The Drift Relay was a collaborative psychogeographic experience in the form of a 24 hour exploration of San Jose. Participants drifted through new and familiar city spaces with a Glowlab coach and a mobile kit of recording tools, contributing to a collective journey of endurance and discovery. Images from camera phones, audio from voice calls, and location via geocoded addresses sent by SMS documented the experience.

The live website continually broadcast the remote group's location and status and display captured materials in real time throughout the duration of the Drift. Taking the phrase "the city that never sleeps" to heart, participants located the joys and difficulties of documenting ephemeral urban experience.

The ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge & the Thirteenth International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA2006) was held from AUGUST 7-13, 2006 in San Jose, CA.

Drift Relay was created by a group of nine artists working as Glowlab.

Thanks to: Christina Ray . Sarah Pace . Morgan Schwartz . Catherine D'Ignazio . D. Jean Hester . Brian House . Savic Rasovic . Jessica Thompson . Lee Walton

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Drift Relay postcard

Each drift had a coach who led us through drifting exercises.

The project website was continually updated as to location & activities of the drifting group.

We managed to do water acrobatics while appearing to be guests of the hotel.

The Reel President was a public art event comprised of a large-scale video projection that illustrated the power of cinema and examined the tools used to create a presidential image. Artists Morgan Schwartz and Amy Sharp projected video on a wall adjacent to Stuyvesant Cove Park to explore the relationship between acting presidential and being presidential.

The Reel President took place on the evening of Sunday, August 29, the night before the Republican Convention opened at Madison Square Garden. The event offered New Yorkers an open-air cinema experience, with a unique take on the concept of convention. The White House has appropriated the notion of the "President" from Hollywood and employed Hollywood tactics to sell America a constructed image. Sharp and Schwartz used Hollywood films, televised debates and press coverage, to investigate the political climate and the role of still and moving images in the portrayal of the Presidency. Structured by dueling images, The Reel President looked at the relationship between staged identity and reality. The video and sound montage looped, allowing viewers to join at any point. Our approach was to challenge and subvert dominate media by re-purposing it to present an alternative message.

With help from the Community Environmental Center and Solar One, The Reel President was a sustainable production, power usage for the event stemmed from renewable solar electricity.

The video has since gone on to be presented in multiple venues including the 2004 Dumbo Short Film & Video festival, the 2006 Hell's Half Mile Film & Music Festival, the 2007 Delta International Film & Video Festival, and for a special presentation at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The video was also showcased on the website PoliticalRemixVideo.com.

Click to view The Reel President