image: lisa kelly

1. The ‘Smile’ Installation Synopsis
Stuart Simpson questions the meaning of simple, everyday experiences such as taking holiday snaps and the performance of the smile in Smile: Formaggio con Queso a digital installation. Simpson uses real life data collected from his own field trips for databases of video, sound composition and spoken dialogue through which he produces random digital art. The Smile installation, a triptych of projection and surround sound uses a computer network to house the database and computer programming to randomly select the sound and image components. His use of chance combinations generates new and unexpected meanings about modern life. Smile: Formaggio con Queso shows a slice of life caught by digital technology in which public and private lives collide. Combined with an exhibition of still documentation by photographer Lisa Kelly, visitors are also able to interact with the digital components of Smile and examine diaries, notes and maps from a field trip around Europe in the Smile Kiosk.

2. Single Screen Interactive Kiosk
A kiosk has also been created to include all the meta-data. This consists of a single computer that contains all the database installation files along with maps, still images and texts written during and after the trip. The kiosk will essentially allow the public to ‘play’ with the components giving them the opportunity to explore different combinations reflexively. For most people the experience of each minute of sound and vision will be the first and last time they experience it. The installation piece will be constantly changing and will never be the same. However, the kiosk will allow the public access to the whole allowing the artistic process to become transparent.

3. Photographic Exhibition
Accompanying the installation is a photographic exhibition of images from the fieldtrip; its process, the participants involved and artistic responses to each of the locations and spaces. These photographs were created by Lisa Kelly who was also the production manager during the trip. The exhibition amounts to forty two framed photographs of varying sizes; from A6 to 1A. Each framed image is referenced by the x and y co-ordinates on the map from where the image was taken. This meta-data is connected to each image and is accessed by inputting these co-ordinates into the search function of the kiosk. The viewer can obtain further information about each image such as where and when it was taken; visually seeing that data on maps contained within the kiosk database. This strategy is useful as an educational tool for groups of young people and adults alike.

Download Smile Information PDF Pack