Pioneers in the Valley of the Heart's Delight**                                

PRESS PAGE

CONTACT:  Julie Newdoll  650 591 7999
Hitch Hiker of  Lee deForest Hitch Hiker of Fredrick  E. Terman Hitch Hiker of William Shockley
 Hitch Hiker of Robert Noyce Hitch Hiker of David Packard and William Hewlett 
1  Sentence:
During I.S.E.A.'s The ZeroOne San Jose Festival, GPS-bearing* hitchhiking cut-outs of the pioneers of Silicon Valley technology will visit their old haunts while we watch.

Short                description:
"Pioneers in the Valley of the Heart's Delight" * *  consists of five life-size cutouts painted with the portraits of people that were responsible for advancing the technology that drives Silicon Valley.  These cutouts will be implanted with small GPS devices and then abandoned in public places in and around  San Jose with a request for passers-by to deliver them to a prescribed location.  Real-time information about them and their whereabouts will be part of an art work at YLEM's booth in the conference center during I.S.E.A.'s The ZeroOne San Jose Festival, .

L        o        n        g                             description:

Julie Newdoll, Jim Pallas and Mike Mosher , three members of YLEM, artists using science and technology based in San Francisco with members all over the world,  have teamed up for this Inter City project during I.S.E.A.'s The ZeroOne San Jose Festival, .  A key point of having the ISEA conference in San Jose in the Silicon Valley is to recognize the importance that computing and other local industries contribute to contemporary artists.  The history of this location and the people that paved the way for others should be included somewhere in the artwork and presentations.  Not many people even in this area would probably recognize the faces of the pioneers of transistors and semiconductors.  The Valley of Heart's Delight was Silicon Valley's original name, changed because of the importance of this industry.  We present here a way to engage the city residents in learning a bit about their history and its link to the artists of ISEA.    

The activity of making full-size wooden cutouts of people and sending them "hitch hiking" was originally conceived by Jim Pallas in 1981.  His first cutout was abandoned on a Michigan country road with a note requesting that it be delivered to an art gallery in time for a party.  This was his way of delivering his artwork to the gallery for an exhibit.  To his delight, the cutout made the hundred mile trip to the gallery by hitching a ride with a passer-by who was curious about the event.  This willingness to give a stranger a ride may be lost in our current society, but we are going to try the technique in the Silicon Valley.

One frustration with the original hitch hiker concept was that Pallas rarely knew the whereabouts of his cutout after he abandoned it.  Many have not been seen since they were set out on the road.  We hope to remedy this and follow their path by putting a GPS device* inside the cutout.  A GPS device can send tracking information to a web page.  The real-time location of the five "hitch hikers" will be part of a computer installation art work by Michael Mosher .  Mosher will provide a subjective interactive artistico-narrative on the several notable Silicon Valley "hitchhikers" whom Newdoll and others have set out to be picked up by passers-by in public places.  The pioneers' historical importance to the region and tech industry grapples with their often curious, contradictory biographies will be part of the display.  Web pages with the whereabouts of each cutout will be featured on the display and the Web.  The display itself will be encased in a hand painted housing inspired by the subject matter of the project.
The following is the current selection of tech pioneers.  Their itineraries are subject to change.
Photo courtesy of Stanford University

Frederick Emmons Terman, who will depart from MIT's Media Lab around July 24  in Cambridge, Ma and arrive  at Stanford College of Engineering.
photo courtesy of intel museum

Robert Noyce who will start out at a pig farm in Iowa around July 23 and try to make it to the Robert Noyce Museum.
Photo courtesy,History San Jose

Lee de Forest who will depart
from the Opera House in
 San Jose August 7, get down with the ladies of YLEM at the ISEA ZeroOne block party on First Street in San Jose and move on to the Perham Foundation Electronics History Museum at the San Jose Historical Museum in Kelley Park.
Photo courtesy of Hewlett-Packard Company.Hewlett Packard
William Hewlett and David Packard, travelling as one, will start out AUgust 5 at the Hewlett Packard printer cartridge section of an Office Depot store in San Jose, make an appearance at the YLEM booth of the ISEA ZeroOne block party in San Jose and then go on to Hewlett Packard, Inc.

William Shockley, who will be dropped off August 6 at the Any Mountain store in the San Jose area and end up at the fruit stand occupying his original building.
These hitch hiking pioneers will be deposited at their starting points with instructions on where they are to go inscribed on the cutouts' backs.  As an incentive, we will have a reward for those who aid the "hitch hikers" to arrive at their destinations.  Publicity surrounding the figures would aid in getting our content to the general public. 
Contact Julie Newdoll for specific release times  650 591 7999
  Pallas, who has created over twenty "hitch hikers" in the past quarter century, says the most interesting aspect of them are the surprising adventures in which they become involved due to their uncontrolled interaction with the public.  We are are curious to see where these "hitch hikers" will go and how they are received by the people in the community to which they have contributed so much.

Where are the hitchhikers NOW?
Back to the main page.

*  A device that utilizes a system of space satellites and receivers that is able to determine its latitude and longitude on Earth by calculating the time difference for signals from different satellites to reach it.  
** "Valley of the Hearts Delight" was the former name for the area now called "Silicon Valley"