This work by Garrett Lynch is a durational event that makes connections between people based on their visit to an exhibition 'site' (physical or online), their participation in and assumed interest in art. The event is performed through email and documented online. Visitors send an email to an address that is provided on a postcard at the exhibition, stating their name in the subject and a few lines about themselves and their interest in art in the body. Their information becomes the work's content, their act of participation its subject matter and the work as an event comes into being.

Each participant is matched randomly with another. They are encouraged to connect through email. Only participants names, introductory texts and match are displayed online. Email addresses are only shared by email with others who have participated. In this way the work as event facilitates and is a temporary network of proximal, 'real' or 'virtual', activity and interest. The work continues until no postcards remain and thereafter becomes inactive with the online component remaining as documentation of the created network.

This work has been supported by Peripheral Forms as part of the exhibition Real Virtuality The Networked Art of Garrett Lynch and is made using the superb Vis.js visualization library.

To participate in this work you must visit one of the following galleries from February 1st 2018:

Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Bannister Gallery (Rhode Island, USA), Centro ADM (Mexico City, Mexico), Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico City, Mexico), Gallery XY (Olomouc, Czech Republic), Gedok (Stuttgart, Germany), Guest Room (North Carolina, USA), Human Ecosystems (Rome, Italy), Kunst Museum (Stuttgart, Germany), Laboratorio Arte Alameda (Mexico City, Mexico), la Maison de l’Amérique latine (Paris, France), Le Wonder (Bagnolet, France), MUTE (Lisbon, Portugal), NYU Art Gallery (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), Open Signal (Portland, USA), Plymouth Arts Centre (Plymouth, England), The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art (Plymouth, England), Transfer Gallery (New York, USA), Upfor Gallery (Portland, USA), Watermans (London, England), Wilhelmspalais (Stuttgart, Germany), WOWA (Riccione, Italy), ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe, Germany)

At any of these locations locate a postcard for the work and email the address provided on the card as follows:

1. Use your name (full or first) as the emails subject and write a few lines introducing yourself and your interest in art in the emails body.
2. You will receive a confirmation email and once matched with another user an email providing you with a means to contact them.

NOTE: email addresses are stored for this work in encrypted format and are not used or forwarded for any other purpose. Participants only receive three emails from the network at most.

The network of participants can be viewed on this webpage. To explore the work and use it with your mouse, keyboard or touchscreen device:

Navigate or move

Click or touch anywhere, hold and drag or use the arrow buttons in the interface.

Zoom in/out

Use a mouse scroll wheel, page up (⇞/PgUp) and down (⇟/PgDn) keys on a keyboard or the + and - buttons in the interface.

Node/link details

Hover for preview information. Click or touch for full information.

Move nodes

Click or touch a node, hold and drag.

Reset

Click or touch the reset button in the interface.