KAT LEE
HORNSTEIN
ABOUT // WORK // CONTACT // SOCIAL
WRITINGS ON THE WALL
Interactive Installation for ChaShaMa’s 2023 annual Art Gala & Art Party
(Video documentation - coming soon! In the meantime please enjoy ChaShaMa’s 2023 Gala Highlight Reel.
Running the reverse projection, allowing me to “talk” to attendees in our space. Since I could see them, but they couldn’t see me, I was able to surprise our guests by complimenting them specifically, speaking directly to each participant and thanking them, while also encouraging them to share.
In 2022, I founded a temporary collective of femme creatives, including pop artist BEVERLEE (@beverlee_music), with myself as Lead Visual Artist. Our goal: to conceptualize and create an immersive environment that encourages audiences to explore, play, and unburden themselves from secrets.
We reached that goal within a year, when we were awarded both space, materials and a stipend to install Writings on the Wall for the 2023 ChaShaMa Art Gala and Art Party.
The event attracts hundreds of the city’s most forward-thinking landowners, corporate executives, art professionals, and innovative creators.
I designed and built the physical space, where over the course of two days, hundreds of attendees contributed to its final form.
The installation visually mimicked a public bathroom on a night out; the kind of experience many of us can relate to. In spaces like these, tipsy strangers become best friends, then never see each other again. They tell their life stories in 5 minutes. They choose to write all matter of things across all surfaces. Despite it being a place of bodily functions, it often becomes a sort of watering hole for human interaction, and unburdening in more ways than one.
I also created and operated a digital “magic mirror” during both events using a live video feed and reverse projection mapping. This in particular was extremely successful in getting guests to engage with our space. Though our guests couldn’t see me, I could see them using a live video feed. I used the opportunity to speak to people directly; complimenting them, encouraging them to share, and thanking them for visiting us.
Ultimately, it was an amazing experience to install our piece at this event with ChaShaMa. We couldn’t have predicted how readily our audience would participate, or the depths of the secrets they’d share, ranging from silly to cruel to tragic.
The key was, no one wrote their own secrets. We asked the audience to submit a secret, answering any of our environmental prompts or simply whatever they want to say, on a piece of paper. Once submitted, you were allowed to take a paper already submitted by someone else. In this way, it was completely anonymous. We surmised that the process of physically writing someone else’s secret or confession would allow our audience to step into someone else’s shoes, and help them release what they’d written.
Many people returned to the installation throughout the night, to see if their secret had been written, or to participate all over again.
Video documentation is coming soon. Please enjoy these image selects from both the Art Gala and Art Party. Over the course of both events, we gathered hundreds of “secrets,” documenting them all, with an eye towards future projects that might utilize them.
Left to right: Installation Artist Kat Lee Hornstein, Producer Taylor Lhamon, and Sound Designer Abby Diamond (Beverlee).
ORIGINAL PROPOSAL OUTLINED BELOW:
ORIGINAL PROPOSAL OUTLINED BELOW:
These images were submitted along with an application to ChaShaMa, resulting in the opportunity to take part in this renown event.
KAT LEE
HORNSTEIN
ABOUT // WORK // CONTACT // SOCIAL