QTVR Panorama QTVR Panorama
			THRESHOLDS: The Arcade Projects Installation views photographed by Maki Tanigaki The project “Thresholds” intends to explore the intersection of the actual and the virtual, to investigate the potentials of technological advancements in modes of production and representation of space and form, and to reveal the full process of its own making from its conception to its realization. THE PRODUCTION OF REPRODUCTION The project ‘Thresholds’ manifests itself in three different constructs based on the principle of superimposition. This principle manifests itself as electrobricollage in construct ‘A’, montage in construct ‘B’, and collage in construct ‘C’. Construct ‘A’ is a site specific, interactive, and multi-media installation planned for 1999-2000. Its constructive principle, electrobricollage is bricolage using electronic media to process and display the work. The operations that define electrobricollage are: 1. Découpage: severing materials from their spatial and temporal contexts; 2. Graft: inserting found or severed materials as figures into a new context causing transformation and mutation of both; 3. Montage: assembling materials from different contexts; 4. Fragmentation: using the effect of technology in modern life to shatter experience into fragments. Construct ‘B’ is an exhibit on display from January through March 1999. This exhibit documents the process of making construct ‘A’, which is designed for the sequential spaces and thresholds of the passageway Gallery in the Market Arcade, by mapping it onto the Arcade itself. The exhibit uses montage as its constructive principle. Construct ‘C’ is this text that is constructed using parallel principles to exhibit ‘B’, and Installation ‘A’. ‘C’ is about ‘B’, which is about ‘A’. PROJECT DESCRIPTION ‘Thresholds’ is about the crossing of reality and virtuality. It choreographs the juxtaposition of real and virtual using movement-studies through space. Images of walking figures (selected works of photographer Eadweard Muybridge) severed from their spatial and temporal contexts are mutated and transformed to explore the interrelationship between figure and ground (the body and the immediate space around it). They are then digitally animated into the specific host context. These analytical and grafted images are projected onto and through a built construct that appropriates the host site and exposes the projections as virtual agents that come in contact with the audience. The linear sequence of thresholds and spaces at the passageway gallery is ruptured by a series of transgressive, virtual thresholds. Each rupture marks the linear sequence with a spatial intersection that permits an experience of the sequence in the dimension of depth. PRESENTATION OF REPRESENTATION This project sets into motion a unique spatial and temporal condition of representation and mode of reception relative to the specifics of the site and the engagements of observers.   Shadi Nazarian studied architectural design and theory at Cornell University (M.ARCH -1989), and architecture and Environmental Design at the University of Minnesota (B.ARCH & B.E.D -1983). She moved to New York City in 1989 to join I.M. Pei & partners as an architectural designer, then to Ithaca, NY to teach at Cornell University and later to Buffalo to teach design studios, criticism, theory, and history of urban form at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has received numerous awards for her architectural design competition entries, and has exhibited her collaborative and solo work internationally. Her current research on representation and perception of space and form includes multi-media installations that explore the intersection of the actual and the virtual as a mode of multi-disciplinary research.