Title: Intelligent Sheep: Baa Ram Ewe…to your clan be true.
Music for sheep by sheep. Artist : Stanza.
This is an interactive sound performance and concert. This artwork uses local environmental data collected using ad hoc wireless networked devices for environmental monitoring, which are attached to the sheep. In this case the dozen sheep collect and send data about the environment, and respond to the space as a collective as they move about.
The sheep monitor the environment in real time, generate sound, and send data to a server (online or offline) where this data is interpreted and sonified in situ using custom made software. They are observers of their own space, in control of their own environment. The sheep wander around and in doing so become musicians interacting with their movements. In this artwork the sheep become the performers creating sound and visuals of the location which is then displayed online and offline in the exhibition space.
How
The sheep carry a network of wireless sensors, these measure, in real time, the environmental conditions light temperature humidity and their own GPS location The sheep transmits data to local decentralized system and to various internet applications for interpretation, visualization and sonic analysis. They establish a radio frequency communication network, satellite internet and GPS to do this. As a consequence, they intervene with the environment and act as agents for change in the space. The sheep are communicating with each other using the motes sensor network, which sends readings to a gateway. This is then interpreted online and offline via XML data feeds and connects the location the physical space and environment with the virtual space, the internet.
By sharing the data, the sheep create a network of knowledge exchange. Each sheep is a node that transmits and receives sensed data and this is made into sounds and visual experiences ie the artworks. Technical
Using wireless motes sensors and 420 sensors with GPS attached to the sheep. The movements of sheep in a field create a soundscape in real time.
Concert
The concert last 40 minutes in length. Output onto speakers as a soundstreams of the changing conditions in the field.
Performers . Twelve sheep. The sheep and local farmers are involved. We then equipped the sheep for gathering information about the space around us they create the live real time artwork as they move about.
Audience and Community.
This is a live event for the local public dissiminated as a live spectacle and concert. Local film makers will make the film and the audience of locals are all invited to bring sheep. Audience involvement is also enhanced via the data online and via the film of the event
In this artwork the sheep become the performers creating sound and visuals of the location. This can also be displayed online and offline in an exhibition space.
The location site shown is in Barrow Island, Barrow In Furness, North England.
Notes:
This is a challenging project which is rich in artistic metaphor with contexts are varied as privacy, surveillance, control space, and ownership of data as well as commenting on the environment questioning the relationship of the moving “body” as performers inside the data space. It is an experimental artwork which has led out of previous research and development from Stanza's research into GPS since 2004 and his AHRC creative fellowship as Goldsmiths digital studios.
The artwork involves local people, a unique setting and experimental networked devices which communicate over GPS to make art. The project is truly revolutionary in its us of a custom made GPS tracking systems (which we have been developing ) and locates very accurately the position of the sheep (ie the performers) in real time in any given space. As such this also becomes a test for a whole series of other uses for this technology. ie live real time performances with any performance group in the city or in rural setting.
It also allows the data to be visualised (made into something one can see) or sonfified ( turned into music). As such there other outcomes extending the uses of data culturally and making artistic metaphors from concerns currently topical such as environmental change.
At the event a local team of young film makers will make given the task to make the film. Local farmers will be involved and the production crew will be sourced in locally.
In developing this project we as seeking to push our visions for cultural diaspora across networks and to new audiences. This proposal is open source data and it is delivered across networks. It challenges new ground as a performative event.
This artwork tests these conditions (above) and I hope to have learnt how it can be developed further so it becomes a test bed for future projects in this vein. I hope this will lead to more challenging projects involving cutting edge technologies and delivering unique and memorable audience experiences that resonate culturally well into the future.
Technology summary.
Each sheep will have the following systems attached in a small box:
Sensor system, Data Processing and radio frequency transmission motes and sensors board, Data sonificaton sound system, data visualization system, GPS system, and optional video, transmission.
They can establish an autonomous node network with an implementation.
Output below: include experiments environmental processes; exhibit and implementation in site; and documentation of the work.
This technology includes custom:-
Online coding
Motes programming, gateway set up
Sonifications using max /msp
GPS System
XML feeds
Mote reader
Technology developments
The system I have made can run on a local server and also on a online real time server via custom JAVA mote reader server that present al thee data via xml files. This is transmitted on a main host computer gateway and transmit the obtained data to the operating system of the main mobile computer which can the do the visualisation. All technology is in place.
Data set from trials view here.
Sound Experience
Audio test from first prototype listen here.
Test with GPS mapped over location. As sheep move around music is made......
Available for touring.
Contact me if your interested in producing this at some location. Artwork by Stanza
www.stanza.co.uk |
