| On Exhibition |

Talking Talking House by Andrew O’Brien

January 12 – February 14, 2015

Comprised of a custom built deck, photography and a series of Realty Electronics Talking House radio transmitters, Andrew O’Brien’s installation Talking Talking House explores the relationship between interior and exterior space in the modern American home.

Both the deck-as-addition and the Talking House transmitter embody a do-it-yourself spirit meant to enhance access: the deck brings the homeowner comfortably to the outdoors, the Talking House transmitter brings the potential homebuyer safely inside the private residence up for sale. In positioning these elements within the same context, O’Brien investigates what are essentially mirror images of desire orbiting a conversation centered on access and value in contemporary domestic life.

| On Exhibition |

Talking Talking House by Andrew O’Brien

January 12 – February 14, 2015

SEED SPACE ART + TECH LAB

Screenshot of do-it-yourself deck building website O’Brien referenced in construction.

Installation view of Talking Talking House, including archival photographs, deck, and radios.

Picture your childhood suburban home. Its yard, its deck, its back door. Picture the trees in the yard, the flower bed, the jungle gym. Now picture yourself in the yard as a child. How did you feel in that space? Do you ache to return?

Andrew O’Brien’s Talking Talking House is attentive to this longing. Raised in the suburbs himself, O’Brien is sensitive to the roles of interior and exterior space. His father was a real estate agent, and when he passed away, O’Brien inherited Talking House transmitters, throwbacks from the late ’80s that broadcasted real estate ads to specific AM frequencies. All you had to do was park your car close to the house and tune in. The transmitters facilitate a crude sort of communication as the house takes on its own subjectivity.

For the installation, O’Brien recorded real estate ads he found in The Tennessean for three Nashville properties and set up Talking House transmitters on one side of the gallery. The ads play concurrently across the gallery on AM/FM radios, creating a hypnotic drone. The radios sit on a deck built by O’Brien from plans on DeckPlan.com. Its is an appropriate pedestal, evoking the middle-space between our private and public lives. Decks are an attainable form of home improvement; their DIY nature allows anyone to add value to their home. Like the Talking House, the deck alters our experience of the home. While it provides a comfortable means of leaving the home, the transmitters invite us in. By juxtaposing these elements, O’Brien draws our attention to the house as both object and subject of desire.

The exhibition celebrates now-antiquated technology that was cutting-edge in its heyday, adding a layer of emotional resonance that brings me back to my own childhood home. Even the large-scale photographs of the deck-building process look like they might have been received through a fax machine. It’s an old sort of nostalgia for the high-tech apparatuses of childhood that’s made more complex by O’Brien’s smart installation.

Erica Ciccarone is an independent arts writer in Nashville, and is the current Seed Space writer-in-residence.

Installation view of 3 Talking House transmitters Untitled, archival photograph

Artist + Curator + Writer

SEED SPACE ART + TECH LAB

ANREW O’BRIEN was born and raised in Southern Maryland. He recently relocated from New York City to serve as an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. While in New York, O’Brien worked as head preparator for Yancey Richardson Gallery. He has also taught at the University of Oregon, where he received his MFA in 2009. His artistic practice is shaped by an early interest in science and the natural world, which led to an internship for NASA and Astronomy studies at the University of Arizona before he turned to fine art exclusively. Other vital experiences include conservation work with the Bureau of Land Management in Arizona and volunteer work with non-profit NGO’s in the Southwest region, where he was exposed to the complex political and geographic environment of the US-Mexico border. He has exhibited at Archer Gallery, Clark College, Vancouver WA, Greenleaf Gallery, Whittier College, Whittier, CA, and Blackfish Gallery, Portland, OR among others.

RACHEL BUBIS is an independent arts writer, curator of Seed Space and gallery manager at E. T. Burk. Her writing has appeared in Nashville Arts Magazine, Nashville Scene, Native Magazine, Art Now Nashville, Art Art Zine, Nashville Wire and Examiner. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Rollins College.

ERICA CICCARONE is a writer living in Nashville. She contributes art criticism to Temporary Art Review, Nashville Scene, BurnAway, and Nashville Arts Magazine, and has published fiction in Epiphany, ThisRecording, and H.O.W. Journal. She taught English composition and literature at Borough of Manhattan Community College, Berkeley College, and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She blogs about art and culture in Nashville at NYCnash.com. She holds an MFA from the New School Creative Writing Program and a BA in English from Loyola University New Orleans.

| Upcoming Exhibitions |

February 21 Dannielle Tegeder

March 7 Meg Duguid

May 2 Rocky Horton

June 6 Beth Reitmeyer

August 1 Estell and Bowen

October 3 Eric Dickson

Seed Space is a lab for site-specific installation, sculpture and performance-based art in Nashville. We support our program in three specific ways. We bring in nationally recognized art critics to write our exhibition essays. We host regularly scheduled public talks. We facilitate meetings among artists, critics and curators. Through these means we aim to foster an exchange between a growing network of local and national artistic communities, which we believe is one of the best ways to support the careers of emerging artists. Located in the Track One building in the Wedgewood Houston neighborhood of Nashville, Seed Space is supported by the Nashville Cultural Arts Project (NCAP), and is made possible with grants from the Tennessee Arts Commission, the Metro Nashville Arts Commission and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Director Adrienne Outlaw | Curator Rachel Bubis | Programs Manager Andri Alexandroudirector@seedspace.org | curator@seedspace.org | programs@seedspace.org

www.seedspace.org

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts