ItSpace

ItSpace. © 2008 Peter Traub.

In the first version of ItSpace (2007), artist Peter Traub subverted the convention of the online social network by creating nine profile pages on the web site MySpace that featured everyday objects from his house. Each page had a photo of an object, a description, and, most importantly, a one-minute piece of music composed of recordings of the object being struck and resonated in various ways. The objects were “friends” with each other, and visitors to the site were invited to create new ItSpace pages to friend the existing ones. In the physical version of ItSpace, the original nine objects are brought partly back into the physical world through photographs affixed to backing boards. Each photo board has a push-button embedded in the featured object. When a visitor presses the button, it triggers a one- to two-minute remix of the object’s sounds in real time. No two remixes are the same, and visitors may press multiple buttons and combine objects to create a collage. From an interface perspective, the interactive possibilities are limited by the push-button switches – similar to how interaction and control on a site like Facebook or MySpace is limited within the tightly controlled confines of the commercial social network. In both the online and physical versions of ItSpace, Traub says, “I want visitors to learn something about me that could not fit into the limiting format of a personal profile. Instead, they encounter a collection of objects from where I live and listen to how I treat those objects musically and aesthetically. ItSpace traces connections, imagined and real, between me and these objects in my home, telling the viewer/listener about the space in which I live in a way that language cannot convey.”

ItSpace. © 2008 Peter Traub.