Lecture and Conversation, Connecting across Distance through Public Art

Amar C. Bakshi, J.D. candidate, speaks about founding Shared Studios, an arts organization that incorporates technology into built environments to connect people across divides in geography, ideology, and identity. Shared Studios’s first major initiative, Portals (December 5–19, 2014), retrofitted shipping containers with specialized audio-visual communications equipment and placed them in cities around the world; individuals could then enter the containers to connect with a person in another location. The first pairing united Tehran, Iran, and New York. Bakshi is joined in discussion by conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll, whose work has long utilized and interrogated existing policy regimes. Her current work extends Super-Wifi connectivity to underserved areas in and around New Orleans. Bakshi and Carroll discuss the use of law, policy, and networks as material in artistic practice, the subject of a Yale Law School symposium on February 28 called The Legal Medium. For more information on the symposium and to register, please visit thelegalmedium.com.