I am working with New York-based artist Angie Eng on her project, Urban Attractors, Private Distractors with Eyebeam. My introduction to Angie and her work was in 2003 with the Transhumance project, with Charles Lim of Singapore making the introduction. For this project, I will be facilitating the Ho Chi Minh City side of things.

If the pychogeographics of a city can reveal the values and behavior of its inhabitants then it could offer insight on how these cultures interact in virtual space.

Urban Attractors and Private Distractors is about the idea of experiencing privacy in public from an Eastern perspective. In the Asian communist city urban architecture has less distinction from outside/inside and private/public. Participants compare results from derives (Situationists) in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and New York City.

How is a city constructed in a culture where the inhabitants have little experience of a private physical space? Do they adapt more readily to cyberspace that is both private/public simultaneously? Organized derives in both places, (HCMC, and NYC) will commence January-March 2007. Participants will post image/text/sound/video as urban indicators of private and/or public. The data will be combined with images of the fountain- a typical public urban attractor on billboard maps that retrace the routes of the derives.

An accompanying video installation will be exhibited in conjunction with the vblog. The structure which will hold these public/private indicators will mimic the information placards often found in city squares and main meeting points to indicate where you are. For the installation 5-6 of these signs approximately 4’ X 5’ will suspend from above with projections of the maps and video. Visitors who enter the space will be required to put on a set of matching pajamas over their clothes. Therefore the visitors become active participants and a component of the installation by representing the private distractors present in the Eastern City.

Information
+ Urban Attractors, Private Distractors
+ Angie Eng
+ Eyebeam