Jess Medenbach-Looking Outwards 4

Earthworks is a multimedia installation by the artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, using the natural sounds of the earth to create computer generated visuals to go along with it.

For the festival Sonarplanta, the artists put the 5 channel video installation inside of a huge round vaulted space that encompasses the viewer.

The artists take seismic data from the earth’s tectonic movements and then use that data to create sounds. It becomes an almost timelapse of the earth moving. They then use those sounds to generate psychedelic visuals that encompass the viewer.

What I think is inspiring about this piece is that they took something they were interested in, the tectonic movements of the earth and then turned that into numbers, they then took the numbers and turned that into moving data that then influenced sounds that then trigger visuals…or create a whole new slew of data. I think this kind of process is really inspiring, and the breakdown and buildup of information to create a piece of art is really interesting! It puts visuals to something that you know about but you don’t necessarily get to see or hear and brings your awareness to this whole other process that is constantly happening around you.