Art & Science Intersections - Pittsburgh styles!

I recently started following The Mattress Factory on Twitter. For those of you not from Pittsburgh, the MF is not what you think (no Sealy Posturpedics here!). MF is a museum that you experience in multiple dimensions with all your senses - you literally walk through the art! Each room in the MF is an installation piece that widen your perception of what a museum can be. From their website:

The Mattress Factory is a museum of contemporary art that exhibits room-sized works called installations. Created on site by artists from across the country and around the world, our unique exhibitions feature a variety of media that engage all of the senses.

Whilst following the MF on twitter, they alerted me to an interesting local art project called Street with a View. Artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley collaborated with the Google Street View team to "blur the lines between fiction and reality" with their documentation of Sampsonia Way on Pittsburgh's North Side. Working with actual community members and the MF (which is on Sampsonia Way) they created and acted out various stories of potential happenings on a neighborhood street. Things like sword fights, band practice, a human ham and a moving van are now all a part of the actual street view option for Sampsonia Way in Pittsburgh (seriously, check it out for yourself). It is a really interesting idea about how art, technology and community can all converge into one statement. Makes me wonder how I would want people to visualize my neighborhood and what stories we could tell through pictures.

Check out this short documentary: The Making of "Street with a View"




If you are visiting Pittsburgh I strongly suggest you check out the MF (along with our other wonderful museums!)