“Day for Night” is a temporary architectural environment that operates on the street life of downtown San Jose by inverting relations between time and place, local and global.

The installation is hosted downtown within a vacant retail space. From this host space, it meets the street with an inflatable structure whose skin is surrounded by sensors that responds to visitors’ presence with a live audio-video feed. This feed is sent constantly from sources in various time zones removed from San Jose (see map above), perpetually dislocating visitors, giving a midday opportunity to occupy midnight and vice-versa; but at the price of leaving San Jose's place and time.

“In this new perspective devoid of horizon, the city was entered not through a gate nor through an arc de triomphe, but rather through an electronic audience system… the surface of inscription… becomes a kind of distance…”

- Paul Virilio, “The Overexposed City” (1984)

Together, these elements make up an interior space that synchronizes itself with conditions from around the planet, bringing what French author Paul Virilio has called “the light of another day.” We live with this sort of experience ever more casually today, but rarely examine its consequences or delights. What’s gained and lost? What do we not yet take advantage of? How do we inhabit architecture and cities differently from before?

Consider San Jose’s downtown streetlife: curiously sleepy by day, and just as surprisingly bonkers by night. There would be little during either time to suggest the secret life that these streets lead during the other half of each day. And yet, there it is: a downtown with a double life. Vacant retail spaces, vacant office spaces, and streets that are well maintained but a little sterile - these are the visions of the day. Traffic jams, honking horns, wild dancing, cocktails, a frenzy of evening wear and seemingly nowhere to find a quiet rest - these are the visions of the night.

Wouldn’t the night enjoy one grand, alien chillout room? Wouldn’t the day perk up to have a little disco at lunch? Wouldn’t twilight be a little more magical by sunrise? These are some of the questions that this temporary urban intervention asks.

Beyond these questions, the installation also asks what our relations are between this specific place and locations more generic to us - whether we relate to them via tech support and labor outsourcing (Bangalore, for example), financially (Dubai), or culturally (Paris, Banff).

Architecturally, Day for Night considers our time and place against the world surface as it has evolved since Virilio’s prophetic essay. Fabricated digitally, the project also revisits a local history (Ant Farm) of inflatable structures, how they were made, and the social scenarios that they fostered.

 

Day for Night is a project of Ga-Ga / Jordan Geiger, with the collaboration of Eric Olsen, Thomas Stephen Bates and Stijn Schiffeleers.

Heroic Support:
First and foremost thanks to Teemu Yli-Elsilä in Oulu, Finland; to Barbara Goldstein in San Jose; and also to Gert Aertsen and OKNO in Brussels.

Project Assistance:
Sean Canty, Dan Robb, Gaby Kupfer, Nick DeMarco, Celeste Markham, Jason Lustig, Holly Samuelsen, Teck Liew, and Monsieur Angus for canine support.

The project is a public art commission
of the City of San José, California’s “Who’s on First, What’s on Second?” program; it was planned in conjunction with and featured in the 2008 Zero One Festival.

Visiting DFN:
25 North 1st Street in San Jose
Open 24 hours continuously, 4-14 June 2008

Special Event:
The Bosch Duet - Live from Paris
6 June, 1pm PST

Many heartfelt thanks to the project's supporters, sponsors and collaborators for their tireless efforts and devotion to making this come together; and to the amazing endless parade of people who helped in so many different ways at different stages of development:

Constance Lewallen, Steve Dietz, Scott Franklin of NONDesigns; Curtis Schreier of Ant Farm; Scott Black for donation of the URL; Joe Hedges; Todd Blair; Jill and Carlos at Inflatable Design Group; Colin Owen; Nir Stern of Glossy Lifestyle; Rick Johnson; Claudia Reisenberger; Miriam Paeslack; Aalam Wassef; Jodi Lomask of Capacitor; Petri Sirviö in Oulu; Melinda Rackham, Simeon Moran and Justin Schmidt in Melbourne; Jack Gilligan, Sheena Barrett and Ben Gaulon in Dublin; Lindsay MacDonald and Marc Bernier in Banff; Robert Austin at LazerCut; and many others who shared their knowledge and tips along the way!