Technology and Urban Environment
Transvoyeur/Media Noche Intervention

Kofi Fosu Forson

The video intervention Gender, Art, Space & Architecture based on the co-effort by Transvoyeur and Media Noche in Spanish Harlem’s White Park was an exercise in technology interacting with the urban landscape.

Much is attributed to the gentrification of Harlem. Spanish Harlem has envisioned a sensibility bordering modernity within the landscape. As an urban environment it justifies the presence given by Media Noche. With respect to its dedication towards media/technology and video art, Media Noche is the link between an abandoned people and the progress needed in the articulation and intellectualizing of urban planning.

Transvoyeur as a cultural initiative prepares the dialogue and conference of art between a variety of artists in countries around Europe and State side. Its founder Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney has placed herself at the core of varying policies that affect the maneuverability of the discourse between artists in Liverpool and elsewhere.

The intent of curators like Gaynor and Jo Derbyshire, also present in Liverpool, her When The City Speaks… is a cultural trail through every major city and its influence given its history and locale, eventually defines with fine art, music and text, the originality of each and every individual.

Kofi Fosu and Daiva Gauryte were the artists featured in this exchange program. Kofi is a displaced artist from Ghana living in New York and Daiva, currently residing in Liverpool, originally from Lithuania. The international relevance of this project echoed through the stark streets of this neighborhood. White Park is a stream of solid white including the wall on which the video was shown.

Technologically, it affected the solidity of the environment giving it an intended jolt of spontaneity. The video itself is a necessary mark, intercepting on the logic found in the evening. Such is the celebration of modern language. The quality with which the video was edited points at originality, by standard allowing for features such as multiplicity of color, capturing phrases in text with familiar font and a unique use of sound.

It’s a brilliant exercise in the use of modern technology and how given its use can lay claim on societal semiotics and urban environment. This intervention at White Park promotes an international dialogue and the celebration of culture and language.