GEOPOLITICS OF MEDIA

 

PUBLIC SPACE PROJECT

 

 

Artist Statement

 

 

Advice Lounge is a meeting point in two senses — in the real world passers-by can drop in for a spot of non-professional advice on a subject of their choosing; in so doing they take part in a public, participatory performance which is combined with web-based interactive media.

 
Jillian Mcdonald describes her participatory installation Advice Lounge as “a physical incarnation and extension of an existing web-based intervention where I offer free non-professional advice to strangers. I will be present in a public space outfitted with comfortable chairs, quiet looped music, and two laptops. Passers-by will be invited to seek free advice on various matters”.

 
As the participant enters the booth the advice session begins. A contract is signed in order that the participant knows they are agreeing to receive advice of a non-professional nature. The participant and artist take their place at the two computers facing each other or in opposite directions, according to taste, and begin an online advice session, Both artist and participant will be visible to an audience of passers-by outside the lounge, and the Advice Lounge interface will also projected onto a window to entice others to participate. The fact that the two parties communicate through the computer interface rather than viscerally will serve to privatize the experience, despite its public nature, in the manner of confessional or therapist’s office. The piece will exist simultaneously allowing a ‘third’ audience of Internet visitors to participate as well.

 

 

 

 

Jillian Mcdonald (US/CA) is a Canadian-born, Brooklyn-based media and performance artist. She works internationally with video, site-specific public interventions and web-projects, Mcdonald is Assistant Professor of Digital Art at Pace University in New York.
www.MeAndBillyBob.com
www.jillianmcdonald.net