reveal codes (2008)
gallery skin (2010-11)
opera gloves (2009)
again (2010)
During Summer 2014 I took a workshop with Joshua Davis wherewe used Processing to create projects activated by the Leap motion
controller. My project animates excerpts from oral histories published
in Studs Terkel's book Working.
My colleague, poet Molly Bendall, wrote a poem a few years ago thatshe published in an ephemeral format: it was etched in fragments on
eight mirrors that were displayed as an assemblage (which has since
been dispersed). I made a digital version that activates the viewer's
Web camera. The differences between the two are striking, with the
Web cam giving the project an invasive, slightly creepy edge that
the original did not have.
A fake fox stole made of store-bought squeak toys.
stolen time (2005, with Raegan Kelly)
"Glyph Arcade" is a series of small games and activities designedin response to Britta Austin's experimental novel Artifacts.
"Gallery Skin" is a tool for arranging, shuffling, and annotatinggroups of 2D images that can be projected at scale on the wall.
GS was inspired by curator Aaron Rose's experiments with
"cluster" displays.
"Again" modifies a traditional memory/matching game ina series of activities inspired by Alison Bechdel's graphic
novel Fun Home. The player examines a small collection
of family photographs from a number of different per-
spectives, racing against the clock.
"Resistance Bursting Test" is one of a trio of electronic books (they lightup when held) made with recycled cardboard boxes, conductive thread,
and LilyPad mainboards, battery packs, switches, and lights.
The "opera gloves" are a pair of vintage cotton glovesequipped with a LilyPad mainboard, battery pack, and
speaker that plays a musical scale.
"Reveal Codes" uses the visual metaphor of a microscope andset of slides to respond interactivey to Jeanette Winterson's
novel Written on the Body. Text excerpts are from Winterson's
book.
In 2008, my undergraduate students were invited to participate in a group showin San Francisco. Watchword Press curated the show, titled "Whole Story 3," at
the Intersection for the Arts gallery, and I made a little booklet documenting
their work.
I made the vibrating toolbelt in an edition of three (this is theprototype version). They were made of old lingerie fabric, metal
corset boning, metal ribbon trim, conductive thread, and a
LilyPad mainboard, battery pack, and vibe pad.
"hide/seek" is an interactive text and image mixer that I madein response to Jim Nelson's short story "A Concordance of
One's Life." I screened an earlier version of the project in a
group show called "Whole Story 2" at The Lab in San Francisco.
The show was curated during the summer of 2007 by Watchword
Press.
"Sequential Radio" is an interactive meditation on the importanceof the radio in Michael Chabon's novel The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier and Clay. Text excerpts are from Chabon's book.
I made this interactive diagram in my very first digital design class, a wonderfulworkshop (or "camp," as it was called) conducted online from MIT. It examines
statistical assessments of job-related illness or injury among US office workers. The
professor pronounced the project "bizarre," and I agreed with her.
Alice Gambrell is Associate Professor of English atthe University of Southern California. She teaches,
writes, and makes experimental projects about
relationships between physical and digital media, and
is particularly interested in mixtures of or points of
contact between the two. Her book in progress,
Making Work, examines below-the-line labor as visible
and invisible presence in a range of art forms that
mark the analog/digital shift.
Gambrell published her first book, Women Intellectuals,
Modernism, and Difference, in the Cultural Margins
series at Cambridge University Press. Her Stolen Time
Archive, a digital collaboration with artist Raegan Kelly,
appeared in the first issue of the electronic journal
Vectors. Gambrell's published research includes essays
on stop motion animation, the history of feminist theory,
fashion journalism, and the pleasures and torments of
office work. She directed USC's Center for Feminist
Research from 2001 - 2004.
selected projects (text)