The Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is proud to announce our Summer 2012 and ongoing initiative Virtual/Monumental in public locations across West Farms Square. This project is made possible, in large part, through the support of Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation's Art and Technology Program. This program awarded grants to fifteen NYC organizations to complete initiatives that use emerging technologies to further educational programming, reach new audiences, engage new artists and maximize organizational efficiencies.

Virtual/Monumental highlights the relationships between site and community through interconnecting BRAC’s Education and Exhibitions programs. The project weaves a visual narrative around the evolving resources and untapped histories of the center, community, and river to overlay historic details with future designs through Augmented Reality and QR codes, experienced on iPads and mobile devices. Through the use of art and technology, we hope to allow citizens to be active in foreseeing their community’s future.

Artist-led tours took place on Saturday, August 11th, 2012 from our BRAC office at 2064 Boston Road. Projects can also be experienced on a self-guided tour by picking up a map at BRAC, visiting the locations and scanning QR codes provided. Or, for a short "virtual" preview, by visiting the websites listed below each project description. 

Saturday, August 11th, 2012 and ongoing

ARTIST TOURS: 11am, 12:30pm, 2pm
BBQ: 12 - 4pm
LOCATION: 2064 Boston Rd, Bronx, NY 10460

Coming Soon by Stephanie Rothenberg (REV-)

Coming Soon explores the shifting landscape of the West Farms neighborhood and nearby vicinity through a series of virtual landmarks that create a local narrative on current and future development. As mobile device users walk through the neighborhood, they encounter a series of animated virtual Coming Soon signs that correlate to a specific physical site. An animated virtual “Welcome to West Farms” sign is virtually stationed outside of BRAC to lead the way.

Location: East 179th Street and Boston Road
Link to project: layar.it/T3BqK8

Fiction/Non-Fiction by David Abecassis

This virtual installation is located on the grounds of PS 214 at East Tremont Avenue and West Farms Road consisting of two digitized desks with moving text and drawings from stories created by the students at PS 214.

Location: PS214 at East Tremont Avenue and West Farms Road
Link to project: www.davidabecassis.com/Fiction__Non-Fiction.html

Future Farms by Katherin McInnis

The Future Farms project links to a website celebrating the culture and future of urban farming in the West Farms neighborhood. The app and website features current community gardens as well as identifying sites for potential future gardens, creating a neighborhood walking tour of growth.

Locations: Hispanos Unido Garden on Honeywell Avenue and 179th Street  /  Hornaday Garden on Hornaday Place at 181st Street  /  River Garden at East 180th Street and Devoe at the Bronx River
Link to project: www.katherinmcinnis.com/futurefarms.html

Soldiers Cemetary by Maria Mocerino and Nathan Koch 

As Old West Farms Soldier’s Cemetary approaches its 200th year anniversary, the artists created an installation that links the past with the present, drawing attention to the Bronx community with those who fought in the five major US conflicts since World War I.

Location: Soldiers Cemetary at East 180th Street and Bryant Avenue
Links to project: video 1 / video 2

J & West Farms: BRONX by Jason Eisner

For nearly three months, Eisner has been servicing trees and visually documenting the vibrant community life in West Farms Square on his blog as a way of mapping the physical and temporal aspects of the neighborhood.

Locations: Boston Road between 179th and 180th / West Farms Plaza on the corner of East Tremont and Boston Road 
Link to project: invisible-eisner.tumblr.com

Currents of Tremont by Heidi Neilson

BRAC's neighborhood is interlaced by numerous traffic streams: the elevated subway train, roadways, expressways, and the Bronx River. Using video and time-lapse photography, Currents of Tremont captures multiple views of the intersections of these rushing paths where major arteries of the city cross the river's flow.

Location: East Tremont Avenue at the Bronx River
Link to project: www.heidineilson.com/BRAC_vm.php

Also featuring student work by Teen Project Studio

During BRAC’s Spring and Summer Teen Project Studio, students created their visions of public sculpture across the neighborhood. Projects range from monumental stone sculptures in the Bronx River to painted murals on neglected building walls. Led by Teaching Artists Manual Acevedo and Devon Purkiss.

Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) is a culturally diverse, multi-arts, non-profit organization that provides a forum for community, artists, and youth to transform creativity into vision. Our Education, Exhibitions, Artist Studios, and Presenting Programs cultivate leadership in an urban environment and stewardship of our natural resource — the Bronx River. Our Exhibitions Program has become known for both its deft curatorial vision and its ability to produce ambitious, energetic exhibitions with ingenuity and immediacy. In recent years, we have exposed various paradigms of contemporary art to the litmus test of a local Bronx community and the cultural, economic, and social landscape that defines it. Through initiatives like Virtual/Monumental, we are giving a platform to artists to engage the Bronx specifically in ways that have a lasting and positive impact.

This project is made possible with support from the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation's Art and Technology Program. Additional support is provided by The National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Consolidated Edison Company, Simón Bolivar Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts-a state agency, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., Majority Leader Joel Rivera, and the Bronx Delegation of the New York City Council.