exhibitions in NY closing soon!

Shulea Cheang is one of the original Paper Tiger collective. She currently resides on the road, making installations and creating happenings all over the world. This time she has created an elaborate venue for mpg music files: bumper tea cups! Don't miss this spectacular show at the Chelsea Art Museum.
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TURNSTYLE
Zulma Aguiar was an undergraduate student of mine at UC San Diego. She is currently an MFA candidate at RPI. Her thesis show is showing uptown on 106th street.
MediaNoche
161 East 106th Street, First Floor
New York, NY 10029
(212)828-0401
info@medianoche.us
www.medianoche.us
“Turnstyle”
A transnational, interactive installation by Zulma Aguiar
December 14, 2006 - February 2, 2007

Recreating the experience of crossing the U.S. - Mexico border is by its very nature controversial and new media artist Zulma Aguiar plunges waist deep into the fray with her interactive video installation Turnstyle.

As any tourist, day laborer, businessman, or immigrant (legal and illegal) will attest, these border crossings run North and South. Turnstyle cleverly delivers the style of each side through the persona of its border agents who are portrayed by the Mexican American artist herself. According to the Aguiar, “One is María and the other is Maria. The Mexican guard’s name has an accent over the “i.” When I play the American border agent, I am portraying my American self. When I play the Mexican one, I am steeped in my Mexican identity. The same white-gloved hand waves people through and keeps them from entering.”

Turnstyle represents the reality of border crossing as a transnational experience, where both sides are patrolled by Mexicans or their descendants, exploding popular myths about any simple white/brown dichotomy. In an urban landscape unfamiliar with border life, Aguiar reconstructs an emblematic turnstile through which visitors pass back and forth, under the encouragement or harsh scrutiny of the border agents.

Zulma Aguiar is a new media artist from Calexico, California. She is a Masters in Fine Arts candidate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where she collaborated with Aeronautical Engineer Rafael Antonio Irizarry and Max MSP/Jitter Artist Johnathan Lee Marcus to create an interactive installation based on her U.S. - Mexico border experience.

MediaNoche is a project of PRDream and is located in Spanish Harlem, just blocks away from Museum Mile. By subway, take the IRT#6 train to 103rd Street and walk north along Lexington Avenue to 106th Street. Turn right on 106th Street. MediaNoche is on the north side of the street, in the middle of the block. Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 3PM – 7PM.