A sound installation by Keiichiro Shibuya and Takashi Ikegami at Podewils´sches Palais, Berlin, which many visitors of transmediale.08 unfortunately might have missed. i wish we had such a sound setup for the orbiter!
info at YCAM
An ambisonic sound and video installation by the two Berlin based artists Erika Matsunami and Antonis Anissegos, who present their work on SENDUNG.net Platform for Experimental Video and Live Visuals, which we run since summer 2006. Visit
Erika´s profile on
SENDUNG.net.
39 quasi-scientific paintings and drawings. Musing on the meaning of life, surrounding a twelve foot high black column filled with whirling computers. A hexagonal structure, The Thinker emits an electronic hum generated by the bank of computers inside. The computers are set to operate for 33,000 years with an LED display counting the seconds up to 76.5 years (the average human lifespan).
Tyson said it was his take on sculptor Rodin’s famous piece, The Thinker.
“The Thinker is a twelve foot high black column that houses a series of computers inside it, running an artificial life programme which has been programmed in such a way that it evolves. There is no physical manifestation of the fact that it is thinking, and I’m fascinated by the idea that when you come across it you have a thing that is thinking but which is impenetrable – that you can’t get within its skin. Once the thing sets off, I can predict that it’s thinking for about half an hour but after that I’ve got no idea – so I’m as much in the dark as everyone else as to what it’s actually thinking about.”
It is part of a series entitled “The Seven Wonders of the World”.
“That is a series of works that relate to things I find wonderous. I wanted to make works that were not illustrative of some scientific or philosophical theory but embodied it – were in fact the actual theory made manifest. The Thinker really thinks, and is thought. The fact that human beings have reached a stage where they can find a mathematical methodology for creating thought itself, and that we can comprehend our own existence, are some of the things I am trying to manifest in this work. It also relates to this idea that we can never actually prove what the internal dialogue of another human being actually is. It’s about the way in which everybody’s universe is impenetrable, and the way everyone who thinks has their own separate universe.”
Source: fineart.ac.uk
Finally there is some documentation online about our (pickledonion.com’s) Spyscanner project we did earlier this year for the Science Museum, London. Pictures on flickr
just a reminder to myself about this weird instrument which is a nice example of how to utilize electromagnetic fields as input sources. also see thereminvox and theremin world
Regine writes a review about The Science of Spying exhibition at the Science Museum, London in which we (as pickledonion) were involved. Read it: Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3
by Carl Emil Carlsen
Brief Design a concept for an installation that is bound to a specific a public space at the school. Construct a functional mock-up.
Concept Forget all what you’ve learned in school during biology classes. This plant-like lamp has struck roots in a dark corner and feeds on sunlight. The light that hits the floor by a nearby doorway slows down and floats seeking the bare roots. When the door is opened and light rushes in the lamp-plant lights up as a welcoming gesture.
Evaluation The installation was functional for 2 weeks in the hallway to the cantina and was given positive feedback from a lot of the passing students. The school granted the project an “A” grade.
from moodplug.com
by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin
Listening Post is an art installation that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens. Listening Post cycles through a series of six movements, each a different arrangement of visual, aural, and musical elements, each with it’s own data processing logic. Dissociating the communication from its conventional on-screen presence, Listening Post is a visual and sonic response to the content, magnitude, and immediacy of virtual communication.
Wikipedia: Ferrofluids Sachiko Kodama her portfolio
by Sachiko Kodama
“Bridge is a spectacular new site-specific design commission for Dilston Grove, London (Cafe Gallery Projects) by Michael Cross. Housed in a former church, (one of the earliest examples of poured concrete construction and a Grade II listed building), the piece comprises submerging two thirds of the inside of the church in water, and producing a series of steps which rise out of the apparently empty man-made ‘lake’ as you walk across them. Each step emerges one step in front of you and disappears back underneath behind you as you go. This ‘bridge’ is purely mechanical, the weight of the person on it depresses each step a little, this force activates a submerged mechanism which raises the next step. The public are invited to walk out on it as if walking on water, eventually reaching the middle of the lake, thirty steps and twelve meters from the shore. There they will stand alone and detached, stranded in the middle of a plane of water until they choose to return the way they came. For some people this experience of being cut off and surrounded by water will be peaceful, for others terrifying. For some walking across the water will be pure childish joy, whilst others will be too scared to try”.
via Pixelsumo