[Editor\u2019s note: This is the second story in a two-part series on Wonderspaces. Read part one at bit.ly\/2sQ821i<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWonderspaces: A Pop-Up Arts Celebration,\u201d the brainchild of former Marines Jason Shin and Patrick Charles, opened June 2, and it indeed displays some wonders to behold \u2014 and to engage.<\/p>\n Located in a large-scale tent in an undeveloped portion of Mission Valley\u2019s new Civita Park, the exhibit is entered through David McCarty\u2019s Plexiglas sculpture, \u201cPulse Portal.\u201d The portal was previously displayed at Burning Man 2016, which, in part, inspired Shin and Charles\u2019 vision of Wonderspaces as an easily accessible and affordable arts experience.<\/p>\n Inside the tent, 16 interactive installations grab the attention of adults and children alike, including the exhibit\u2019s neighbors.<\/p>\n Jacqueline Lane was taking a walk one Friday, noticed the portal, and ended up with a job at Wonderspaces.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very drawn to the sculpture out front,\u201d she said. \u201cLong story short, Patrick was here. He told us about it, and I said, \u2018Wow, you must need a little help. Are you hiring?\u2019 That was a Friday evening, I had an interview Sunday at 9 a.m. and that was it. It\u2019s great to be part of the arts community in San Diego. I\u2019m a big fan of installation art and collaborative art, so this is fun for me, to help guide people to experience it.\u201d<\/p>\n And there is a lot to experience. Walk through the doors and music draws you to a room that houses \u201cOn a Human Scale\u201d by Matthew Matthew. There, the viewer is welcomed by three walls of human faces on video screens.<\/p>\n Matthew described the piece as a \u201cfully playable instrument of humanity.\u201d And that\u2019s just what it is. The artist videotaped New Yorkers singing and then edited their music to individual notes. The singers\u2019 images respond to a keyboard available for viewers to play. Strike a chord \u2014 or a cantata \u2014 and the New Yorkers sing for you.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really cool. I like it. It\u2019s interactive,\u201d said exhibit visitor Nicholas Patton while tickling the ivories. \u201cIt makes you want everyone to have a voice. It\u2019s visual and kinetic. You can see a lot of diversity, like the kids, cultural diversity, in the pictures. It looks like they\u2019re in the same city, but it definitely looks like each of them has a different, unique perspective. I think it\u2019s awesome. It\u2019s engaging, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n From there, wander into the main reception area, and you\u2019ll see people gathered around several installations, including a framed work entitled \u201cNot Myself Today.\u201d Comprising a tidy arrangement of color-coded buttons expressing emotions, the piece represents an initiative by Canadian nonprofit Partners for Mental Health. The agency\u2019s goal is to \u201ctransform the way we think about, act towards and support mental health and people with mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n The piece encourages viewers to select pins that represent how they are feeling, leaving negative spaces on the white background and adding to the texture of the installation \u2014 and, perhaps, its message, enhanced by viewers\u2019 moods.<\/p>\n You might then hear some soft pounding from around the corner. Follow the sound and you\u2019ll find \u201cADA,\u201d an \u201canalog interactive installation\u201d by Karina Smigla-Bobinski, a German-Polish artist. \u201cADA\u201d is a large, clear globe filled with helium and spiked with drawing charcoal. As viewers bounce the globe around the white room, it draws on every surface. Although plenty of adults take turns, \u201cADA\u201d is a particular favorite among youngsters, one of whom, Neil Choate, was particularly inspired by the piece.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d Choate said. \u201cIt\u2019s something very unique. I\u2019ve never seen anything like it. It\u2019s really fun, too! At my school we play wallball, but the balls don’t float. I definitely want one of these in my room.\u201d<\/p>\n Choate also enjoyed \u201cSweet Spot,\u201d a motionless installation piece of 3,700 colored nylon chords by Shawn Causey and Mark Daniell.<\/p>\n \u201cYou walk back and forth,\u201d Choate said, \u201cand it looks like it kind of moves. And the fist, in the corner, that\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cArt\u2019s appealing to me,\u201d Choate said, \u201cbut we don\u2019t study it in school. In my mind, art always seemed like a painting, but not this kind of stuff. It\u2019s pretty cool. It\u2019s beyond just a painting.\u201d<\/p>\n After its debut in San Diego, Wonderspaces will go on the road with shows is Austin, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; and Denver, Colorado.<\/p>\n \u2014Kit-Bacon Gressitt writes commentary and essays on her blog Excuse Me, I\u2019m Writing, is a founding editor of WritersResist.com<\/a>, and has been published by Missing Slate<\/a>, Ms. Magazine blog<\/a> y Trivia: Voices of Feminism<\/a>, among others. She formerly wrote for the North County Times<\/a>. She also hosts Fallbrook Library\u2019s monthly Writers Read authors series and open mic, and can be reached at kbgressitt@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Por Kit-Bacon Gressitt<\/p>","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":234153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11557","_seopress_titles_title":"The \u2018wonder\u2019 of it all","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11557,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-mission-valley-news","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/missionvalleynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/web-MAIN-3-Nicholas-Patton-On-a-Human-Scale-by-Matthew-Matthew.jpg\")
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<\/a>The fist, or \u201cCome Together\u201d by Michael Murphy, is what the artist calls a \u201cperceptual shift\u201d sculpture. Stand in the right spot, and the piece shifts from an abstract collection of suspended cylinders to a fist.<\/p>\n