Seek

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, this project will undergo constant modifications; the features of this page provide accruing information on the project’s developments.

On April 30, Institute for New Feeling will begin work on Seek, as part of Recess’s signature program, Session. Session invites artists to use Recess’s public space as studio, exhibition venue and grounds for experimentation.

Over the course of their Session, IfNf will create an installation that offers individuals a clairvoyant reading generated by the misuse of online search engines. For each intimate one-on-one session, a specialist will lead a participant through a series of assessments in order to compile his or her personal video file. This precognitive visualizer will be viewable and also available for purchase in the gallery. Over the course of the month, Recess will exhibit this growing archive of anonymous futures.

Visitors to Recess are invited to meet with a consultant who will guide him or her through a series of simple evaluations, which are called “sensors.” For example, one sensor is a series of questions that are fed into a Google search string to generate prophetic and enigmatic insights. Another sensor introduces a scan of the participant’s body into a Google image search to create a guiding stone orbiting in the visualizer’s field of view…

For centuries, people have been fascinated with devices and strategies that profess to reveal insights about themselves or their future. With seek, IfNf will provide a new type of psychic/medical reading that utilizes the Internet as a source of chance operations. Manifesting a kind of collaged Google oracle, this experience utilizes a spectrum of assessment and divination techniques designed to answer the unanswerable.

Session invites artists to use Recess’s public platform to combine productive studio space with dynamic exhibition opportunities. Sessions remain open to the public from the first day of the artist’s project through the last, encouraging sustained dialogue between artists and audiences. Due to the process-based nature of Session, projects undergo constant revision and the above proposal is subject to change.