Sheldon Brown’s project for INSITE97, Mi casa es tu casa/My House Is Your House, was a networked virtual reality environment installed at the Children’s Museum/Museo de los Niños in San Diego and the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City. Providing an interactive space for children to play and explore, the project used innovative computer technology to connect the environments in both cities to allow children to participate in the construction of a virtual house. Both rooms were equipped with costumes and tools to build the house, and as children moved through the room, they could watch their virtual body double mirroring their actions. Brown’s project imparted notions of home, nation, heritage, and cultural construction through child’s play.
Curators: Jessica Bradley, Olivier Debroise, Ivo Mesquita, and Sally Yard
Venues: Children’s Museum/Museo de los Niños, San Diego; Centro Nacional de de las Artes, Mexico City
Academic Senate, University of California, San Diego (UCSD); The Thomas Ackerman Foundation; AT&T: New Experiments in Art & Technology (AT&T: NEAT); Harry Castle, computer programming; Cole's Carpet, San Diego; Coordinación Nacional de Desarrollo Cultural Infantil, CNCA Alas y Raíces a los Niños; Cox Communications; Fundación Cultural Bancomer; Home Depot, Sports Arena Boulevard, San Diego; Center for the Humanities, UCSD; Wendell Kling, interface construction; Kingston, Inc; Mexican Consulate in San Diego; Multigen, Inc, USA; Ryan McKinley, software design; Praja Inc, USA; John Reed, interface construction; Leah Roschke; The Schoepflin Foundation; Sensormatic Video, USA; Silicon Graphics, Inc, USA and México; SONY Corporation; UC-Mexus, University of California; UFO Fabrics, National City; Mandell Weiss Charitable Trust.