Jody Zellen

"Zellen's explorations of the urban environment include both architectural and digital spaces. Her projects are site specific and result in the 'unexpected'. Zellen uses images from historical archives and newspapers to explore the relationship between the recorded, observed, and imagined city. For Instance: The social universe created by the recent emergence of truly pervasive mobile telephony allows us to explore the new translocal of connected – but disembodied – voices, captured well by the catch- phrase and marketing slogan, 'Can You Hear Me Now?' The recent transformation of our world into a multigenerational, international, always-on, and always within reach network of mobile phone users has liberated the individual from his or her physical environment. The conversation can take place anywhere – in the boardroom or from the summit of a distant alpine peak. Mobile telephone technology has allowed us to converse with each other where ever we go – even, as we all experienced last September, from aboard a doomed jetliner commandeered by terrorists. There is nowhere left from where we can not chat, debate, observe the world, and – given the two-way nature of the medium of mobile telephony – change the world, influencing the flow of history with the new omnipresence of conversation, and hence, information. Indeed, on September 11th, mobile telephones became a profound symbol of the translocal, inspiring heroic action based on knowledge gleened from a mobile phone call to the ground, where perspective and connection could come together in a way never before seen." -- From Turbulence