An Interactive Art Installation

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ART OPENING - LIU BROOKLYN - JANUARY 29TH 6PM-8PM

Laura Bernstein | Daniel O'Neill | Jimi Pantalon

On Earth we do not see the Stars as they are, we see the Stars as they once were.

Reflecting upon humanity as viewed from deep space, Galactic Whispers explores transmission and transmutation through sculpture, video and sound. An interactive experience inspired by the launching of Voyager 1 and the premise of The Golden Record, a 12-inch copper plated phonograph record included in the spacecraft containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.” The Golden Record functions as a time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. This installation examines the breakdown of stories and information in our hyper mediated world.

As any event or story is shared and retold errors always accumulate, as is quickly learned by children when they innocently play the game Telephone; the number of whisperers in the chain determines the variance of the final shared story from the original story. Repetitive signals allow for evolutionary resiliency while simultaneously distancing us from the purity of each message. This inevitable and ubiquitous generation loss is an unstoppable element of the human condition and calls into question our ability to measure social progress.

Housed within the glass walls of Long Island University's Humanities Gallery hovers a suspended form, resembling a meteor. The meteor is active from the inside, containing moving images, light, and texture. Viewers approach and peer into portholes, as they see and are seen. Certain portholes activate live feed video signals, which are displayed elsewhere in the space. Other portholes record and replay messages viewers have left behind, altering the soundscape in the gallery. The three columns in the gallery are fashioned into media stations displaying digital drawings of an alien spaceship's living quarters integrated with live action video of its crew members. The media stations are affected by the participants kinetic energy in key areas of the gallery. Like a palimpsest, the recorded audio/video interactions build and form new content, continually rewriting information throughout the duration of the show. Rather than the suffocating scale of large commercial or bureaucratic interests, we are preserving stories from the scale of small group interactions for new perspectives on social action.

Jan.29th-Feb. 26th , 2016

Opening Reception - Friday Jan. 29th 6-8pm

LIU Brooklyn Humanities Building

1 University Plaza

Brooklyn NY 11201-5372