WHAT IS GLOBALL?
GLOBALL is a work of art and real-life social network designed to create meaningful storytelling and connections through a world-spanning, participatory adventure. Seven beautiful solid wooden balls, one for each letter in GLOBALL, will be passed hand to hand, person to person – around the world!
Each GLOBALL will be made from wood sourced from all seven continents* and will be the shape of a small soccer ball – possibly the most recognizable object in the world. Instructions of what to do with each one will be laser etched and hand painted into each GLOBALL in three major languages and in pictograms.
To raise awareness for GLOBALL and to test our experiment, we created GLOBALL Rover.
WHAT IS GLOBALL ROVER?
GLOBALL Rover is the trial run. The test pilot. The pioneer. It's the first GLOBALL to go out into the world and see if we can get enough momentum, connect enough people and raise enough funds to make the GLOBALL project, with all seven balls, a reality. GLOBALL Rover needs to explore the world, help us make it so!
PHILOSOPHY OF GLOBALL
GLOBALLers – those individuals who have given and received a GLOBALL, as well as those following the journeys through GLOBALL’s website – will use the website to tell a story about their friendship and bear witness to each moment of connectedness as an international community grows across borders, ethnic cultures and languages. With an end goal of creating empathy and understanding between people who would normally never meet, the GLOBALLs will highlight the kinship that forms the basis of human relatedness and interpersonal communication.
The art of GLOBALL isn’t found in the wooden balls, which are merely devices to facilitate an experience, or on the website, which serves to document the exchanges, stories and each of the GLOBALL’s locations. The art of GLOBALL is found in the living relationship between each person and the global theater they create. Their participation will magnify the adventure found in each ball’s voyage. As a socially engaged artist, Oliver's role will be to encourage each GLOBALLer to reveal the discovery of sharing the GLOBALLs through video, writing and other creative expressions.
Critically important to the project's integrity, is a rejection of the impulse to monetize it. In order to be truly free of standardizations and influences, GLOBALL hopes to find meaning by producing content that centers around personal experiences over art commodities and the market that supports them.
To read more about GLOBALL, please go to Janet Alexander's article for GALO magazine.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Oliver Warden was born in Cleveland, Ohio. At 17, Warden moved to Los Angeles to study at The Otis Parsons Institute of Art where he assisted artists Robert Overby and Linda Burnham. During his junior year, he transferred to the School of Visual Arts in New York and majored in sculpture, with an emphasis in video, installation and interactive art. In 1995 he attended the first year of The Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where he received his masters. In 2017, he left NYC for Los Angeles, California. He currently works as an interdisciplinary conceptual artist at his studio in Culver City. To learn more, visit GLOBALLers.
CONTACT
To get a hold of us, with questions other than the receiving of a GLOBALL, please first check our FAQ and then write us at one of our social networks. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all use our handle "wheresgloball". You can also reach out to us directly here.
*Yeah, we know, no wood in Antartica. Millions of years ago there were forests though. Those forests migrated to spots in the southern hemisphere. The wood will be sourced from there.