Overheard

Inspired by overheard snippets of cell phone conversations that most people would ignore, Wendy Richmond and collaborator Michael Chladil have taken background noise and turned it into interactive artwork. "Overheard" opens Jan. 15, 2010 and runs through March 12, 2010 at the gallery@calit2. The installation will consist of multiple displays of textual graphics, based on overheard New York City cell phone conversations ranging in subject matter from the poetic to the banal. The audio, made up of recordings of conversations spoken by actors, will be triggered as the audience moves through the gallery space. In addition, two interactive rope&pulley systems will allow visitors to interface with the displayed graphics, changing their shape and size. The visual elements of the fragmented conversations continue onto the gallery display walls on the first floor of Atkinson Hall. The artists hope that the installation will provide viewers an opportunity to reframe the barrage of private and public expression that they navigate in their everyday lives.

Wendy Richmond is a visual artist, writer and educator whose work explores issues of personal privacy, technology, and creativity in contemporary culture. After graduating from Wesleyan University, Richmond began mixing traditional media with new technology at MIT's Visible Language Workshop/Media Lab and co-founded the Design Lab at WGBH in Boston. She received her Master's degree at New York University. Her teaching experience includes MIT, International Center of Photography, and Harvard University Graduate School of Education. Richmond is the
recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center residency, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a LEF Foundation grant, the Hatch Award for Creative Excellence, and numerous art and design awards. Richmond is a contributing editor at Communications Arts magazine; her regular column "Design Culture" began in 1984. She is the author of Design & Technology: Erasing the Boundaries and Overneath, a collaboration of photography and dance. Her new book, Art Without
Compromise*, is published by Allworth Press.

Michael Chladil is an interaction designer, prototyping consultant, and multimedia artist who grew up playing with computers, pianos, and small power tools. After graduating from Stevens Institute of Technology, he worked as a software engineer at Crestron Electronics. A desire to build physical interactive musical systems led Chladil to earn a Master's degree at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Michael's work at ITP culminated in the modular "rope&pulley" media control system he invented in order to combine the expressiveness and physicality of human gestures with the power and flexibility of digital media to create new multimedia performances.

Friday, January 15, 2010
Panel Discussion
6pm-7pm Calit2 Theater
Opening Reception
7pm-9pm gallery@calit2

Gallery Hours
11am-5pm Monday-Friday
January 18-March 12, 2010
Free Admission
http://gallery.calit2.net