At the heart of Liminal is the quest to explore your own position, physically and culturally.
Liminal is concerned with interactions between the city, new media, technologies and cultural diversity. Information architectures share similarities with the architectures of cities, of institutions and bureaucracies and of the corporation and the state. How might the architectures of information be implicated in the power relations of communities? The visual capacities of new media provide the potential to platform a range of voices although this involves the cross-cultural negotiation and the forging of new forms of identities.
Liminal provides an opportunity to explore questions of boundary through the ‘body’ of Rivington Place. Its architect, David Adjaye, suggests that the spaces within the building should exist in a non-hierarchical relationship with each other. Liminal also engages with the street and the wider public sphere as a continuum with the building.
In many instances, the traditional positions for the viewer or audience of the art installation are eroded as their very presence or participation directly contributes to how it is received, not just in that instance but also how the work continues to evolve over the course of the exhibition’s duration. They are in effect quite literally experiencing and authoring the artwork at the same time. Furthermore, this can happen intentionally or involuntarily. This kind of interaction is not the sole preserve of digital media but it does afford the viewer the unique position of actively participating in the production of meaning that can be directly experienced and distributed.
At the heart of Liminal is the siting of production within Rivington Place, which is led by Iniva’s youth advisory board (the INIvators) in collaboration with artists, students from London Metropolitan University and visitors. This work will be shown alongside other work, disrupting the conventional power relations of production usually associated with visual arts practice.
The works shown in Liminal explore questions in relation to the city that arise from the visual arts practice of the contributing artists. The talks, presentations, performances and workshops in the public programme extend this dialogue and offer the opportunity for input by other artists, other professionals and all individuals who wish to engage in this exploration of the urban experience.
Iniva gives thanks to the following organisations for their kind support of Liminal:
Department of Applied Science at London Metropolitan University, John Cass School of Art Media & Design, the London Metropolitan University Art & Design Research Capability Fund, Mac Consultants, The Phnom Penh French Cultural Centre and Vertigo Magazine.