If you'd like to ....

If you’d like to….(Taos Off-Grid) New installation for THE PASEO by Claire Coté (Questa, NM) & Anna Keleher (Devon, England) Roving interactive sculpture Part pet, part machine, ‘If you’d like to….(Taos Off-Grid)’ is an audio hybrid whose strong adaptive potentials allow it to explore diverse habitats. It guides companions on an imaginative tour of local homelands, challenging habitual, present-day perceptions of where we live, work and play. Based on the familiar phone menu format, participants are invited to listen-in to site-specific options, press a key to register their choice and take an imaginative leap. http://claireandanna.wordpress.com/projects/if-youd-like-to Anna ' We added the Off-Grid theme to the piece for The Paseo. How did it work and how did people respond to it? Claire ¨"The wooden buttons that people are asked to push to register their choices are just a prop to give a physicality to their choice, but everything else happens in their imagination. The piece seems really timely right now because it references exploration and expanded options and technology and yet it isn’t connected to the internet, it isn’t a computer or cell phone. The piece still references the tech world in a kind of tongue and cheek way with its blocky wooden keypad, but instead of “doing something” for the participant it relies on the participants themselves to make the piece “work” with their imaginations, when the words, images and ideas illuminate sensory experiences in their minds. We thought that this particular incarnation was an off-grid version, but it seems that the very nature of the piece holds this off-grid element….. it doesn’t DO anything. Instead it requires people to take an imaginative leap!" Extract from ¨Report from The Paseo¨ Anna Interviews Claire Coté. http://claireandanna.com/2014/10/28/report-from-the-paseo-interview/