Introduction

The Hyde Park Visual History Project, developed by artist Matthew Slaats, is a community‐centered artistic project that engages the elaborate evolution of the local landscape and its inhabitants through images and sound. Serving as a dynamic meeting point for the community, the arts, and the history of Hyde Park, NY, the project builds an understanding of place through donated images, home movies, film, and audio. The collected visual and auditory material will be presented at significant sites in the community throughout the summer of 2009, culminating in an installation at the historic Hyde Park Drive In Theatre. For these installations, images of the past and present will meld into brilliant moments of color, all of which is supported by a sound track developed from recordings of children describing their hometown. Audience and environmental movement will control this interactive installation, becoming the driving force for the installation.

Project Description

Residing on the Hudson River, the Town of Hyde Park has a played a significant role in the history of the United States as the home of many important families, primarily the Roosevelts and Vanderbilts. It is this history that is the foundation of the area and extends to the entire nation. Yet history moves forward, and with these families having now left the area, others are left to build upon their immense legacy. It is this engagement between the past and the present, which the Hyde Park Media Project focuses its attention. The objective being to illustrate the relevance of the present along side the past, and give significance to the exchange that takes place between these periods of time.

Conceived as a public art installation, taking place at the historic Hyde Park Drive in Theatre, the Hyde Park Visual History Project serves as a dynamic meeting point for the community, the arts, and the history of Hyde Park, New York. By gathering visual and auditory material from local residents, the project uses a community‐centered approach to understanding the complexity of context in America. Then further exploring these intricacies through the direct integration of the media into the landscape, using motion capture software, projection and speakers to allow the media and the environment to dynamically converse with each other. This interaction signifies the complex impact that people have on place and that a place has on people.

The significance of this project is that it creates a space for conversation between people. By beginning with a shared history, it builds upon a dialogue that has been taking place between people for some time. The objective being to show how these interests continue to remain meaningful to all. The project also places value on the multiplicity of voices that make up the local community. May these be young or old, male or female, black or white, inclusion is open to all that are willing to participate.

As a contribution to the arts, the Hyde Park Media Project extends a conversation about participation that has been taking place in the arts over the last twenty years. This focuses on art being a shared physical interaction between the artist, their audience and the medium. It is based in a belief that an experience only has meaning is if you are given the authority to be involved in defining that experience. When you define this experience yourself, it carries substance far beyond the moment. This is an art of inclusion, where the artist facilitates an experience that the user defines. This is the foundation of the Hyde Park Media Project and the contribution it has to the arts.