Off-Site: Jeff Knowlton and Naomi Spellman with Brandon Stow - The Interpretive Engine for Various Places on Earth

The fourth and final installment in the Fresno Met's Off-Site series opened June 9, 2006. Artists and programmers Jeff Knowlton, Naomi Spellmann and Brandon Stow have developed a site-specific media project wherein storytelling merges with wireless communication. The early history of the telecommunications and transportation industries forms the basis for this historic fiction.

Participants can access the project with their laptop in two different locations: Caffe Fulton in Downtown Fresno and Revue Cafe in the Tower District. While enjoying their coffee or tea, participants are able to open the Interpretive Engine on their laptop via the Internet. Both locations offer free wi-fi Internet access. The participant will see a map of Fresno from 1918 on the screen, which will give orientation in the strangely familiar environment, where some buildings and streets correspond to the actual surrounding, and others indicate Fresno's past.

The participant is prompted to input information, which generates unique elements of the story. A story character, for example, visits a store located across from where the participant is sitting. If the participant views the piece in the evening, the visible stars are indicated onscreen. The narrator, a computer generated voice, knits the predefined together with the generative story elements. The past and the present, fiction and reality merge in this media project.

Jeff Knowlton, Naomi Spellman, and Brandon Stow are based in Southern California and collaborate as the collective 34 North 118 West. Their practice focuses on networked art and computer-based interactive works. They have presented their work internationally at venues such as Spectropolis, New York; Futuresonic, Manchester, UK; LA Freewaves Festival, Los Angeles; Art in Motion, Los Angeles; ASCI Digital, New York and Philadelphia; and Siggraph, New Orleans. Spellmann and Knowlton received their MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. They presently teach at the University of California, San Diego.

The Fresno Metropolitan Museum would like to thank the Caffe Fulton and Revue Cafe for their help in realizing this project.

Off-Site is organized by Susanneh Bieber, Curator of Art at the Fresno Metropolitan Museum, and supported by grants from The James Irvine Foundation and The Bonner Family Foundation.

Exhibition Type:

• Past Exhibitions

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