I really like how this looks and reacts at the moment even though the artist says it’s currently only a prototype. Tectonic (image above, video below) by Micah Frank is:

a sound sculpture created in real time by earthquakes as they occur across the globe. A tightly integrated system between Max/MSP, Google Earth and Ableton Live processes a stream of real-time data that is translated into synthesis and sample playback parameters. When an earthquake occurs, seismic data is relayed to the system, sound is produced and Google Earth immediately flies to the coordinates of the latest earthquake giving us a visual representation of the newest developments. As multiple earthquakes occur daily, the sculpture builds, enmeshing itself in a complex soundscape of textures and tones – every second, different from the last and never repeating the same stage twice.

Below is an image of how the artist envisages it will ultimately look as an installation. Not sure it needs a whole room with a projection. I think it will lose some of the sculptural qualities it currently has, particularly visually, but due to the scale of the globe, the scale of the projection won’t make it seem any more immersive than it currently is.

Originally seen on the Cycling 74 projects page.

The second work I’ve stumbled on in a number of weeks with the same name of Driftnet (seems to be popular in new media installations/performances) is Drift Net (images above and below) by Choy Ka Fai. This work:

is an interactive/devised performance exploring the concept of the Internet blogging phenomenon – blogging as a virtual way of living and re-living a moment in time or perhaps even as future memories.

Interestingly enough there seems to be a connection between this work and Driftnet by Norimichi Hirakawa. Norimichi Hirakawa has collaborated with Ryoji Ikeda (formerly of Dumb Type) on a number of projects over the last few years while Fujimoto Takayuki of Dumbtype created the Lighting Design & Set Design for this Drift Net. Perhaps the concentrated network of these Japanese new media artists has played a factor (consciously or otherwise) in this name appearing more than once.

Below are some videos of different parts of the performance.

Driftnet (image above of version 0 and below of version 1), an algorithmic installation by Norimichi Hirakawa is a 3D visualisation of a web crawler which is influenced in real-time by motion of the audience/user. It has various versions all created between 2005 and 2008.

Below is a video of the Ramp-Shaped Screen version from 2006.

Originally seen in Art + Science Now: How scientific research and technological innovation are becoming key to 21st-century aesthetics.

Exquisite Clock (image above of the website) by Joao Henrique Wilbert at FABRICA is currently on show at Decode in London. The work is collectively created by ‘users’ who are invited:

to collect and upload images of numbers that can be found in different contexts around them – objects, surfaces, landscapes, cables… anything that has a resemblance to a number. The exquisite clock has an online database of numbers – an exquisite database – at its core. This supplies the website and interconnected physical platforms. The online database works like a feeder that provides data to different instances of clocks in the form of the website, and installations, mobile applications, designed products and urban screens.

The work makes direct reference to Exquisite Corpse which has been referenced and used time and time again in new media related works. The use of photographs of “anything that has a resemblance to a number” I suspect references the well known art / design school project that everyone (certainly everyone who’s attended an art / design degree in England) seems to have done at some stage, it was called Letters in the Landscape when I did it, where you took well framed, composed or close up photos of your surrounding environment to looks like letters or numbers.

Above is the physical clock designed for the 48th Furniture Fair in Milano between 22-27 April 2009 at Palazzo Borrromeo. Didn’t think much of the clock designed for the Decode exhibition itself and it was hung too high to see properly but this variant has striking similarities to some of the work I’ve posted about before that have a visible use of cables e.g. Less Than Three, Cablogramma etc.

I just stumbled across Untitled (Singing Tree) by Peter Coffin in Vitamin 3-D; New Perspectives in Sculpture and Installation. I’ve been thinking about the potential to connect trees to their environment (or perhaps each other) recently, not sure how this will take form i.e. primarily visual or an actual site specific work.

Descriptions I’ve found of Untitled (Singing Tree) are a bit thin (can’t locate video or audio anywhere which is a shame), Vitamin 3-D describes the work as using:

scientific instruments to give a tree a singing voice, encouraging audiences to consider the tree’s conscious potential and capacity to communicate – as well as its musical ability.

While online I just seem to find technical descriptions:

Pin electrodes (sensors), signal amplifier, computer with custom software, amplifier, horn speakers. (with David Robert)