Sammie Kim – Looking Outwards -08

Elliot Woods is a digital media artist, educator, and technologist based in Manchester UK. With the goal of creating a bridge between digital and contemporary arts, he strives to build “future interactions between humans and social-visual design technologies like projectors, graphical computation, and cameras” (Woods). As a result, Woods co-founded the experimental art and design technology studio in Seoul called Kimchi and Chips. In this unique studio, several installation projects were developed, the most recent being “Halo.” 99 robotic mirrors would constantly trace the direction of sun throughout the day, and they would each emit a ray of sunlight into a cloud of water mist. Applying the Bayesian inference machine learning, Woods recreated the beams so they would computationally align to draw bright halos into the air.  As this installation completely depends on the presence of the sun to function, it explores the limitless end of technology, striving to even capture the natural fluctuations into technology. What intrigued me most was how Woods would utilize his deep physics background to generate interfaces with abstract systems and approach his artistic endeavors in a step by step methodical approach.  

(link to Elliot Wood’s Website) https://www.kimchiandchips.com/works/halo/