Alan Berliner


 

The Language of Names


The Andersen Window Gallery installation included an interactive audio cabinet, a 20-by-24-foot collage, a giant letter-magnet board, and five digital works:

Sign in, Please: A visitor entered his/her name by pushing letters mounted on the wall. Their name was added to an animation displayed above the letters and sent to the next two monitors.

A Name in the Crowd: Each participant was asked to locate their home on a detailed aerial map, identify their race, religion, and nationality, and use that data to plot a representational “dot” on the map.

Keeping up with the Joneses: The viewer spelled his/her name and then saw how it was ranked according to the Social Security Administration’s list of the 55,000 most common surnames in the United States.

Name Calling: Visitors used one telephone to record their stories and another to listen to people sharing their “name stories.”

Fingerprints: Those who signed a small touch screen could watch as their signature was combined with others to create an abstract “video painting.”