Millennium Artist:
Andrea Polli
Digital Media Installation and Performance Artist
Illinois
E-mail: apolli@interaccess.com
Web site: http://homepage.interaccess.com/~apolli

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

With today's fast-moving world, we often forget to stop to experience the beauty of life. Through her Artists & Communities residency with the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, interdisciplinary electronic artist Andrea Polli sought to help people remember to enjoy each moment of the Millennium year. Polli's residency began in July 2000 and concluded in September.

The concept for Polli's residency grew from several past artistic projects she developed with teenagers, focusing on the definition of "community" in the age of cyber-technology. In these projects, the young people explored how to use computer graphics and multimedia to express their understanding of their surroundings, their history, and their identity.

Contradicting the notion that burgeoning technology is causing our alienation from the world and from each other, Polli's residency with the Department of Cultural Affairs encouraged participants from all walks of life and neighborhoods of Chicago to use technology to experience the lives, thoughts, and feelings of their fellow residents.

In discussing her work, Polli commented, "...I believe that free access to the mastery of communications technology allows people from diverse places to come together without homogenization, and that this fact is quickly changing everyone's sense of community. I work…on empowering people with a public voice using current technological tools."

During the initial phase of Polli's residency, people across the city were invited to stop their everyday activities and dwell in that moment - the "now." The overall project, titled pause, was broadly structured around the five senses subtitled taste, listen, touch, breathe, and look. Participants were videotaped as they responded to questions about how this moment in time related to themselves, their family, their community, Chicago as a whole, and the world.

Images and quotes from the video interviews were then featured on a series of graphic billboards used to promote participation in pause. Prominently posted throughout Chicago, each focused on a different resident whose life was affected by one of the senses associated with the project.

Five community organizations around Chicago went on to serve as broadcast sites for the project, providing opportunities for more people to interact and respond to the pause themes. A pause Web Site was also constructed, featuring the original video interview clips and providing visitors 'real time' access to interaction at the five broadcast locations.

ARTIST BIO

Andrea Polli is an interdisciplinary artist with specific interest in interactive media whose video installations have been mounted nationally and internationally, supported by performances, lectures, and broadcasts.