Join us for the opening of i sat in the zoom room and wondered what you smell like on November 11, 6-8 pm. Additionally, join for a performance by Shawty Ensemble on November 19, 7-9 pm.

You’re on mute. You froze. You’re cutting out. My connection is unstable. This feels secure. There’s a lot of space between us. I want to understand the space between us. I want to know what it means to be with you. I want to know what you think it means to be alive. What it means to live with each other, now. 

I want to know—who do you hope to be to each other?

The pandemic changed the ways in which we interact with and perceive one another. It reduced visceral sensory stimuli to pixels, altered experiences of space and time, and abstracted us in data. Some of us found solace in the screen, others found digitized dissonance. 

i sat in the zoom room and wondered what you smell like is a multimedia installation. Using sound and vibrations as input, code visualizes you in space. As you interact, your presence is mapped across time—creating a web of reduced, pixelated interactions. 

Artist biographies

Emily Dzieweczynski is a new media artist, science communicator, writer, and studio manager at Second Shift. Their work questions the intersection of science, art, and technology—with a particular interest in how those veins cross at the concept of empathy. Their work takes the form of drawing, printmaking, writing, and new media; including code, virtual reality, 3D modeling, web-based media, sound, and video.

Shawty Ensemble is a jazz noise group that was only supposed to last for a day. Yet this is their third incarnation as a four piece including Niko Hasapopoulos, Meekialle McGee, Amber DeBellis, and Cara Hagstrom-Skalnek.

Emily Dzieweczynski is a fiscal year 2022 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.