portfolio Conceptual Work

eyespoke.com

An interactive internet project, eyespoke.com, was launched 2004. In it, Valerie provided an open-ended visual network that invited participants to engage in a visual discourse.

There were four rules for participation, the most important was each contribution had to be visual and relate in some obvious way to the proceeding image. The initial image, Leonardo da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari, functioned as a ‘statement’ image and was offered as the hub of the network. Four preliminary ‘response’ images were posted on the orthogonal axes of Leonardo’s hub image. The network branched out from each of these four points in a linear fashion so that any contribution could be traced back to the initial Leonardo image.

A constantly updated overview was presented as a way to track the user generated network. Allard contributed one of the initial four images and regularly participated in active branches. Most of the contributors posted a simple statement/reaction response however; some did begin to submit visual variations on the proceeding image in the ‘conversation.’

Site structure, parameters of project, and supplemental material for inter-active instructional modules in design and art theory created by Valerie Allard and James MacDougall, site built by the design studio of James MacDougal, Ottawa, Canada with PHP programming provided by David Kisly. Participation and exhibited ‘conversation’ were visible on the internet, and documentation was shown at Pleiades Gallery, NY, 2005.

Vorate.com

Vorate.com, launched in 2005, was an ironic look at a relationship between consumerism and intellectual property.

The company’s mission was to help form and strengthen connections between the initial user keyword typed and the user’s intended expression.

Vorate’s product, EMCK, was a search engine add-on. EMCK offered any user the ability to enter accurate keywords in order to directly find the user’s intended destination by filtering their search through user generated networks and demographics rather than dictating priority of listing through user traffic and purchase.

Vorate.com was internet visible, and a legal LLC. Patent was pending on EMCK, publicity was generated for it, and it was presented to the top search engines for a potential initial sit-down meeting. Documentation exhibited in Pleiades Gallery, 2007.