an audio and visual installation that uses Internet as an imaginary space where sound echoes, reverberates throughout the Web. Based on transmission errors, the sound material is shaped by the virtual acoustic space of the network. Sound streams broadcasted within the installation structure gradually echoes the activity of the Web in various locations of the globe. Its analysis in these various points is used to progressively draw the contours of an imaginary landscape inside the installation.
The installation is currently on show as part of Cimatics at IMAL in Brussels but I’ve not had any luck finding info on the IMAL website.
Two works pointed out to me in a comment which are similar to Blogbot and Blog Bot Platform are Twittgenerator (images above of the generator and resulting Twitter account) which is granted very recent and Net.art.box (images below) which is now an amazing eight years old.
Both works are by Yann Le Guennec (Net.art.box is in collaboration with Grégoire Cliquet) and seem to fit nicely into the artists collection of network programming art intended to automate art or the role of the artist (see also). Yann also is one of surprisingly few artists who are using the longer running open source tools/environments making much of his work with php, mysql and associated libraries such as gd.
Net.art.box was a temporary installation which consisted of an open IRC channel to:
receive definitions of net.art. The IRC log is printed in real time and a webcam film [sic] this printed log and shows it on the net. The device is a feedback loop between real and virtual spaces.
As it says the installation was a feedback loop to the internet where text comments passed from the ‘virtual’ to be printed in the ‘real’ and were then streamed back to the virtual as an image in effect rendering users thought as visual art. This is not just a technical loop but also an artistic one of perception, interpretation and reaction (see Interactivity and MultiMedia Interfaces for notes on interactive feedback loops).
Twittgenerator, when entered by a user recovers users text searches from search.live.com. These are then rendered as potential twits by an imagined user, most probably the artist, which can then be logged on twitter or not.
Whats interesting about both of these works (and Blogbot) is that while automated to an extent they all need to be triggered by a user who may or may not be conscious of what is happening when they simply go to the works webpage. Blogbot Platform is the exception of the four in that it’s user, most probably a plant or animal, is not your typical network user and most definitely not conscious of the result of their ‘actions’.
This Monday (20/10/08, 20:30 Paris time, GMT+1) Pascal Lièvre and Matthieu Delahausse will perform Surveiller Punir “Double Contraintes Foucault” as part of Panoplie.org’s Double Bind series of webcast performances. The performance will involve:
Pascal Lièvre and Matthieu Delahausse, at two different places in Paris, will read the same extract of “Discipline and Punish” by Michel Foucault, each of them being equipped with an SM accessory which will make the exercise of the reading difficult.
The concept for these curated performances, a Double Bind, is a fascinating one in relation to networked forms:
A dilemma in communication, in which a person receives two or more conflicting messages, and one message denies the other; a situation in which the person will be put in the wrong however they respond, and the person can’t comment on the conflict, or resolve it, or opt out of the situation.
In this piece a computer program continuously scans the headlines of 4,500 English-language news sources around the world, looking for people who have been reported killed. Each time it finds an article, an algorithm determines the number of deaths, and instructs a ceiling-mounted mechanism built from Legos to drop one yellow BB per person. During the course of the installation, BBs will accumulate on the floor, contributing to an ever-growing constellation, ultimately forming a sort of monument.
The use of BBs (pellets for an airgun) reflects the seriousness of the topic quite well here but is perhaps less dramatic and globally understood as (what looks like) blood.
In the second work, Whose Life is it Anyway? (or is it Who’s Life Is It Anyway?) (image above), the artist appropriates peoples twitter feeds as:
autobiographical lines of one’s own
Now where have I seen something like that before? I do like the idea of transforming it into something real within a space, this is something both works have in common making that transition from ‘virtual’ to ‘real’ however here simply printed on thermal paper it seems less considered than Monument.
I’m currently teaching an undergraduate year 2 module about web based non-linear narratives and collecting a list of links to inspire the students to investigate the potential of what sounds like it should be a massive topic but is in fact tricky to find good examples of. The majority of work uses flash in a banal almost slideshow manner. There isn’t a lot of work which uses html/css/javascript, what does is very dated and more often than not half broken and very little exists which takes advantage of server side scripting, databases or any of the advantages of Web 2.0 such as mashups, ajax etc.
The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming, one of six digital fictions sponsored by Penguin books reinterpreting or paying tribute to six classics, in this case a homage to The 39 Steps by John Buchan, is one exception I found which without a doubt is the most interesting use of Google Maps I’ve seen yet. It is an adventure within Google Maps which takes advantage of the more sophisticated aspects of the Google Maps API including markers, polylines and animated routes. You would think that the idea of using Google Maps to create non-linear narratives like this was obvious but it’s the only example I can find.
