YOU BE MY ALLY — sadie dyson . the art she sees

ARTIST JENNY HOLZER Debuts a public art commission on the University of Chicago campus and worldwide--thanks to a web-based reality app.
“Augmented Reality”-- what is it? Using technology to superimpose information--images, sounds, text. In other words, it allows you to overlay an assortment of ‘things’ over the actual physical world.

But her new project, called “You Be My Ally” after a line by Sappho, includes her first smartphone app designed to let users at home superimpose some loaded quotes on their own surroundings.

Commissioned by the University of Chicago, where Holzer studied during the 1970s, the project uses 29 quotes from authors in its Core Curriculum or “great books” program, selected in collaboration with students. Most of the quotes come from female authors. Many touch on weighty, also timely, issues like justice, truth, and violence — including “The Cause of War Is Preparation for War” (W.E.B. Du Bois) and “You Sit Among the Ruins and Lament the Fall” (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley).

“You can have the content anytime and anywhere you want,” Ms. Holzer said. “If you’re awake in the wee hours of the morning fretting, you can have Plato or Toni Morrison in your room.”

The project also has strong ties to the University of Chicago campus. When the app, which is free, is released on Monday, trucks with LED lights will drive through the city displaying many of the sayings. Quotes within the app are initially set to scroll over campus buildings, with only the project title (from Sappho as translated by Anne Carson) also accessible for users to place anywhere within their phone’s camera view. On Oct. 30, all quotes will become available for users to virtually project wherever they want using augmented reality technology.

Who is Jenny Holzer? She is an American neo-conceptual artist (meaning, art from the 1980s and ’90s that questioned the art object and the art institution--and looked at art as something different than a saleable commodity and how it relates to gender, race, and class). She was born in 1950, and the main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces.

Jenny Holzer. “Truisms,” (1977–79). Spectacolor electronic sign in Times Square, New York (1986).Photo: Courtesy of Jenny Holzer, member Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.

In 1990, Jenny Holzer became the first woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. Her work, her voice, her consistent exploration of an artist’s place in the world reflects what makes me proud to be an American: the desire to constantly improve ourselves by opening our minds and hearts to all.

As for the quotes from other writers, Holzer uses in her app: she “quit writing because I wanted to cover more themes, more emotions, to create more depth than I could muster alone. I am not really a writer. So I began to choose texts by others.”