james and lili | maya + rouvelle

traversal53 opens dec 3rd @ 9pm

lili maya james rouvelle 53

Traversal53, is presented by Chashama.org

Location: 20 w. 53rd St (6th Ave side of site, across from MoMA),
Dates/times: Friday, December 3, 2010 (beginning at 9pm) through Sunday, December 19, 2010. Running 24/7.

Installed in the western half of the former Donnell library (20 w. 53rd St, NYC, across from MoMA), and visible across the surfaces of the large windows fronting the space, traversal53 is a kinetic art installation composed of robotic instruments programmed to survey the space with custom optics.

Inspired by photographs of the preparation of the library’s materials for digitizing by archive.org, and the library’s current, ambiguous status, traversal53 is a process of scanning the transitional moment of the building itself, analogous to the scanning of the materials of the library prior to their relocation.

The output is designed to work with the reflections on the large windows of the building to create compositions from the interplay and slippage of the interior and exterior environments. traversal53 is a persistent, transflective event.

Visitors are invited to photograph the work and upload their images to flickr, with the tag traversal53. In doing so, visitors are completing the archival gesture by digitizing the space itself in its transitional moment, and then situating it, in that condition, in digital space. A selection of the images will be included in a digital book that will be kept at archive.org. Selections will be credited.

here’s our flickr site with some installation shots.
here’s our vimeo site with some video documentation.

surface-active agent

surface-active agent was part of the move about myrtle festival in brooklyn this month, curated by christina vassallo.

the work was installed in the window of 3 stars laundromat, 439 myrtle ave (thanks yvonne, linda, and miss linda!).

the theme of the exhibit was ephemera and the overlooked details of a city street.

surface-active agent uses reflection and refraction to present compositions of active, multi-layered picture planes on a variety of surfaces in and around the installation site.

the video is a montage of unedited moments (audio and video, as originally recorded) captured throughout the day from a camera outside the laundromat and a camera within the installation. the monitor on top of the laundry machine was showing a live feed from the interior camera throughout the installation.

refraction oscillator

recorded in the park at sunset, under high magnification, natural light filtered through undulating leaves, refracting as it moves across a surface of reflective, crystalline nanostructures.

transflection event

documentation of a device we’ve developed for casting refracted light into large spaces fronted by glass. the project was inspired by looking at the reflective and transparent properties/complex picture planes on the windows of empty/transitional spaces in nyc. the illuminated surface area here is approximately 10’x10′. both the light source and refractive media are in motion.

flux-maps-flux

“flux-maps-flux” is an art project created for the ‘science fair’ show at flux factory/nyc in june 2010. for this work, we built a hand-held, portable emf sensor to explore the electromagnetic topography of flux factory. participants were asked to walk the site with the sensor (seen at the end of this clip). the sensor emits sound and has a panel meter (**panel meter is salvage from another project…) to indicate shifting emf levels. the sensor is enclosed in glass, battery powered, and has a ferrite core antenna with a coil designed to filter the emf fields surrounding electric power sources.

participants wrote down emf readings on a small map and we created ink, and relief drawings/maps on paper from their readings. the drawings were stacked on a lightbox in the order they were created and visitors could view the hand-drawn maps by looking at them through an acrylic sphere. the sound you hear is a composition made from recordings of the audio output from the sensor.

synchronous displacement (excerpt)

synchronous displacement is an iterative process of translation from light to sound to vibration.

in this floor mounted artwork, shifting patterns of light in an array of LEDs below a diffusing medium are tracked by software. the patterns are translated into a sound composition whose components are based on recordings made while constructing and prototyping the piece. the composition is played through two small speakers, and a small, low frequency oscillator mounted below the LEDs, transposing the sound to low-frequency vibrations. vibration sensors connected to the LEDs alter the patterns of light, which alters the sound, which alters the light, etc.