Pre-Glo, featuring projects from the Los Angeles Nomadic Division and Tom Leeser from CalArts, focused on the concept of globalism and its effect on contemporary social issues.

The Manifest Destiny Billboard Project, organized by LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) was a series of 100 artist-produced billboards and activations that unfolded along Interstate 10 from Florida to California through spring of 2015. Mario Ybarra Jr., an artist, educator, and activist from Los Angeles, California, was the creator of Mobile, Alabama’s billboard chapter. For the project, Ybarra focused on the daily culture and experience of Los Angeles and how it related to the Gulf Coast, utilizing both contrasting and familiar elements.

Global Futures: Pre-Glo, a partnership between CalArts’ Tom Leeser and the Spatial Information Design Lab, featured an immersive atmosphere while providing enough space for the viewer to experience a critical distance to address the paradox of scale within the current global condition. The Spatial Information Design Lab’s projections offered a visual example of the enormity of publicly gathered global data, while the sound art provided by Tom Leeser gave visitors an intimate, solitary space to hear the sounds of cultures across the globe.