May 29, 1998
The Children's Museum/Museo de los Niños, inSITE97, the Mexican Cultural Institute of San Diego, and the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes in Mexico City announces the opening of Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House Is Your House, a state-of-the-art, bi-national, networked, interactive, virtual reality artwork, connecting children in Mexico City and San Diego through a shared cyberspace playhouse. Created by artist and University of California at San Diego Professor Sheldon Brown, Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House Is Your House was originally conceived as a community engagement program of inSITE 97.
Mi Casa, a bi-national, network, vitural reality playhouse.
Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House Is Your House is part of the Children's Museum/Museo de los Niños' on-going commitment to bi-national programming and collaboration, and bridging cultures through art. The project represents a new model of partnership for all of the participating institutions. Through Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House Is Your House's art and technology, communities are united in the project's shared cyberspace geography.
Perhaps the most significant aspect in the design of Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House is Your House has been and continues to be the participation of children. At the start, in mid-August 1996, twelve children (six each from Mexico City and San Diego) gathered for a three-day residency with Sheldon Brown at the Children's Museum/Museo de los Niños.
The kids were supplied in advance with cameras to take photographs of their homes, including favorite places, views from windows, and other details of their environments. They were also asked to find pictures in magazines, books, and newspapers that they thought looked like homes in Mexico and the United States.
Once assembled in San Diego, the children shared in making collages of houses, inventing characters and stories together, and discussing their ideas of "home." They also tested prototypes of computer equipment to determine how well a virtual house might work as an installation for children. As Brown proceeded with development of the 3-D world, he incorporated the ideas and responses of the children who participated in the residency. This collaboration with children will continue throughout the duration of the project, as Brown updates and enhances the computer program to include feedback from interaction of Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House Is Your House's visitors.
The physical installation of Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House Is Your House at the Children's Museum in San Diego and at the National Center for the Arts in Mexico City are entered through maze-like hallways that open into darkened rooms. Inside each installation, visitors find huge tools and a giant globe/tracking ball designed to alter aspects of the shared virtual environment. Wearing bright white lab" coats, up to five young visitors at each site can step into the video-monitored arena and acquire on-screen characters within the virtual world. On the 16' x 8' screen directly in front of the children, the virtual characters model the movements of the children as they manipulate the tools and globe. With each movement, the virtual house changes interiors, the landscape outside the house is altered, as are more subtle aspects of the artwork. The virtual house and world are filled with iconography of the United States and Mexico, engaging children in cultural exploration and exchange.
To further enhance the project's potential for cultural exchange and exploration, Art Lab, the Children's Museum/Museo de los Niños' and San Diego City Schools unique educational initiative designed to promote learning through the arts and to demonstrate the link between relationships, creativity, and learning, will be responsible for developing educational programs at the Children's Museum/Museo de los Niños, as will Alas y Raices a los Niños (Wings and Roots for Children) of the Consejo Nacional para la Cultural y las Artes (National Council for Culture of Arts) of Mexico.
Sheldon Brown's hope is that Mi Casa Es Tu Casa/My House Is Your House will foster acceptance and understanding in children of different cultures. As the artist says, "It is far easier to plant the seed of awareness of diverse cultures in a child than to uproot fear and intolerance in an adult."
The mission of the Children's Museum/Museo de los Niños is to make a difference in the lives of children and families through exhibitions and programs that illustrate the value of learning through the arts. The Children's Museum is housed in a colorful, 30,000 square-foot laboratory-warehouse at 200 West Island Avenue in downtown San Diego, near Seaport Village and Horton Plaza. Admission is $5 for adults and children two and older; $3 for seniors sixty-five and over; and free to members and children under two.