UNBOUND

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Title: UNBOUND
Photo Credit: Erik Carlson
Lead Artist(s):

Contributing Artist(s):
Erica Carpenter

Description:

Inviting viewers to peep into their city’s own ‘secret library,’ UNBOUND moves across boundaries of public and private while examining the library as a place that simultaneously binds information -- collecting, curating and keeping it safe -- and unbinds it, by releasing it to the community. UNBOUND’s library of ephemera (photos, letters, recipes, ads, schoolwork and more) is sourced from the community's personal archives, comprising nearly 10,000 media clips submitted by private citizens. The artwork uses custom software and algorithms to display ever-changing combinations of media while drawing viewers in to explore its Braille-based matrix of glowing, tactile lenses. The lenses function as peepholes, inviting close-up investigation as they reveal and magnify the images within. The artwork’s multi-layered glass surfaces are etched with coded systems (morse code, shorthand, binary code) which, like the Braille pattern of the lenses themselves, reveals hidden messages to those curious enough to decipher them.

PROJECT LOCATION

Library
The Library hosts about 163,000 visitors per year. UNBOUND is centrally located across from the Library's main circulation desk on two walls that flank the entrance to the children's reading room. Visitors also pass by these walls on their way to the fiction and non-fiction book stacks, and the magazine section of the library.
Chapel Hill Public Library
100 Library Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
United States

click the map to enlarge
PROJECT TEAM

Town of Chapel Hill Percent for Art Program
Box Elder Studio
Nick Hollibaugh, Jason Cipriani
PROJECT DETAILS

Permanent
130,546
Percent-for-Art
Digital, Glass, Installation, Mixed Media, Photography, Sculpture, Site integrated architectural work, Video
Electronics, Glass, Mixed Media, Photography, Video, Wood
2016
2017