USA Projects

I’m seeking support for the completion of an interactive, multi-layered, web-based artwork exploring the concept of baggage in its many senses – physical, intellectual, and emotional. This is the final component of my latest work Baggage Allowance.  I’m planning for an official launch in June, 2011.

Baggage Allowance is an inter-media work comprised of three inter-related components: a full-evening length, solo multi-media performance work, a gallery exhibition of interactive media installations, and an interactive web portal.  I completed and premiered the performance and installation works in 2010, and I’m now working on the completion of the final phase: an interactive web portal where the piece can live on indefinitely.

I use images, objects, sounds, and fragments of text from interviews I did with many people about their baggage experiences, and I draw on my own extensive traveling experiences to tease out and explore issues of attachment, possession, and the ball & chainness of hauling possessions all over the world.

The media installation was shown (January through April 2010) in a four-month solo exhibition at the Krannert Museum in Illinois, and the performance had it’s world premiere (May 2010) at Z Space@Theater Artaud in San Francisco, and it’s New York premiere (September 2010) at the Kitchen in Manhattan. I have plans to tour the performance and show the installation pieces at other venues in the future, but I’m now focusing on completing the interactive web portal in time for a public launch in June of 2011.  This web site is not merely documentation or information about the performance and installation work, but rather an online work of art that will provide a real experience for the visitor.  In other words, like the installation and performance iterations, this will be an actual way to experience the piece.

Completion of the web portal will require a lot of additional design and programming to make the interactive aspects of it work well so that the piece is fully adapted to the web medium. For you, the visitor to the site, I am striving to create an experience in which you can completely lose yourself. People spend an increasing amount of their time on the web, so I’m intent on building a web experience that is extremely rich and engaging.  My hope is to stretch the limits of the web medium with this piece, so that your exploration and interaction will echo that of a really effective gallery experience. There are some spaces in this online work where surprises are revealed by just exploring, and places where the visitor can contribute to and manipulate content of the work. The previous components of Baggage Allowance (the performance and the installation) were designed to provoke thought, spark memories, and engender reflection about baggage and attachment in their own way. I want this web version of the piece to do this as well, and remain available so that people can spend as much or as little time with it as they like and return freely for more visits.

I need your support to pay for many hours of programming and editing sounds and images, as well as fees for an additional programmer and web consultant to help me adapt some of what I’m doing to make it viable on all the current platforms such as browsers native to iPads and other portable devices. Your support will make possible the completion of this work in a version that will remain available indefinitely to visitors worldwide. One of many perks you’ll receive for supporting the work is having your name listed, spoken, and/or sung on the interactive credits page of the site. Thank you for showing interest in my work and, if you’re able to make a contribution, thank you for your generosity.