www.edpurver.com

Dropspots (2011)

Smartphone and mixed media

The materials in this cabinet can be used to participate in Ed Purver’s Dropspots created for this exhibition. Dropspots is a kind of treasure hunt, conducted with a smart phone, in which participants locate objects in the streets of the surrounding neighborhood that have been left, first by the artist and then found and replaced by subsequent participants. Dropspots engages the public in re-considering their surrounding environments as places full of potential for creative play and communication. Through selecting the object they leave behind for the next player, members of the public become at once artists, curators and collectors by effectively curating each spot as an alternative ‘gallery’ space. By interacting with various spots embedded throughout the Bowery and surrounding neighborhoods, a dialogue develops around what is left behind, and what is taken away in this encounter between shifting terms of value and exchange in public space.