This interesting work popped up on the Microsound announce mailing list a few weeks ago and made me think of another work which has striking similarities in aim and use of technology.

Wind (image above, video below) by Damian Stewart is a work which employs the wind (it’s effect of movement on vegetation) to generate music in real time.

Through digital transformation, a visual phenomenon becomes an audio phenomenon. Through an emphasis on process, the viewer’s attention is drawn away from the artwork as a representation of some phenomenon, and toward an experience of the phenomenon itself. The artwork serves purely to facilitate this movement, to shift the viewer’s perception away from their understanding of the artwork itself, and toward their own experience of the phenomena that the artwork is supposed to be ‘about.’

The work has been created with openFrameworks and Pure Data.

Éventée (image above, video below) by Mathieu Blasquez is a generative video installation where the opacity of the video and the strength of the wind (produced by a wind generator) is produced by the sound of the wind in the video. This in effect links your senses, almost as if you were squinting your eyes against the wind, creating a unique interpretation of an immersive experience. Unlike Wind above where sound is produced by sight (movement and computer vision) here user sight is controlled by sound.

For related work see Lightweeds by Simon Heijdens (posted about here).

Sourced from Microsound announce mailing list.

Recently had a quick break in Amsterdam to relax and try to see a few exhibitions. Our timing wasn’t great as some of the most interesting spaces seemed to between exhibitions (e.g. Netherlands Media Art Institute).

Deep Screen – Art in Digital Culture at the Stedelijk Museum (temporarily located on the 2nd and 3rd floor of the former Post CS-building) annoyed me quite a bit to be honest. The Stedelijk is expensive (9 Euros), I expected it to be, but I also expected it to be immense (as it was in the former building) with the permanent collection on exhibition. You’ll pay about the same as you would to go see an exhibition at Beaubourg or the ZKM but where as these could take a weekend to explore you’ll do the Stedelijk space in about half an hour. It’s not big, it isn’t even those two floors of the building that are mentioned on the site as many of the rooms are closed or open with nothing in them. The exhibition we saw was very badly laid out with huge gaps between exhibits, having to double back on yourself to get to parts of the exhibition and to be frank seemed very 1990’s in theme (it reminded me of an exhibition at ISEA 2000, Au dela de l’écran / Beyond the Screen), the choice of work and on occasion choice of artists. Added to this was our disappointment at Mediamatic being in the middle of a relocation to new premises (they were in the same building as the Stedelijk) and so they had nothing on - really bad timing on our part.

If you do go to Amsterdam soon however here’s what you could do with that 9 Euro’s!

Rent a bike for a day and cycle around to the much more interesting galleries a little bit further out from the centre. The Netherlands Media Art Institute is well worth checking out however Field Work - part 2 at Smart Project Space was the first show we saw. The gallery is located in what looks like a residential area and is similar to the Stedelijk Museum CS is that it’s using a former industrial / office space. The exhibitions here seem to be free and while the space is small, choice of works seems much more considered.

Two works that stood out were by Juneau Projects (Philip Duckworth and Ben Sadler), Beneath the floorboards of the forest, empty space (image above) and Sewn to the Sky (image below). Beneath the floorboards of the forest, empty space is a text based computer game:

Juneau Projects resurrected an Atari typeface to visualize written passages describing a series of interlocking environments gradually moving from the countryside to the city. Within the gaming format of the work, users encounter various network points in the floorboards that make up the theatrical ground, and during their journey are invited to collect computer parts - a wooden keyboard, a ‘mouse’ made of fur and bones - fashioned from natural elements. Users navigate a fictional narrative and landscape akin to the actual installation and city in which they sit and also have the option to listen to the texts via the inbuilt computerized speech of the Windows software reader, a further conflation of the ‘natural’ and man-made via technological advances…For SMART Project Space, Juneau Projects has worked in references to locations in Amsterdam where a collision between nature and culture plays a key role. They have also realized adapted versions of the hobbyist landscaped work stations, which will be overgrown with moss (a good indicator of air pollution).

Sewn to the Sky is a multimedia performance installation employing music (or sound at least) as an interface to a video game. The work:

connects the process of playing a musical instrument and the structures of composition within visual experience and new technologies as particular sounds and instruments interact differently with the animation. ’Sewn to the Sky’ favours the cooperative nature of performance where the better a band plays together the better they succeed at the game…the owl that is the protagonist of the game cannot die – there is a conspicuous lack of blood, guts and gore in the game. As little owl seeks to evade predators (and flying into trees) he or she tumbles, picks him/herself up and continues on the way. Success is rewarded through graduation to a new habitat – failure through trying again another way…After the performance at SMART Project Space the game will remain as an installation in the exhibition space, to be played by visitors.

On seeing this installation we did not hesitate to start playing the instruments (very loudly), we thought we were lucky nobody was around to hear us but apparently it’s encouraged so jump right in.

Checking Reality (flyers above) at Platform21 (located here) was without a doubt the highlight of our visit and we only saw excerpts as it was only setting up! Works of note include, Lightweeds (image below) by Simon Heijdens. These are digital weeds which:

react to the number of people in the room, while the flowers sway to the wind as it is measured outside and turn with the position of the sun…Nature outside is thus felt inside….Simon Heijdens’ objects and installations respond to the nature immediately surrounding them. He gives them the specific characteristics of nature. Thus the objects’ colour and shape, and therefore the character of the room, change over time. Through sensors, living digital organisms allow us to feel the changing nature outside, thereby restoring a natural timeline to the space.

Doodle Earth (image below) by Serge Seidlitz is a collaborative architectural visions of the future which presents itself as a interactive drawing workshop.

Squint/Opera and Serge Seidlitz invited artists to contribute to phase one of Doodlearth. Each artist was asked to submit 20 illustrated elements making up a city. These elements were then collaged together in a random way to create a 40-minute animation, which will be projected onto long rolls of paper. The public will be invited to get involved and contribute to the film’s evolution.

Visitors can contribute to the show through a whole series of works and events throughout the exhibition employing semacodes and 3D scanning (image below) led by Sergio Davilla. If you can’t get there you can also contribute to the exhibition by submitting work to the virtual exhibition on Google Earth.

The premise of this exhibition, the virtual is a tried and tested one but the interesting thing here is the combining / mixing / merging that is going on throughout the exhibition which uses the space well, takes the show outside the space in every way possible (into Beatrix Park and online through the web site and Google Earth) and really questions what “A real show about the virtual” can actually achieve. This in combination with the richness of ideas that runs through the works, the very accessible and interesting workshops and the carefully selected contextual books on sale gives the visitor (real or virtual) a massive amount of things to see / do / participate / think about.

The exhibition runs until 27th of August and is well worth the cycle to the space, getting lost, having to ask for directions, nobody knowing where it is and then finally finding it.

One of the artists who has shown work in the Maverick Machines exhibition last year and is currently showing work in the Pask Present exhibition is Richard Brown. What follows are five of his works similar in approach and style.

The Electromagnetic Time Machine (image above left) is a kinetic electromagnetic sculpture which uses

the cybernetic principle of regulatory feedback to generate complex oscillatory behaviour. Each electromagnetic relay is physically coupled to a vertical pendulum and electrically influenced by its immediate neighbour.

When a relay closes it causes the relay in front to close only if the relay behind is open, thus creating a regulatory feedback loop with unstable oscillations due to the differing physical weightings of the vertical pendulums. A simple PIR sensor activates the work, the pulsing lights indicating the closing and opening of each relay.

See Relay Works: networked sculptures for related work.

Electrochemical Synthesiser (image above right) is primarily an audio based work which employs the amplification of low level electrical activity within an electrochemical reaction:

this work demonstrates the highly complex electrochemical activity occurring between copper and aluminium in salt (Sodium Chloride) solution. The sounds give an indication of the many invisible oscillating electrochemical processes occurring between the two metals. The work serves to illustrate the natural complexity available through simple materials contrasting the amount of electronics or software programming that would be needed to realise the synthesis of equivalent sound effects.

Static Machine (video above) is another kinetic electromagnetic sculpture.

The movement of the copper tongues is generated by the attraction and repulsion of induced static electrical charge. A high voltage ioniser circuit generates the static charge at the base of the sculpture. Energy flows around the sculpture via the oscillating copper tongues causing the neons to glow as the machine attempts to dissipate electrical energy. The tongues act as capacitors, accumulating and moving the charge upwards with excess energy being spent via the spark gap. The machine can be viewed as an analogue computer constantly trying to balance charge dissipation over charge accumulation through the physical movement of electrical charge.

Electrochemical Machine and the Electrochemical Glass (images above) are two works which employ similar electrochemical processes. Metal sandwiched between glass and held in a conductive solution is charged with electricity or becomes charged with electricity due to how the metals react to each other. Electrochemical Glass for example comprises:

Three metals, Aluminium (Al), Iron (Fe) and Copper (Cu) sandwiched between glass, held in cotton wool in a conductive solution. Over time, the metals transform due to electrical activity generated by the disimilar [sic] metals.

The process represents a form of electrochemical emergence, whilst the filament growths from the iron share a similarity to the experiments conducted by the Cybernetician, Gordon Pask in creating an electrochemical device that could recognise sounds, known as Pask’s Ear.

Philip Ross was one of the artists featured in Rhizome’s Networked Nature exhibition earlier this year. His work consists of designed and constructed controlled environmental spaces which:

nurture, transform, and refine a variety of sculptural artifacts much as one might train the growth of a Bonsai tree.

Two works which look particularly spectacular on his website and employ ideas of networks are Junior Return and Jarred In.

Junior Return (image above) is:

a self-contained survival capsule for one living plant. Four blown glass enclosures provide a controlled hydroponic environment; one holds the plant, another the water reservoir for the plant, the third holds the electronics and pump that control the plant’s resources, and the last for the rechargeable battery that gives the energy required to keep the plant alive in this container. An air pump goes off for a few seconds every minute, supplying air to the plant and to the water reservoir. A digital timer counts down from sixty to zero, displaying the time left until the pump will activate. Then, with little notice, a few bubbles appear in the water, the only indication that anything is actually going on.

The latest ‘version’ of Junior Return is titled Clone Army which consists of ighteen of the small hydroponic units networked together in different formations.

Jarred In (image above) is a sixteen feet tall and twelve feet wide hanging garden installation.

In this garden pairs of plants are housed in life support pods suspended from a chandelier like armature. The roots of the plants swim in illuminated, water filled boxes. Water is pumped up from tall Plexiglas reservoirs resting on the ground. The reservoirs are attached to a central pod on the ground, referred to by the folks at The Exploratorium as “the mother ship” and housing six Dwarf Impatiens. Cushioned settees, covered with a Victorian floral print fabric and sealed in clear vinyl surround this floor pod.

These autonomous growing containers are modeled on the techniques and aesthetics of the Wardian Cases that were used to transport living plants from one continent to another during the 18th and 19th centuries. They are effectively isolated from the environment of The Exploratorium, requiring a great dedication of electricity and materials to remain healthy. I also wanted them to look like the swarm of alien ships that appear at the end of Close Encounters of The Third Kind.

Related work includes: Life Support Systems - Vanda, Pieces for Plants, Telegarden and Bion.

Inspired by a post seen at Bit Babble.

Rhizome have posted a set of images on Flickr for the Networked Nature exhibition that took place from January 11 - February 18, 2007. The exhibtion showed work from C5, Futurefarmers, Shih Chieh Huang, Philip Ross, Stephen Vitiello and Gail Wight:

Networked Nature, a group exhibition that inventively explores the representation of “nature” through the perspective of networked culture. The exhibition includes works by C5, FutureFarmers, Shih-Chieh Huang, Philip Ross, Stephen Vitiello, and Gail Wight, who provocatively combine art and politics with innovative technology, such as global positioning systems (GPS), robotics, and hydroponic environments.