urbanscrawl - tracing the intangible

Submitted by Benoit Bordeleau on Tue, 03/09/2010 - 13:12

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Ce site documente le projet d'installation urbanscrawl élaboré en 2003 par Neil Noakes et Sushma Madan, en collaboration avec le Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts. Quiconque voulait participer n'avait qu'à envoyer un SMS à un numéro dédié. Ces messages étaient visualisés dans le cadre de l'installation urbanscrawl, les textes étant disposés de manière à former une ville virtuelle tridimensionnelle. Les visiteurs étaient en mesure de répondre, grâce à un clavier et à un écran tactile, aux messages formant l'architecture de la ville. Un trait était alors dessiné entre les messages d'origine et leurs réponses. Le but de l'expérience était de mettre en lumière le réseau invisible des échanges SMS se tramant au fil du quotidien. Il est possible de visiter le vidéo explicatif de l'installation, en bonne résolution, à cette adresse: http://vimeo.com/4146091.

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«We wanted to create a shared space that would locate the participant within an environment of digital communication that surrounds them day-to-day but passes by undetected. In doing so urbnascrawl creates a window into what is normally a private dialogue and builds an abstraction of city life.» (http://urbanscrawl.bitpusher.co.uk/flashIndex.html)

Notes

«It works in the following way. A spectator can text a message to a particular phone number. The incoming texts are captured by a computer, which serially builds an urban landscape on screen, wrapping the text as a continuously growing texture onto hitherto invisible buildings. The buildings therefore seem to be brought into existence by the incoming messages, which are assigned to different buildings on a random basis. Someone may text a message from anywhere in the world rather than while in the presence of the exhibit, in which case all they see is an acknowledgement that their message has been received. For those in the exhibition space on the other hand, there is the pleasure of seeing their own contribution take its place in a shared artwork. While this might be considered perhaps a rather childish gratification, informal observation shows it to be a powerful one (and the work was nominated for a BAFTA award). Spectators inspect the environment in anticipation of their contribution appearing. A spectator can choose to reply to a visible message. On doing so, a cord is drawn between the original message and the reply so that eventually a complex web of intersecting cords spans the environment. Finally, at any one time one spectator is privileged: he or she can operate the controls which affect the view of the space and can also search the space for any string: doing so causes instances of the search string to remain visible while all other text fades away. Some intriguing images are created when for example a single letter or other very short string is chosen. In a gallery setting, companion spectators typically make suggestions about strings to search for and join in the pleasure at the result.» (Stephen Boyd Davis: http://lansdown.mdx.ac.uk/lceaSite/about/staff/StephenBoydDavis/pdf/StephenBoydDavisMDX.pdf)

«Along with securing the top honours in their MA course, the project has also been nominated in the Interactive Arts category of this year's BAFTA's. All that is needed now is some financial backing to develop the concept further. "We want people to be a part of it, to leave their own imprint on the landscape," Madan enthuses. "Hopefully 2004 will see Urbanscrawl have its first virtual visitors." JE» (Magazine Dazed and Confused: http://urbanscrawl.bitpusher.co.uk/dazed.htm)

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urbanscrawl - tracing the intangible

Madan, Sushma

Noakes, Neil