Category: LookingOutwards-03

 

This work created by artist and composer Dylan Sheridan is called Bellow. It is a digital installation that plays live music through an artificial irrigation system, automated fingers and electronic sensors. I was searching through powland.tv’s page and found this post, which eventually led me to this project. I found this work particularly interesting because of how the artist tries to synthesize natural phenomena with artificial sounds and physical components. While it is a manmade recreation of a cave-like environment, the installation does not attempt to copy what an actual cave would look and sound like other than showing a tiny piece of turf. Instead it focuses on the sound composition, how the sounds are being played, and how the interaction should happen. It somehow reminds me of a Rube Goldberg machine with its usage of different trigger components and complexity of the sound composing process.

aeroMORPH

AeroMORPH, a project created in the MIT Media Lab is a project that explores the creation of 3D elements through 2D materials at the intersection of origami and machine learning. The project implements many elements of art and math, where knowledge and skillsets in geometry, origami, and digital fabrication combine in creating interactive wearables and industrial design with precision.

I find this project to be fascinating and one which stands out from other projects in the way origami, a historic and traditional Japanese art could be used in industrial design. I really enjoy seeing classical techniques that are centuries old in application with today’s technology, where something like AeroMORPH can utilize the art and efficiency of origami and the creation of something ergonomic, crafty, yet elegant.

Hannah Perner-Wilson, high/low tech wearables and textiles hacker

Choosing a piece from Hannah Perner-Wilson’s repertoire was really difficult because I think she makes some really interesting work. One of the articles linked mentioned the propensity of gloves as an area of study for physical computists(?) and I saw that reflected in her work in a really fun way but I ended up choosing this really simple project and more “functional” project.

I find this piece of work incredibly interesting for three questions/points of explorations it proposes for me: interface, surveillance and ownership.

So I did the readings in a different order, and I read the manifesto first and I think a lot about the reasons we as humans often have a little bit of nostalgia towards analog technology that didn’t have as many augmentative agents as we do now, it also didn’t have as complicated and developed forms of tracking us. It wasn’t an absorbing mode of social media. And what fascinates me about this project is the turning of this sort of digital horror to a self made system. It is interesting to me, reading her process in trying to make this phone functional for her and detailing the many interface problems it presents.

It’s functional, but not perfectly so. It’s inconvenient, but in the way that’s only noticeable through the passage of time and the development of new technologies and thorough interface agents.

 

Sachiko Kodama & Minako Takeno’s “Protrude, Flow” // 2001

This work is an interactive installation that expresses a man’s desire and passion for life, and moves like our instinctual feelings – unlike machines, this installation reminds us of the energy pulsating in our own body. It was created using a black magnetic fluid that is manipulated through sound. The fluid’s movements are due to changes in a magnetic fluid produced by several electromagnets installed above and below. Each electromagnet’s voltage is controlled according to the sound input of the spectators’ voices in the exhibition space by computer processing, making the fluid pulsate like a living being. Specifically, the sounds are captured by microphones hanging from the ceiling, then a computer converts the sound amplitude into electromagnetic voltage, determining the strength of the magnetic field.

What I found interesting about this project were the forms that were created through people’s voices. Although the artists said it was supposed to mimic the energy pulses of a living being and express man’s desires, I didn’t really get that feeling from watching the videos and seeing the images. To me, it seems like particles and individual parts forming into one whole individual being/form – focusing on creating societies, one together form. The installation is really mesmerizing and the landscapes formed are so interesting to watch. The fluid forms spikes but the multitude of spikes throughout the work end up being super organic and fluid.

Still image of the installation