Odd Spaces, 2008-2010

Faisal Anwar - Toronto, Canada

Real-time, interactive installation

Odd Spaces is a real-time multi-disciplinary installation that engages the spaces of human interactions. This project seeks to connect people separated by geography and social and cultural status by using new technologies to help facilitate their exchange. Using multiple projectors, screens, and locations, the task of linking an assortment of people and places becomes an almost seamless act. Yet despite the use of large-scale audio-visual networks, the people connected by it are far from familiar to the idioms, social gestures and practices of those they are interacting with. Odd Spaces attempts to show the unease that can arise through technologically mediated interactions. This dynamic is made all the more provocative by the places and spaces this project seeks to connect. Situated in Toronto and Karachi, Pakistan, these backdrops present a contemporary understanding of the people and cultures that have been conditioned to accept the differences that have alienated them from each other. Odd Spaces reminds us that while we may be separated by the conventions of our own society and identity, new technologies can be used to work against such barriers and bring to light the social norms that work behind the screens.

Collaborator: Randy Horton -- Toronto, Canada

Faisal Anwar is a new media artist and producer with a diverse background in theatre, film, media and interactive art, and graphic design. He is the founder of DigitalDip, an interactive art and design studio. Anwar is interested in creating multiple participatory experiences in shared spaces and distance environments.

Suitable for all ages

In association with VASL Artists' Collective Pakistan

Thank you to:
The Centre for Creative Communications, Centennial College