shops and engaged the traffic, the passersby and the other works installed along this stretch of road. This presented several obstacles, the first was to breech the barriers that separated the public and private spaces, and the second was to mobilize a group of artists to participate in a collaborative interconnected environment.

There are approximately a dozen storefront windows stretching along First Street from San Fernando to Post. We had physical access to more than half of them; the others however had extensive damage that prevented their use. We toured the available spaces and developed a vision of an interactive thoroughfare, a passage of collaborative art pieces permeating the brick walls and connecting with the bustling activity of 1st Street. Our initial vision was simple; the goals were to both engage the passerby visually and conceptually while injecting new life into the long dormant area.









The thoroughfare provided access for eight visual breaches, two wrapping around the corner and heading up San Fernando towards Market. The qualities of each breach presented varying opportunities for the projects to sample, interface and direct output from the network; each provided a facet, a look into the intersections of the contiguous system.

A wired network in conjunction with several wireless nodes produced a series of links that supported the transportation of hundreds of gigabytes of data over the life of the installation. The wireless broadcast crisscrossed First Street intersecting passers-bye with occasional interruptions by the light rail.







Two streaming servers connected to six strategically placed camera/computer units populating the network with live video streams from throughout the area. These unblinking eyes fed nodes, observed the observer, and monitored the surrounding zones of activity. Three of the nodes took advantage of visual feeds, but all caused zones of activity that were monitored throughout the duration of the exhibit creating an indirect form of interaction.




::Cameras::


Viewing stations breeching the wall of shops provided points of collection for people and hence also created areas of interest for our surveillance cameras. These areas, though compelling and useful to the overall piece did not allow the viewer to affect the presentation.

Additional interfaces provided points of data exchange and allowed the viewer to effect and review the data collected. These interfaces intentionally manipulated the viewer and challenged them for their actions, often questioning the nature and wisdom of said interaction.

Three nodes used the cameras present as a means of constructing interface allowing the user to create and modify images by providing feedback based on the surveillance. Two nodes involved touching the boundary. One project provided information relating to the nature of bacterial transference based on touch. One of the interfaces offered incentive for the viewer to hunch over and take a more intimate stance. Two pieces reacted to distance and the presence of the viewer. The Meta Project created a complex haptic and gestural interface to its memory of the installations.

::Full Tour::


Matt Haberman
catalogs the entirety of the exhibition allowing participants to navigate its database through gestural movement and tactile controls that permeate the window’s surface. All those who interact with the exhibition’s spaces become embedded in the project itself.
::artist's statement::code::video::


John Bruneau
reveals the dynamic between spectacle and surveillance by directly confronting the viewer with the challenge of becoming the center of attention.
::artist's statement::code::video::



Corrie Tse and Kristin O'Friel
presents the viewer with a tempting voyeuristic fantasy, which when fulfilled reveals that the watcher is also being watched.
::artist's statement::code::video::


Michael Brown
questions the relationship between observation and participation by having the work change as the observer gets closer to investigate.
::artist's statement::code::video::


Sheila Malone
investigates meaning by transforming a culturally charged medium with personal images and distortion.
::artist's statement::video::


Michael Weisert
challenges the viewer through a touch interface that illuminates bacteria grown from the fingerprint of 52 volunteers.
::artist's statement::video::


Kyungwha Lee
asks us to be aware that our presence affects many things in the natural world around us.
::artist's statement::video::



Benjamin Thorpe
provides a surgical view of ambient noise in his remix of downtown San Jose’s aural environment.
::artist's statement::video::




The Downtown Exhibition was an experiment in the way artists can insert themselves into the public realm, interact with each other, and interact with the public and environment in the urban landscape. The success of the work is reflected by the impression that businesses were "moving into the area" by many of the viewers, as well as the documented engagement of travelers on the thoroughfare.

Work of this nature often has a tendency to be reactive and fails to fulfill its potential for interactivity, no loop of activity is ever established. In answering the question of whether or not we achieved true interaction on this city block one would have to consult the memory of the exhibit, the Meta Project. In reflecting on the exhibit I can say that we did achieve interaction.

By laying bare the processes, by skillful placement of cameras and purely entertaining breaches in the dilapidated structure, people engaged the whole project. I also recall the ire I felt when I saw myself painting the damn mural wall or hanging the didactic for the show reflected back in the meta project again and again.

©2004 James Morgan
all rights reserved