building_space_with_words: An Interactive Multimedia Installation Exploring the Relationship between Physical and Virtual Space

The authors, a social scientist and a visual artist, collaborated to produce building_space_with_words, an interactive multimedia installation. The project investigated the relationship between physical and virtual space and more specifically what happens when the physical properties of space become intangible and discourse becomes the main material. Drawing on studies of organizational space and of on-line communities, the authors created an environment that materialized virtual and physical interactions. This paper describes the elements—the maze, the sound, the tag wall, the tag journey and the blog—that created the installation and the concepts that inspired the work.