ghost city - avenue s

by Jody zellen

August 2 - September 9, 2021

^ Click the Above Image to experience Ghost City - Avenue s ^

NOTE: While Avenue-S can be enjoyed on mobile devices, it is best viewed on a computer screen as the larger display and mouse interaction allows for numerous playful rollovers and the occasional pop-up window (QUINTESSENTIAL net art features) which do not function on mobile devices.

George Fifield, director of Boston Cyberarts, explains why this is our 2021 Summer Exhibition:

Last summer we shared with you a Net Art project by Jody Zellen, Ghost City - Avenue S, which seemed perfectly attuned to the 2020 COVID-19 experience. Since then Jody has added over 200 new pages that speak to what we all lived through in the last year. While we are closed over the summer, and while we await what is hopefully the end game of this pandemic, we are once again presenting this updated meditation on isolation within the City of Ghosts.

Exhibition statement:

“Ghost City - Avenue S” 
March 2020 - Present

In early 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic Los Angeles based artist Jody Zellen began to build a new neighborhood in her Ghost City website (www.ghostcity.com/) called Avenue S (as it is accessed from the "S" square on the Ghost City home page). 

In March 2020 the streets were empty. The beaches and parks were closed - as were galleries and museums, so seeing art became the viewing of static jpgs on websites. Zellen wanted to provide an alternative and more dynamic experience so returned to making net art— web pages that contained gif animations, roll-overs and image/text juxtapositions.

Week by week, she has continued to add to the site and has now created hundreds of unique webpages. Avenue S (http://ghostcity.com/avenue-s) began as a meditation on the pandemic, the unknown and disconcerting times we were experiencing apart and together. Looking back it is a reflection on isolation, nature, walking, politics and current events. It became a visual journal about the pandemic. 

While cities have reopened and life is somewhat back to normal, Zellen imbues Avenue S with an apprehensive sense of freedom and relief. 

Avenue S can be viewed in order from the beginning (March 2020) to the present, by clicking on the small red square at the bottom of each page.

This URL ( http://ghostcity.com/visualchaos2020/AvenueS_grid.html ) is a grid of the entire site by date giving viewers the opportunity to enter the narrative at any point.

Artist Bio:

Jody Zellen makes interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artists' books. She constantly thinks about ways to use new technologies and to integrate interactivity into her artworks.

Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS degree from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). Zellen was awarded an Artist Fellowship from the City of Santa Monica in 2011 and 2016. She is also the recipient of a 2012 California Community Foundation Mid Career Fellowship, a 2011 Center for Cultural Innovation Artistic Innovation Grant as well as a 2004 COLA (City of Los Angeles) Fellowship.

Her site specific interactive installations include: “The Unemployed," Los Angeles International Airport (2019); “News Wheel,” Long Beach City College, (2017); “Time Jitters,” Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art (2014) and “The Blackest Spot," Fringe Exhibitions, Los Angeles, (2008). Visit www.jodyzellen.com for more information.