(This and below) Jesse Bransford, 43.646944º, -79.378611º →, 2008, Dimensions variable, Latex paint and graphite on wood structure, site specific installation at Brookfield Place for the Luminato Festival of Arts, Culture and Creativity, Toronto (Destroyed).
"Most architecture is taken for granted - we have been living in modified spaces for so long that we rarely question the conventions of the spaces we make for ourselves - we forget that these spaces are built by people. Every time I make a new piece I have to remember this.
That said, I think there has been a radical shift over the last 20 years in how we conceive space. Not that the spaces we move through have changed so much, but we have changed, our experience of space has changed and the tools and interfaces have changed.
I am of course going to invoke virtual spaces and the ever growing presence of these virtualized spaces in our consciousness. If you haven’t looked at your home address in google maps or an equivalent service yet, I highly recommend it. Seeing your home or apartment building zoom into focus from a larger perspective recalls the prophesy of a global consciousness, or an awareness of the world as a finite structure first spoken of in the 60’s when we first saw the Earth from space. These visualizations at our fingertips are becoming structures that we use to navigate in real space. Maps are literally overlaid upon our real space and become an interface just as ‘real’ as what we see with our own eyes. Indeed, I find myself relying more on the maps of spaces I interact with than the signs and signals the streets give me.
Something that comes into sharp focus when I think about these ideas is what, after all the hi resolution images and maps, remains hidden. You as a viewer, though implied in every event you attend, are the intangible. I suppose that is why I have sought to link the mysteries of the work I’ve made for the festival specifically to the viewer. This piece is even less than half a work without you. If you’re standing in the piece, you are at the Global Positioning System coordinates 43.646944°, -79.378611°. The ‘art’ of this piece is more in what you do with what has been given, and how you react to what is not given."
GPS Locations indicated in the Mural.
Two of the GPS Locations with Caches in place.
