24 / X
Ten students from a broad range of disciplines and backgrounds had 24 hours to create something new.
For years I have been following Rhizome’s Seven on Seven, an annual event at The New Museum in New York City. An ode to Experiments in Art and Technology’s 9 Evenings (1966), Seven on Seven pairs seven technologists with seven artists for 24 hours and asks them to collaborate to make “something new”. After 24 hours the participants present their work to an audience and discuss their experience working together.
I thought the NYU Abu Dhabi campus, where I currently live and work, would be an ideal setting for an iteration of Seven on Seven, particularly because of the diverse mix of students. I approached the NYUAD Interactive Media Program to see if they were interested in co-producing the event with me and together we created 24 / X.
Fifty students applied to participate in 24 / X, out of which ten students were chosen. The students came from a range of years and disciplines. Like Seven on Seven, we chose a theme for the event to help focus the projects; the theme we decided on was “push and pull”.
24 / X took place on February 12-13, 2016 at the NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center. Faculty mentors were also on hand throughout to help guide and facilitate student work. I co-produced, coordinated, and documented the event. I was so proud of the student’s work and how dedicated they were to the challenge. I am currently working on a highlight reel to share - coming soon!
Highlights of the Final Five Projects:
- A site-specific community message board reflecting on the push and pull of sharing personalized information in public spaces.
- A live video mixing performance piece, which used multiple sensors connected to an Arduino and processing (a java framework) to display the video clips. The piece spoke to the push and pull of romantic relationships and the challenges navigating interpersonal communication.
- A web-based interactive story that dealt with the social anxiety and the push and pull of social pressures that student’s regularly deal with every day.
- A physical design intervention that highlighted accessibility issues on campus. The project spoke to the literal push and pull of doors on campus.
- A study of Shibboleth words that have been used historically as a means to grant or deny access often with harsh consequences for the latter. This project spoke to ways in which societies pull certain groups of people into the inner circle while the less fortunate are often pushed to the outskirts.