Capacities Life in the Emergent City

source: stanza

“Capacities Life In The Emergent City” captures the changes over time in the environment (city) and represents the changing life and complexity of space as an emergent artwork. Capacities 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 shifting morphing and complex system. What you see is a sculpture which represents the emergent properties of the environment where the sensor network is situated.

The artwork called Capacities is installed.The gallery space becomes a live emergent sculpture to wander through. The changing life in the real time city creates all the changes one experiences in the gallery space. The leads, the wires,and cables are incorporated into the artwork to look like a city map.’ Capacities’ looks “designed” like a piece of urban design, a city surveyed and controlled. The whole gallery space becomes one large artwork made from real time city information and data. The moving objects, fans, changing lights, motors, noises, that you encounter in the gallery are all responding to changes in temperature, light, pressure, noise, and the sound of the city outside. The aesthetic and feel of the space looks like an electronic city. The city is made of units, grids, repetition, building blocks.

The sensor network is laid out across the city (or gallery) to collect and monitor the data ie temperature, light, pressure, noise, and the sound of the city (or gallery) .

The artwork is a responsive installation with embedded interactive elements. It is responsive to the live environment via sensors and interactive with its embedded CCTV systems. The artwork gathers data from the city (environment) via a custom made wireless sensor network. This is then represented virtually and then this virtual city is represented as this artwork installation. The work becomes a manipulation of data, that ‘powers’ all the ‘events’ ‘actions’ and ‘processes’ in the installation.

The art of gathering environmental data. This project leverages the real time space using data gathered using new sensor technologies and connecting spaces. 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 real time artwork.

We understand the 20thc in terms of atoms, molecules and gases that move. Our world is now a world of numbers and changing data and information. This art installation manipulates these numbers and the data from the living real world; all of this affects the installation ie the artwork in the gallery space and all the changes occur in real time. The real world is made virtual and the virtual is made real again and exposed in the process. This whole piece is a living and breathing artwork. The project focuses on the micro-incidents of change, the vibrations and sounds of the environment using wireless sensor based technologies.

The artwork is a responsive installation with embedded interactive elements. It is responsive to the environment via sensors and interactive with its embedded CCTV system. The central piece “Capacities” in the gallery becomes a series of responsive events triggered by live events ie the emergent data sets. The installation responds to changes in the life of the city as it unfolds in real time. On the floor there are hundreds electronic components: (Fans, Lead, Soleniods, Motors). The fans turn when the temperature changes, motors turn when the light changes. Technically these move in response to the wireless sensors networks I have deployed in the gallery and across the environment and these are monitoring the light, temperature, noise, humidity of the space and the city. As this data changes this wired artwork city changes. Inside the work are CCTV cameras that present feeds onto micro monitors in the work.

For the past ten years I have been researching wireless sensor networks. I have developed the software and I can place sensor hardware to make these installations. This is the physical entity that one can see and hear to experience the real time and passage of time.

I use 40 motes sensors in a network. (this is technology I already have developed). This is tested, and I have custom built software that gathers data and places the data online via a java proxy server. This then allows me to make artworks with the data. The data include GPS positions, humidity, noise, temperature, light, of the space and the surrounding environment. The interactions of all this data, controlled via interfaces that can re-form and re-contextualise experiences in real time. Representations of these data sets allow unique understanding of the gallery and the urban environment in real time.

The data is also used to create the visualizations in an open source environment. Because the data is networked other online users can also re- interpret the data and interrogate the various sensors in the network as this is open source as well (via xml streams online). The sensor network takes a constant stream of data which is published onto an online environment where each different interface makes representations of the XML and this is used to make an offline and one line artwork. I have tested the sensors, I have written custom software and the main boards are built. The sensors monitor temperature, sounds, noise, light, vibration, humidity, and GPS.

I have 40 motes multi sensor network that are scattered thought the the building and across the city or location space. The nodes can be placed up to 50 -300 meters apart over the space. I am an expert in wireless sensor technologies as a result of my AHRC creative fellowship. Once switched on they gather the data. I have made two versions of the interface software and custom built software for real time data over networks. Mote proxy is a java middle-ware environment for connecting up xbow motes to get access to the data outside moteview and directly off the motes. It is now in version two and sits on our servers. It allows access to two networks of twenty motes in real time from which php and xml pages are served up. Mote proxy version two, and allows real time polling of data online from any sensors network that is connected and switched on, the data is then formatting in PHP and XML to enable anyone to make a visualization or interpretation of the data with it. The changing data is what affects what you see and experience. Live XML feeds form real time sensors when switched on. The sensors monitor temperature, sounds, noise, light, vibration, humidity, and gps.

The sensor network takes a constant stream of data which is published onto an online environment where each different interface makes representations of the XML.

For floor piece Computer CPU cables, monitor, LED 7×5 matrix, PCB stand-off, Red square LED display, Yell rect LED display, White 3mm 12v LED Red 3mm 12v LE, Green 3mm 12v LED, Angle brackets, terminal block 2pin, soft feet, 7 seg display 0.52 red cath, 7 seg display 0.52 red anode, White Veroboard, Plain Veroboard, clip motors, pull solenoid green 7×5 matrix, green rect LED, Akasa 60mm fan , Akasa 30mm fan , Motor 3v, Motor 12v with reduction gearbox, 1.5” clear cone speaker, rubber feet, small push solenoid, 3.5mm bolts, 3.5mm nuts 3.5mm crinkle washers, Red 16/02 wire, Black 16/02 wire. Cables.
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source: stanzacouk

About Stanza

Stanza is an internationally recognized artist, who has been exhibiting worldwide since 1984. His artworks have won prestigious painting prizes and ten first prize art awards including:- Vidalife 6.0 First Prize. SeNef Grand Prix. Videobrasil First Prize. Stanzas art has also been rewarded with a prestigious Nesta Dreamtime Award, an Arts Humanities Creative Fellowship and a Clarks bursary award.

His artworks have been exhibited globally with over fifty exhibitions in the last five years including:- Venice Biennale: Victoria Albert Museum: Tate Britain: Mundo Urbano Madrid: New Forest Pavilion Artsway: State Museum, Novorsibirsk. Biennale of Sydney, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo Mexico: Plymouth Arts Centre: ICA London: Sao Paulo Biennale:

His mediums include; painting, video, prints, generative artworks and installations. Stanza is an expert in arts technology, CCTV, online networks, touch screens, environmental sensors, and interactive artworks. Recurring themes throughout his career include, the urban landscape, surveillance culture and alienation in the city.

Artistic Statement.

I am researching data within cities and the built environment and how this can be represented, visualized and interpreted. Data from security tracking, traffic, and environmental monitoring can all be interpreted as a medium to make artworks. I am investigating new ways of comparing, conceptualizing and then visualizing complex concepts related to the relationship of emergent data and real space in the built environment. Through practice based research, a series of modular experimental artworks are being created to express the possibilities for our data-mediated future.

There are three strands of my working process; these involve collecting the data, visualizing the data, and then displaying the data. The outputs from the online interfaces and online visualizations are now realized as real time dynamic artworks as diverse as installations, and real objects, made out of new display materials back in physical space. In all my work I try to exploit the changing dynamics of city life as a source for creativity and create meaningful artistic metaphors. I utilize new technologies and integrate new media artworks into the public domain as part of this ongoing research into the visualization of city space. In essence I am researching data as a medium for creativity and how meaningful experiences of our cities may result.

By investigating these data structures I aim to create new metaphors relevant to the experience of the environment. The patterns we make, the visual and imaginative interpretations we give to real world events, are already being networked into retrievable data structures that can be re-imagined and source for information. These patterns disclose new ways of seeing the world. The value of gathering and re-presenting this data in artistic form, and then analyzing its impact and influence, lies in making meaning accessible to a wider audience.