Ali Momeni Releases a DIY Manual for Urban Projection
Ali Momeni was born in Isfahan, Iran, and emigrated to the United States at the age of 12. He currently works as an artist and professor at Carnegie Mellon. His work utilizes many technologies to explore the social lives of objects and their embedded performative qualities.
As part of his Creative Capital project, Center for Urban Intervention Research, Momeni just released A Manual for Urban Projection, so we caught up with him to find out more about it.
The Battle of Everyouth, one of the installations in the CUIR project
Alex: You’ve pooled together some case studies for urban projection. Do you have any favorites? Any ones that went awry—or ones you’ve truly learned from?
Ali: The case studies reflect real-world performances that occurred in public spaces. They are included in the manual as generalized road-maps for how to create a kind of conversation or interaction with people in public spaces. A couple of scenarios that we’ve returned to again and again over the years are the Drawing and Interview scenarios. The power of live-drawing never ceases to amaze me and the interview format can be very powerful in the public sphere and within the interventionist performance context.
Alex: And also, You have to tell me more about the telepuppet.taxi [watch his CCReteat presentation for more details]! Has this project started with real participants yet?
Ali: Telepuppet.taxi has not yet started! We’re looking for contacts in Uber/Lyft to help sponsor the project. Stay tuned for more on that project!
Check out and purchase Ali’s Manual for Urban Projection on his website here.
Featured project
Featured artist
More Interviews
How to Have an American Baby makes its national broadcast premiere on the award-winning PBS television series POV on Monday, December 11, 2023, at 10:00 p.m. (check local listings) on PBS, pbs.org, and the PBS App.