'A JENNY HOLZER APP' : YES

 

YES, a Jenny Holzer app is a program that that lets users project quotations virtually on their surroundings.

For decades, the artist Jenny Holzer has projected phrases - often borrowed sayings - on surfaces such as building facades, ocean waves and mountains.

But her new project, ''You Be My Ally,'' after a line by Sappho, includes her first smartphone app designed to let users at home superimpose some leaded quotations on their own surroundings.

Commissioned by the University of Chicago, the project uses 20 quotations from authors in its Core Curriculum, or ''great books'' program. selected in collaboration with students.

Most are from female authors. Many touch on weighty. also timely issues like justice, truth and violence - including ''The Cause of War is Preparation for War'' [W.E.B. Du Bois] and ''You sit Among the Ruins and Lament the Fall'' [Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley].

''You can have the content anytime and anywhere you want,'' Ms. Hoizer said. ''If you're awake in the wee hours of the morning fretting, you can have Plato or Tom Morrison in your room.''

The project also has strong ties to the University of Chicago campus. Quotations within the app are initially set to scroll over campus buildings, with only the project title [from Sappho as translated by Anne Carson] also accessible for users to place anywhere within their phone's camera-view.

On Oct 30., all the quotations will become available for users to virtually project wherever they want using augmented reality technology. This free app was released last Monday.

Ms. Holzer, who attended the University of Chicago from 1970-71, said the idea for ''You Be My Ally'' took hold after she received the school's Rosenberger medal of achievement last year.

''I'm old and tired of myself,'' she said, adding that she was curious ''what the students would find most engaging from the Core Curriculum.'' Her role was ''sifting'' and shortening texts. 

The artist also sent trucks with LED lights displaying many of the sayings through the streets of Chicago on Monday, the project's first day, and planned to do so on Tuesday.

Those  lighted trucks will return to Chicago streets on Oct 24 and 30 to spread get-out-the-vote messages written by University of Chicago students. These slogans are not as partisan as some of Holzer's work, like her recent ''Covid-19 president'' LED display, but still pointed.

One says ''Happy?'' Another ''Vote Because They Don't Want You To.''

The World Students Society thanks author, Jori Finkel.