Recently, I have been working with Dan and Bevan to build an interactive public art piece, Thought Follows Action, to be displayed in front of the Armory at TEDx Somerville.

We’re bringing public art to TEDx, and are excited to share it with you. TEDx has been an inspiring initiative, to take the energizing ideas and format of TED and decentralize to make it local focused and charge up communities.

At New American Public Art, we love the idea that Public Space can be used as a medium of conversation and discourse through interactive art.

This piece is PUBLIC. So even if you don’t have a pass to the event, you are still invited to come explore the work, tell us your thoughts, and even better, tell us what you’re excited to see grow around Somerville.

The piece will be right outside the Somerville Armory, 191 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA, on March 4th, 2012, from 10am to 6:30 pm.

What excites me in particular about this piece is that it provides an interface between conference attendees and anyone in the public who wishes to participate, regardless of whether or not they have a ticket, opening up the discourse of the conference by making it more accessible.  It is in the public space, so anyone can go to it.

I love thinking about the intersection of art and community- in particular how art can be used to grow a community.  In this case, we’re creating a piece at the entrance of the event, inviting attendees, people passing by, and those  who heard of the piece, to come play with it.  This is something people can interact with together, this is something that can generate conversations opening up a platform to share other ideas and projects.

For more information: Facebook event page, new american public art, tumblr page.