Michael Hoyt

Poho Posit, 2012

My south Minneapolis neighborhood is full of active, civically engaged residents; an assemblage of attentive eyes and ears. Every day, via a 846-member online forum, people report and discuss a multitude of things that happen in and around the neighborhood: a string of garage break-ins, a lost turtle, gang graffiti, a formerly-missing tabby named “Fozner,” now found, the attempted abduction of a minor, free sheetrock and shelving units, gun shots echoing through dark alleys, group yoga instruction in a park, and a garage sale!

Because this is the community in which I live and work, the forum topics have fueled my curiosity and enticed me to participate in some way.  I was lured to the specific locations mentioned in the posts because I wanted to “see” and experience where these events were happening.  This survey has led me to create an ongoing series of hand-painted stop motion videos of specific events gleaned from the online forum.

Creating video-paintings and posting them on the online forum has become a way for me to internalize and process the information I gather online and at each physical location, as well as to participate in the community dialogue as a neighbor and artist. The video-paintings are a re-presentation of the reported events. They posit a visual sequence of accounts that exists somewhere between reported facts and fabrications.  They add to the broader community dialogue by elevating everyday occurrences through beauty and a meditated response that, in turn, introduces a divergent vernacular.

Over the past decade, my work has evolved to take on the form of sound and/or sculptural installations and situations in which public participation is a key component. This project brings me back to my roots as a painter, while challenging me to incorporate new media and digital technology.  I am captivated by the possibilities of merging a pre-industrial craft (painting) with networked digital technologies (coding).  Introducing “slow media” into a hyper media world obliterates the fleeting nature of an online forum, and stretches the timeline for discussion and rumination.

This project has developed as an ongoing creative endeavor that will span several years. It is exhibited simultaneously in several interdependent formats: as a physical installation which incorporates an interactive map kiosk, as the website www.pohoposit.com, and as visible markers posted throughout the neighborhood at locations portrayed in the video-paintings.

Biography

b. 1970, Northfield, MN
works Minneapolis, MN

For nearly 20 years I have worked as an artist in two distinct modes. One involves creating art objects and public art projects and exhibiting them in conventional arts and cultural venues. The other involves designing, implementing, and embedding arts integrated youth development programs in non-traditional arts institutions. These have included neighborhood development programs, homeless youth drop-in centers, youth employment programs, and nonprofit social service agencies.

I have been fortunate to exhibit artwork and produce public art across a wide range of communities and venues. Reaching new audiences in unexpected ways through art is important to me. Whether I’m working with a gathering of ice fishers in the suburban Midwest, tourists in Waikiki, financial executives on their lunch break, rural Minnesotans, or Twin Cities homeless youth, I believe my work is most successful when it actively engages diverse groups of people in meaningful creative exchange.

He writes about his work

I seek to establish new and unique creative methodologies that push boundaries for what, why, and how art engages diverse public participants. I seek challenges to examine art and the social role of artists as well as being a vehicle for aesthetic representation. In the past decade, my work has taken on the form of environments, installations and situations that invite the public to freely participate, when presented. Although I earned a BFA in drawing and painting, I attribute this tendency to my previous work as a theatrical set designer. I am driven by the possibilities of simultaneously producing art objects, creating a platform for facilitating unique shared experience, and connecting diverse and often nontraditional art audiences.

His proposal is for

I wish to develop, explore, and engage in a formalized, dialogical art process with residents from the Powderhorn park neighborhood through an online neighborhood forum. I’ve recently grown intrigued by the frequency of interaction on an online neighborhood forum, and began participating in regular forum dialogues. This is a space/place where 584 members currently share and exchange ideas, opportunities, and concerns about the community in which they live. I’m interested in creating and injecting of a series of digital files that are handmade renderings, as a mode of online response. I want to use art as a tool to map, organize, and add to the report of significant place based events, as determined by the neighborhood residents actively communicating online.

Links

THE POHO SURVEILLANCE PROJECT: (works in progress) Paintings/videos from specific South Minneapolis locations in which something significant happened as reported by residents through an online neighborhood forum.

Poho Surveillance1
2011
oil paint, digital video
1 min.

Poho Surveillance2
2011
oil paint, digital video
1 min.

Poho Surveillance3
2011
oil paint, digital video
1 min.

Tagging
2011
oil paint, digital video
1 min.

Chickens
2011
Oil paint, digital video
1 min.