Pixel Pour (By Kelly Goeller)

Pixel Spout

(By Kelly Goeller — http://www. kellotron.com)

A wonderful instance of hybrid realities. Here, of course, the pixels are materialized through some medium that is not electronic and the hybridity is more about a semantic cross-over from pixel worlds of electronic games to the real world.

Why do I blog this? We normally think of first-life/second-life hybrids, or mixed realities or virtual-physical cross-talk, as connected mixes. For example, augmented realities wherein you see digital overlays through glasses or a screen that are perfectly registered to first-life. As in — hold up this special augmented reality viewer and see digital “heads-up display” indicators of data that has location or place-specific relevance to whatever you are looking at. Hold it up to a supermarket and you can see what the price of milk is inside, or hold it up to an historic building and see tourist information about its historic relevance and stories.

In this example, the cross-talk is completely non-electronic, non-databased, and is all the more compelling for that. It evokes immediately the 8-bit aesthetic and this aspect is whap makes it a “digital” incarnation. Simply wonderful.

If anyone finds out where this is in NYC’s Lower East Side, and who did it — I would be glad to know.

Updates

This just in — evidently it was at 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.

Tagged!
Pixel Pour Tagged

Gone!

Pixel Pour Gone

This is doubly interesting here. Now this spigot — which I think is an exhaust for an underground furnace or boiler, or perhaps a way to off-gas fumes that might accumulate under the sidewalk — is a completely different object — not even what it was before. It looks like a drained tap, not an exhaust vent (or whatever it is “really.”) This is the transformative part of that little provocation. Not to over think this street intervention, but it was truly transformative in the sense that it took a mundane, very ordinary, barely existent object and made it resonant. It was a real disruption — not in the sense of causing consternation or harm, but disruption in the sense of opening a hole in space and re-writing reality.

Brilliant.

Okay, back to the usual grumble..

7 thoughts on “Pixel Pour (By Kelly Goeller)”

  1. I can tell you that this is on 9th street btwn 2nd and 3rd aves, on the back end of NYU’s Barney Building, I believe. I got a pic of it myself: http://flickr.com/photos/hungryghoast/2434571933/
    But as you’ll notice and as with any street-art, it had gotten a little worse for wear (and even tagged by some d-bag unfamiliar with those unwritten laws of the street) by the time i got to it.

    Also, love your examination of this as non-electronic yet electronic reliant cross-talk. I love this sort of stuff.

  2. This is mine. I really appreciate the commentary! It’s my first street art installation ever, so I’m glad it is well liked : ) I usually use pixels in animation-ways, but I thought they looked nice in the east village too.

    -KG

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