Loop-pool II

'Loop-pool II' was a public art event. Whilst Loop-pool [http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/1591/] gave the wider public an insight into the Art Creating Society process, it lacked the immediacy of contact with human networks involved. This led to a re-thinking of the research question, to explore the way mediation technology, e.g., video streaming and virtual and visually interactive spaces, might contribute to exploratory and collaborative public art events. “e-space lab” was formed in 2002 by Courtenay and Hatton as a research project to explore the role of mediation technology in public art events involving the articulation of local urban knowledges, including informal and subjugated knowledges (Foucault), foregrounding qualities of spontaneity in the creative responses activated through a dialogic interactive visual interface. Jointly, Courtenay and Hatton, of e-space lab, working with The Yellow House in the International Centre for Digital Content, Liverpool, and the Solidarity Museum, Gdansk, produced Loop-pool II as the first exploration of these ideas. Loop-pool II, at the Solidarity Museum in Gdansk, involved young people (aged 16-24) from the Copernicus School in Gdansk, and The Yellow House in Liverpool, interacting with each other using mediation technology. These young people showed an ability to utilise video and polaroids to engage in spontaneous exchange of ideas, images, in a collaborative process which activated a public space in the Solidarity Museum as a space showing the everyday, personal and intimate life of the network