The Art Gallery and the Interactive Media Program at NYUAD invite you to attend an artist talk and workshop with award winning artist, researcher and writer Jonah Brucker-Cohen.


About the Talk:


Jonah will discuss his projects and work in the theme of “Deconstructing Networks” that challenge and subvert accepted notions of network interaction and experience. Some projects he will discuss include BumpList, an email community for the determined, America’s Got No Talent a data visualization comparing Twitter to traditional broadcasters, WSSID a hacked wireless router that broadcasts the weather, Alerting Infrastructure!, a website hit counter that destroys a building, Email Miles a spatial shift to representing email messages, PoliceState a fleet of radio controlled police cars who’s movements are dictated by terrorist keywords sniffed on a local network, Wifi-Hog a portable system for regaining control of public wireless networks and he will also discuss his Scrapyard Challenge hardware hacking workshops that he has been running since 2003.He will conclude his talk with a live demo of Lively a project that involves audience participation from their cellphones.


About the Workshop:

This workshop will focus on two projects I am currently developing that allow large-scale collaborative input from people in shared spaces using data from the mobile devices such as cellphones. Beginning with an earlier project of mine called SimpleTEXT (2003) that encouraged mass contributions from people sending text messages from mobile phones to drive a public performance, I will expand on this project by introducing a new product I have launched called Lively that takes advantage of the ubiquity of mobile devices using browser- based output and WebGL visualizations of incoming text messages by large audiences. The project has been performed at a wide range of public spaces such as large conferences, public movie theaters and performance spaces, and co-working spaces. I will also discuss a recent commissioned work I created for Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx that encourages people to use their cellphones in waiting spaces in the hospital to engage in anonymous collaborative travel through sending text messages of destinations to a 3D model of the earth. I will demonstrate how to create visualizations using the Lively web-based authoring system and show how simple it is to start engaging with crowds in public spaces using phones as a social mediator.


About the Artist::


Jonah Brucker-Cohen (b. Washington D.C., 1975) is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Networked Culture at Lehman College/CUNY in New York City. He received his Masters from ITP, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU and his Ph.D. in the Disruptive Design Team of the Networking and Telecommunications Research Group (NTRG), Trinity College Dublin.


In his work, Brucker-Cohen challenges people’s assumptions of what they perceive or take for granted, specifically examining the mass usage of computers and networks. He interrogates how networks integrate into existing architecture and social patterns outside of traditional computer interfaces, through bringing together people that might not have connected in a physical space.


His work has been exhibited at events and organizations such as DEAF; London Science Museum; Art Futura; Transmediale; Institute of Contemporary Art in London; Tate Modern; Whitney Museum of American Art’s ArtPort; Ars Electronica; Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art; Chelsea Art Museum; ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Palais Du Tokyo, Paris.



ABOUT THE EXHIBITION: Invisible Threads: Technology and its Discontents