John Henry Thompson

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Clive Davis Gallery, 370 Jay Street · Feb – Mar 2024

Storefront installation · Downtown Brooklyn

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Six-screen storefront installation. Passers-by use their phones to navigate 365 short videos of Black American history.

Storefront installation at 370 Jay Street: a hand-lettered POWER TO THE PEOPLE! sign and large digital monitors showing Black-history video content.
Watch the installation on YouTube

POWER TO THE PEOPLE! is based on the desire by ITP Faculty John Henry Thompson to invite members of the Downtown Brooklyn community to be curious about and engage with the interactive art developed at ITP. John Henry Thompson's installation gives the passing public the power to engage with the installations through their personal devices.

In celebration of Black History for the month of February 2024 through March 2024, ITP Professor John Henry Thompson, in collaboration with Ken Granderson, presents an interactive multi-screen work featuring a meticulously curated set of 365 short-form educational videos. These videos document and uplift Black American history and can be found on blackfacts.com, where a nugget of African American history and culture is highlighted each day of the year.

In groundbreaking new technology developed by Professor Thompson, viewers passing by on the street or entering the lobby can use their phones to control the blackfacts.com content on any one of six large digital monitors. By scanning the QR code on any of the monitors, viewers can use their phones as a type of "remote control" to navigate through the 365 Black Facts videos, and have the content they choose show up on the screen of their choice.

Credits

NYU-ITP
Dan O'Sullivan, Rob Ryan, Marlon Evans, Tyler Peppel, Shindy Johnson
Documentation
Charlton D. McIlwain and Usheevii King, Center for Faculty Advancement
Video crew
Jonathon Valle, Cesar Rodriguez
blackfacts.com
Ken Granderson

Medium

Six-screen installation

Venue

Clive Davis Gallery, 370 Jay Street

Role

Concept · Software · Installation

Read the full piece on NYU Tisch ITP News

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