This lecture is part of our Meet the Maker series for Postmodernist members and above. To join our membership program, please visit here or call (843) 953-5652.

** Due to the College of Charleston’s plans to mitigate COVID-19, we are holding this event on Zoom. To attend, please RSVP to Melanie Seidel at SeidelME1@cofc.edu

In January 2021, the Halsey Institute will present Geolocation by the artist duo of Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman. Using publicly-accessible geographic data from Tweets, Larson Shindelman track down specific locations where Twitter users were when they posted on social media. Once there, the artists make a photograph from the location, connecting the Tweet—stored on a remote server and readable around the globe—and the physical world. This body of work explores the connection between text and images, digital and analog, and private versus public.

Learn more about Larson Shindelman here: http://www.larson-shindelman.com/

Artist statement from Larson Shindleman:

“We use publicly available embedded GPS information in Twitter updates to track the locations of user posts and make photographs to mark the location in the real world. Each of these photographs is taken on the site of the update and paired with the originating text. Our act of making a photograph anchors and memorializes the ephemeral online data in the real world and also probes the expectations of privacy surrounding social networks.

Twitter estimates there are over 550 million tweets daily, creating a new level of digital noise. Clive Thompson uses the term ambient awareness to describe this incessant online contact in the New York Times Magazine article, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.” According to Thompson, “It is. . . very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does—body language, sighs, stray comments—out of the corner of your eye.” Our collaborative work is a means for situating this virtual communication in the physical realm. We imagine ourselves as virtual flâneurs, ethnographers of the Internet, exploring cities 140 characters at a time through the lives of others.”

Larson Shindelman (American, estab. 2007) have collaborated for the last thirteen years, working over distance and through site-specific projects. Nate Larson and Marni Shindelman’s collaborative practice investigates the data tracks we amass through networked communication. Their work ties the invisible to actual sites, anchoring the ephemeral in photographs and immersive video installations.

Solo exhibitions include the Halsey Institute in Charleston (upcoming, January 2021), George Eastman Museum in Rochester, Pictura Gallery in Indiana, the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida, Light House in Wolverhampton, Blue Sky in Portland, United Photo Industries in Brooklyn, and the Contemporary Arts Center Las Vegas.

Selections from their projects have been shown at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Lithuania, the Denver Art Museum, the Zuckerman Museum of Art in Georgia, the Mint Museum in North Carolina, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas, FotoFest in Houston, the Southeast Museum of Photography in Florida, Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, Masur Museum of Art in Louisiana, the Light Factory in Charlotte, the FotoFestiwal in Poland, the Athens Photo Festival in Greece, the Houston Center for Photography, Baltimore Museum of Art, the Moscow International Biennale in Russia, RAIQ in Montréal, Peloton in Australia, and Conflux Festival in NYC.

Larson Shindelman recently completed site-specific projects for the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, the Dumbo Business Improvement District in New York City, the Indianapolis International Airport in Indiana, Atlanta Celebrates Photography in Georgia, the Digital Arts and Entertainment Laboratory (DAEL) in Georgia, the Format International Photography Festival in the UK, the Walter N. Marks Center for the Arts in California, and Third Space Gallery in New Brunswick. They were recently artists-in-residence at CEC Artslink in Russia, Light Work in Syracuse, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Florida.