SteamSHIFT’s MDAT Blog

Loca, Blocks

Finland- and UK-based artist-researchers Loca were running their project in downtown San Jose. They had molded hollow concrete objects which they attached to various lamps, traffic lights and signposts. Being made of gray concrete makes them effectively invisible which is important because they contain sneaky cargo: inside, there’s a mobile phone and a power source which lasts around a week. Using a custom software, the phone will continuously scan for devices that have bluetooth enabled and set to discoverable. Every occasion of a tracked device will be sent to the central database and archived there. At their booth they would print out a receipt-style list of the places you’ve been to which in my case was approximately 2 meters long, others were gigantic. Now here comes the fun part: Loca not only collects your data but also tries to combine it with the context of the “urban semantics” it is operating in and tries to draw conclusions from that. Having checked out a few shops and the park for instance, you would suddenly get the message: “You were in a flower shop and spent 30 minutes in the park; are you in love?”.

Another thing that Loca do is the tagging of photos according to the electromagnetic context of the device at the time they were taken, i.e. the identities of the nearby bluetooth devices. The pictures they have been uploading to Flickr for some time now contain information about the presence of other’s cameras, which already represents quite a history of social encounters, opening a wide field of possibilities for mining and combining the data. There was another work called BlueStates which apparently works in the same direction.

IN[ ]EX is a project by a Canadian art group which acts as a nice low-tech approach to the spread of digital information. Their piece consist of a shipping container with (initially) 3000 wooden blocks of various sizes attached to it with tiny magnets. There are also a few bigger ones that actually contain sensors for the smaller blocks. The setup has two functions: a sound installation inside the container which is being generated and influenced through the way that the small blocks are attached to the wall of the container and around the bigger, sensitive blocks. The other part is actually participatory since the artists ask visitors to pick a block and take it with them. Ideally, they should attach it to another metal surface in the city, spreading the installation all over the place. IN[ ]EX is meant to “explore the migration of capital, goods, and people through the ports and public spaces of Vancouver and San Jose”, and the Canadian wood did migrate quite a lot. By the time this photo was taken, almost 1000 pieces were already gone and you would see them in the most absurd places, some people get really ambitious with these things.

The exhibition-space at South Hall in San Jose, being a giant temporary tent-like structure, was a bit remindful of the Cargolifter hangar close to Berlin, blimp and blimpsters included!

(Via we make money not art.)

Trace

Human beings have a great propensity for storytelling, and for making and using objects. We project value onto an object based on our emotional attachment to it, which in turn is based on our memories associated with it. These objects become cues to our past. They can tell stories about our lives.

WebMuseum: Cornell, Joseph

Cornell, Joseph (1903-72). American sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage.

He had no formal training in art and his most characteristic works are his highly distinctive `boxes’. These are simple boxes, usually glass-fronted, in which he arranged surprising collections of photographs or Victorian bric-à-brac in a way that has been said to combine the formal austerity of Constructivism with the lively fantasy of Surrealism. Like Kurt Schwitters he could create poetry from the commonplace. Unlike Schwitters, however, he was fascinated not by refuse, garbage, and the discarded, but by fragments of once beautiful and precious objects, relying on the Surrealist technique of irrational juxtaposition and on the evocation of nostalgia for his appeal (he befriended several members of the Surrealist movement who settled in the USA during the Second World War). Cornell also painted and made Surrealist films.

Kinetic Sculptures by Conrad Shawcross

London based artist Conrad Shawcross creates these fantastic kinetic sculptures that draw inspiration from philosophy and scientific theories.

Shown above is ‘Loop System Quintet‘ (2005):
“Each of the five oak machines in Loop System Quintet - connected by a single drive-shaft - draws a different ‘knot’ of light in space, predetermined by the ratio of the cogs that drive it. These ratios are directly related to formal theories of musical harmony (Harmonics). The resulting light patterns, perceived by the viewer only as the machines rotate, can therefore be regarded as visual transcriptions of musical chords….The circles of energy produced by the lights also relate to string theory, a complex scientific theory stating that matter is comprised of vibrating ’strings’ of energy rather than single, isolated particles”

Watch video

Created in 2004, ‘Light Perpeptual I‘ (2004) must have been a precursor to the work above.

“Displayed in a darkened gallery, the device works as a giant drawing machine, blasting it’s luminous patterns through the wire grid onto the walls, leaving the viewer seeing spots, like from staring into the sun. Conrad Shawcross isn’t making paintings on canvas, but rather through mechanical invention, he’s imprinting his image directly into the eye”

Further reading & sources above:
In the studio: Conrad Shawcross (Telegraph, 2005)
Conrad Shawcross, sculptor (Guardian, 2006)
Portrait of the artist as a young boffin (Observer, 2005)
BBC Feature

The exhibition ‘No Such Thing As One‘ brings together a body of work that explores ideas concerning time and the essence of matter. On display at the Victoria Miro gallery, east London, until 18th November.

You may also want to visit the Kinetica Museum in Spitalfields to see more moving sculpture artworks.

(Via Pixelsumo.)