PIKSEL

20.11.2009 – 10.01.2010

Battle
David Elliott

Two machines take turns trying to guess each others next guess.

Each box is equipped with a matrix of 16 A/C light bulbs that are used as a display. Inside each box there is a micro controller that’s able to control each light bulb discretely and communicate with the other box over serial connection. The two microcontrollers are guessing the future state of the other machine. The game consists of the machines taking turns creating and displaying sequences of patterns.

When one of the boxes constructs a sequence that is identical to the input sequence, that box has lost the game. At that point it will flash it’s columns from left to right and then construct a completely random sequence to start the game over. The box that won never knows that it won, it continues with the game as if it never ended.
http://hadto.net/category/projects/battle

Flick Flock defines the meaning of the body and its linkage to the continuous transformation of the urban place. It is reflecting the interconnections of bodies and space, and recreates the digital urban space we are living in to allow us to experience the role of the physical body.
Interacting with Flick Flock:
As soon as the body starts to move in the space, changes in the urban place take place. There are different potential changes that may take place: (1) User is moving freely triggers the camera movement/panning and the lighting or changes of scene in the virtual environment. Within the flickering bubbles displayed in the sky, video captures of previous interactions from different people or the current user him/herself are displayed. These video captures try to play as much similar or opposed movement as possible from the pool of captured video. The panning of the sound is also influenced by the movement of the body.

TL-Display is a low res. display made of HF-tubes.
The 1.0 version of the installation is randomly switching the lights of the seven segment digits on and off generating a meditative sound caused by the characteristics of the tubes. The installation is referring to encrypted data streams and the patterns involved. Can one retrieve a message?

The installation “capacitive body” is a modular light system that reacts to the sound of its environment.
The sensors are used to measure vibrations of architectural solids in a range of low frequencies. These oscillations are triggered by surrounding ambient noise, for example traffic noise. The sensor data controls the light wires, which are tensed to a spatial net structure. According to the values of the measurement light flashes are generated. A dynamic light space is thereby created, which creates a visual feedback of the aural activity around the installation.

url: http://www.martinhesselmeier.com/000/index.php?aid=78

Information machine for anxious times

What should we fear – terrorist attacks or bird flu?
Are we more likely to die a slow death of cancer or a quick death on the motorway?
The Reality Checking Device is a poetic information machine that stands in the tradition of the ancient Greek oracle. It confronts people with their own self and their personal anxieties. The Reality Checking Device is a tangible information graphic that reveals the relationship between public outrage and actual danger in common risk scenarios. The latest fear stories and popular danger situations are directly opposed to statistical data.
The Reality Checking Device is a made for a society in which anxieties have become a lifestyle choice.

http://www.susannahertrich.com/html/realitychecking.html

VOID EXTENSION offers an extension of our own vision through CCTV video cameras that let us see anyone, anywhere, anytime. Hidden in corners of urban landscape, they patiently wait for a presence. This installation is about the proliferation of those cameras watching (over) us. Supervision is a symbol of contemporary psychosis.
The project’s goal is to make the visitor feel observed by a CCTV video camera which is actually not physically present. As if the function of the object is more important than the object itself. The camera’s shadow’s the only evidence of its presence. This work confronts the problem of ambient paranoia, of the fear that takes over the individual vis à vis the society.

http://mariejuliebourgeois.blogspot.com/2009/05/extension-du-vide-expose-au-pavillon-de.html

The shipping forecast is a radio broadcast by the BBC providing a vital set of data about sea conditions in the waters around the UK. To the non-maritime listener, the language used in it is poetic and obscure, often in short, strange sounding but highly structured statements. The broadcasts carry a strong feeling of tradition. Using the text of the most up-to-date shipping forecast, the piece transcribes the forecast into Morse code, and then using a blinking light, transmits the forecast into the land-locked gallery space.

Platform for massive, character-based communication using VGA monitors.
_oneliner is a self-reflexive installation consisting of a long line of interconnected VGA monitors, 24 in total. The texts appearing on the monitors gives an insight into the software that is driving the installation. Texts appear, fragments of code, sometimes with personal comments of the maker.
Viewing the installation, the spectator develops an intuitive understanding for the subjective way in which technology is created: doubts, improvisation, sudden insights and moments of doubt are displayed through the choreography and poetical contents of the texts. This way, technology becomes a human activity.
http://www.scherpenisse.net/_oneliner/

19.11.2009 – 22.11.2009

What level of perceived risk are individual viewers and institutions comfortable (or uncomfortable) with? The works are challenging with some level of risk (but not dangerous), as in “Health & Safety Violation #8 – Randomly Activated Tripwires”. In this work, the steel trip wires randomly rise and fall, and their movement unsettle the viewers, effectively moving down a corridor filled with blatant trip hazards.
http://www.woodeson.co.uk

Intrinsic is an audio and light installation that explores minimal sound and audio. Dimensions of the space govern the configuration of the installation. The frequencies of the sine waves correlate to the dimensions of the space and create room modes. A series of light tubes are hung from the ceiling. As viewers enter the pitch-dark room, their eyes begin to slowly adjust to the shifting white light intensities that seem to be hovering in the space. Their ears perceive changing loudness of different electronic sound materials resulting from the way they navigate through the space.

http://www.angieatmadjaja.com/Piksel09.shtml

The serv seq, is a servo based sequencer. it has 3 arms with line detectors that can play sound from a frequency circle.
The arms can be sequenced with the three buttons on the controller, in combination with the joystick.. If the joystick is moved up, the volume will go up for the arm that is being controlled. Moving the joystick left and right will change the position of the arm.
On the tip of the arm there is a line detector, that plays back the frequencys, but the arms can also hit objects placed next to the circle to make drum sounds.

The installation Musica Vista 1.0 works with augmented physical parameters. The pieces on the projection area are seen, and the information of situation and type is translated into music and animations. Is a simplification of Augmented Reality. Normally the public play with objects and add some personal objects too. It’s the moment when the art became and grows… and all involved in a retro computer graphics ambient.
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwoKXuMjPPs

augen-auf-schlag
(strike-the-eyes)

This interactive sound-and-light-installation is considered as an instrument to generate and play sounds and liquid colors.
If someone hits one of the sound pads in the installation, the liquids in the projectors will react. There is a pane of glass hanging covered by a round projection screen. On that screen the three monochrome colors are projected to create one full color projection.
A sound environment defines the space imagination around the installation. The variety of sounds offered on a drum pad point to different musical genres. In this way it’s possible to create a great spectrum of sound world associations, and to enable an original audiovisual creation of colored music.

Taiknam Hat is a kinetic head-wear that reacts and animates in accordance with the changes in its surrounding radio frequencies. The intention of the project is to materialize the invisible and to contribute to the awareness of the increasing electromagnetic radiation.
Taiknam Hat is an attempt to materialize a new form of pollution; the electrosmog. Taiknam Hat utilizes the biological fact of horripilation in birds as a metaphor to express our bodies’ irritation towards electromagnetic radiation as well as to create a visual and tactile signage of their existence for other people. The headwear employs a number of movable actual feathers. These feathers become activated and move according to the existence and amount of radio frequencies at a certain location while the person who wears the hat strolls through space. http://www.taiknamhat.net

Generative Audio Prototypes is a series of sound generative sculptures, the design is produced from the organization of electronic elements, in order to create a series of objects that simulate biological structures, showing at the same time their clear artificial nature.
The project is based on Arduino and Pure Data as controllers and processors to produce audio. The piece uses physical computing techniques, where a spectator is essential to produce an interactive exchange. The piece receives what it needs, the proximity of an object or person. An unexpected response of pure digital generative sounds is given in exchange.
G.A.P. shows two adapting processes. First, the form of its physical aesthetics, an artificial structure that simulates a form of nature. And then the adapting of analogous sound from a digital source.
http://dalab.ws/generative-audio-prototypes/
http://dalab.ws/gap-no2/

T.P is an instrument, a sculpture and an installation. It is constructed through a peculiar combination of ancient and modern music technology, both visually and phonetically.
As an installation T.P acts as an independent organism, that is coloring the sound and giving the sculpture its own life. Microphones are placed in the vicinity of the T.P, that picks up surrounding sounds and uses these audio sources in addition to the synthesized sounds produced by the instrument itself. The soundscapes presented by the sculpture might be perceived as random, although there is nothing accidental in the system’s back end.

19.11.2009 – 22.11.2009

Microcodes are very small code-based artworks. Each one is a fully contained work of art. In emphasizing the conceptual, artistic potential of software code, these works make no attempt at being useful in the sense that tools may be useful. Their sole purpose is to evoke thoughtful contemplation and, in doing so, perhaps to enlighten the viewer. As works of art these are the creative work of Pall Thayer. The work may be seen at http://pallit.lhi.is/microcodes

Linux that kills itself and can kill You

Re:buntu is an illustration of a system making decisions by itself, committing to self-maintenance and self-destruction. The system is continuously reloading a copy of itself within itself until the memory runs out. When no free memory is left the system needs to decide which one of the copies of itself it shall kill in order to reproduce itself again, again and again…

URL: http://k0a1a.net/rebuntu/

FULL TXT: https://piksel.no/ocs/index.php/piksel/piksel09/paper/view/222