This summer the LA Forum presents the exhibition MEDIAN. An immersive video and audio installation, it takes over the walls of WUHO Gallery, projecting nearly life-sized renderings of Los Angeles—images that stockpile everyday collisions of contexts. The LA Forum spoke to exhibition creators David Hartwell and Bill Ferehawk ahead of the opening this Thursday, July 14 at the WUHO Gallery about what it means to work in the MEDIAN.

Why did you title the exhibition MEDIAN?
We thought the middle of the road was a good vantage point to observe Los Angeles. The median is privileged, uninhabitable, and dangerous.

What was one of the most surprising things that came out of the exhibition?
We took a position that our first references for this piece would be visceral: How do we feel and react to our experiences of the city? We first created moving image maps of our emotional reactions to everyday Los Angeles. Only later, would we back in to the more intellectual side of things and then tweak the scenes. And honestly, we didn’t know if this process would work.

How does your architectural background influence your cinematic understanding of the built environment
We are fascinated and excited by the myriad of contexts and collisions in this city. This curiosity is what we learned in architecture school. Los Angeles is persistently challenging and that is what we love about it. We decided to make moving images and films about this experience. I think our piece proposes a reality of the urban experience that demands reflection and discussion about how we live, where we live, and who we live with.