1990-2000
From Yo-yo
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1990
Theo Jansen
Since 1990 I have been occupied creating new forms of life. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat. Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.
loekvanderklis@hetnet.nl
1994
Elliott Anderson
Mercurial Refractions 1994
Computer controlled interactive video, live image capture and digital satellite data and imagery. Collaboration with Jim Campbell.
Mercurial Refractions creates an image of the Earth through the layering of digital video images collected real-time from the Internet. The piece is based on the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s The Age of the World Picture. In this essay Heidegger charges that the world has become completely objectified by technology that we are no longer able to discern our participation in the world. We also cannot see our objectified position relative to the world.
The video image is projected to the dimensions of one wall of the space. The computer retrieves weather information from cities across the U.S. It filters this information to structure a narrative by selecting images stored in the computer and sequencing them. In addition the viewers’ movements in the space are followed by video surveillance camera and digitized. The computer renders the viewers’ movements as patterns of noise that float across the surface of the image and as a wind-like sound.
The viewer enters the space and sees a round image of the earth projected to fill one wall of the space. There is a pattern of noise running across the surface of the image. On the shadow side of the Earth image there is a view of an empty room with a chair. As the viewer moves her/his movements can be seen as perturbations in the noise pattern. The perturbations float across the face of the globe. Movement is also translated into a wind sound. The movements of the viewer reveal a figure in shadow moving in the room on screen. The figure constantly changes position within the shadow of the Earth.
The software connects to the Internet at half-hour intervals throughout the day. At these times the computer retrieves satellite images of the Earth and weather information such as temperature, wind speed, humidity from the city in the U.S. where it is currently noon. The satellite image changes throughout the day creating a sense of the rotation of the Earth. The shadow side of the satellite image is layered with an image of a room in shadow with a figure that moving about it. Images with the figure are retrieved from the computer’s memory and sequenced according to the weather conditions the software last observed.
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/eanderson/mercref/index.html
1995
Sei Makoto Watanabe – Fiberwave
Trees rustling in the wind. Wind tracing waves through a field of grass. Living things, even plants rooted firmly in the ground, are never simply immobile. They change their stance and shape and form in response to wind and rain, light and temperature. Adapting to conditions in the surrounding space, they assume the posture which requires the least expenditure of energy.
http://www.makoto-architect.com/FWave/FW_index.html
http://www.digital-studio.co.jp/uvx/architect/architect-TV_005.asx
1999
Peter Richards
"Wind Wave", Byxbee Landfill Park, Palo Alto, CA, 1991.
Koji Setoh
Global Windchimes Project", 1999
“Global Windchimes Project” by Kohji Setoh is located in the areas of telematic art and global awareness art. Two wind chimes with different chords are hung in two different cities, in Tokyo and on the other side of the Pacific ocean in Los Angeles. Each one is filmed by a video camera and the live video is streamed to a server. Visitors can access the piece only via a website. Only when the wind is blowing at both locations they can experience the question and answer motive that the two chords create. The piece raises an awareness for global distances and the different continental weather conditions. And, paradoxically, can only be experienced with a web browser on the Internet. Here is conneced simultaneously to two theres.
