During the 2014 TEDMED conference at The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Souther Salazar was invited to paint a large canvas as part of a special interactive project called: The Imagine Wall. Creating a unique opportunity to visualize progress, The Imagine Wall incorporated the artist’s interpretations of Twitter responses to the question: “How would you imagine a healthier world?”
The screen in the photo above displays a grid of animated gifs documenting the two artists while painting selected user-submitted tweets. Check it out online, right HERE.
PROJECT SYNOPSIS: The Imagine Wall is an interactive social art wall that depicts a "healthier world" created from user-submitted tweets. Users at both locations and at home tweet their answers to "How do you imagine a healthier world?" using the hashtag #TEDMEDImagine. The artists in both locations pull their favorites from the Twitter feed to incorporate into their depiction of a healthier world. If a tweet is chosen, producers onsite video the artist, compress it into a time lapse GIF and retweet it to the submitter so they can see their idea coming to life. Artists Andrew Rae and Souther Salazar were chosen for their fantastic imagination, spatial composition, and attention to detail. Although both were tasked with the same materials and given the same tweets, their creative output varies wildly demonstrating that when imagination is applied the end result can be unexpected and beautiful. The Imagine Wall connects the coasts, expands the experience of TEDMED, and activates the TEDMED community not in attendance. The final finished pieces represent a healthier world, imagined by TEDMED, through the lens of the artists.
* Photos courtesy of TEDMED and Veronica Reo of TBWAChiatDay.
