Austin Way Magazine - GreenGale Publishing - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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WHERE IN AUSTIN HAVE you laughed the hardest? Where did you fall in love? Where did you have your worst night? These types of questions are at the heart of XYZ Atlas, a collab- orative multimedia project by local artist Jennifer Chenoweth that illustrates how we feel about places around the city—from the Capitol to the Continental Club—by using art, technology, and psychology. Over the course of three years, more than 500 Austinites responded to Chenoweth's surveys. Based on a color wheel inspired by psy- chologist Robert Plutchik's theory of emotions, (lemon yellow for joy, dark green for terror, and so forth) and employing GIS (geospatial information systems) technology, she created The Hedonic Map of Austin, depicting our emotional connections, good and bad, with places that matter to us. From her first version in 2013 through the final 3-D map she unveiled during May's West Austin Studio Tour, Austinites' happiest place has never changed: It's right there in a lemon-yellow peak over Barton Springs and Zilker Park. "I thought people would just answer with two-word locations, but they told these rich stories," says Chenoweth, 47. "Newcomers got to say why they picked being here—they came for an event or a vacation and they had these life- changing events." For natives and longtime residents, their answers were "a way to commemorate the spots where they've experienced their whole lives." Chenoweth herself moved to Austin in 1996 to earn her MFA from UT and entrenched herself in the local scene with her Fisterra Studios and by founding Generous Art.org, which sells original art- work and gives some of the proceeds to local charities. With Barton Springs as the high point on her Hedonic Map, she has worked closely with a favorite nonprofit, the Barton Creek Conservancy (bartonsprings conservancy.org), which hosted her XYZ Atlas finale in May as well as the summerlong exhibit at the Barton Springs Bathhouse. XYZ Atlas also includes tempo- rary art installations, a digital platform, a new catalog, and Dance of the Cosmos, a large solar-powered sculpture that opens with the sun. The steel lotus flower, illustrating the emotion chart, was funded by a city grant and unveiled last spring at the Elisabet Ney Museum; it will move to its permanent home at Zilker Botanical Gardens this year. Robert Whitehurst, whom Chenoweth started dating weeks after launching XYZ Atlas, became the fabricator for Dance and other works; the two married in March. Chenoweth is applying for grants to help her fund the digital platform of XYZ Atlas so she can take it to other cities (she did a live mapping event at Texas A&M University last year). "The possi- bilities of art have completely changed through technology," she says. Artwork from XYZ Atlas is on display through August at the Beverly S. Sheffield Education Center at Barton Springs Pool Bathhouse, 2201 Barton Springs Road; fisterrastudio.com . JENNIFER CHENOWETH NO ONE UNDERSTANDS AUSTINITES' PASSION FOR PLACE LIKE THIS VISUAL ARTIST, WHOSE XYZ ATLAS SHOWS WHERE LOCALS HAVE EXPERIENCED THEIR HIGHS AND LOWS ACROSS THE CITY. BY KATHY BLACKWELL PHOTOGRAPHY BY JENNY SATHNGAM 88 AUSTINWAY.COM AUSTIN