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Body 01000010011011110110010001111001. What you see and experience.
The artwork speculates on a near future when our bodies will be alive with data as embedded devices seek their ways inside our bodies to interface with wider virtual worlds.
Body is a sculpture which responds to the emergent properties of the environment in London where the artist's wireless sensor network is situated. It represents the changing life and complexity of urban space as a dynamic, kinetic artwork. Real-time environmental data is embodied in Stanza's life-size sculpture assembled from computer components and acrylic slices of his own physique. In ‘Body 01000010011011110110010001111001' the urban environment provides a dynamic flickering and clicking sentience to the otherwise inert structure, reflecting the personal level of influence data has on an individual. This sculpture captures the changes over time in the environment (city) and represent the changing life and complexity of space as an emergent artwork.
'Body' is 2.24m tall and needs a floor space. It is made of hundreds of leds, motors, wires and custom made electronics all responding to changes in the data ie temperature, light, pressure, noise, and the sound of the city. (my sensor network). The artwork becomes a manipulation of data, that ‘powers' all the ‘events' 'actions' and 'processes' that you see in the sculpture.
The body shape is based on a 3d scan of the artists body i.e. (the body in the data space). Body goes beyond simple single user interaction to monitor and survey in real time the whole city and entirely represent the complexities of the real time city as a morphing and complex system. What you see as well as this body are hundreds of parts that come alive as the data changes and evolves. It is a hybrid artwork powered by live events.
This project leverages the real time space using data gathered using sensor technologies. The artwork explores new ways of thinking about life, emergence and interaction within public space and how this affects the socialization of space. The project uses environmental monitoring technologies and security based technologies, to question audiences experiences of real time events and create visualizations of life as it unfolds. The interactions of all this data are re-formed and re-contextualised in this real time artwork. Custom made software gathers data from the artist's sensors network via a custom made java proxy server and sends it to the sculpture. The mote reader software (in visual basic) sends events to the sculpture. This exist in two forms; in real time and as a local archive data set. (This enables the artwork to always function in the space, ie it has a back up)
Data as art. Process.
The body shape is based on a 3d scan of the artists body made from hi res 3d scan. This scan was used to covert data into a model format that was shaped then laser cut into place. All the electronics are then embedded into the body.
Technical
It needs a floor space five by five ft. So one can walk around it. It can also be placed against a wall. Ie its free standing and can be moved.
Exhibitions
Bruges Museum. Belgium. 2015
TSSK Trøndelag Centre for Contemporary Art. Trondheim. Norway. 2014
ODI (open data institute) London 2012
The artwork is available for exhibition.
The artwork is exhibited is part of “Data as Culture” exhibition curated by Julie Freeman. Body more open (addressable, structured, accountable, continuous) data. “As data becomes more accessible to artists, as it opens up for use as a raw material, we are seeing more of its integration into works that explore environmental sociopolitical and economic aspects of society. By utilizing data in an experiential way, this selection of works pulls data out of the virtual domain and into our physical world. The exhibition provokes discussion around what open data is, how it informs and affects us, and how we interpret it in a way that is meaningful.”
Press Coverage Includes BBC 1, BBC Radio 4,
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