Visitors’ heartbeats will be detected and recorded by a customized circuit and DIY sensors. Then the data is used to generate sound and visuals. The visuals will be projected to a shallow, reflective dish filled with water through a triangular prism. A speaker is placed under the dish through which the sound is played to disturb the water, then deform the projected graphic.
By visualizing the invisible heartbeats and using this very personal data as the input of a computer-free generative system, a connection between the visitor and this piece is established. This project also tries to echo the theme of generative art made with physics rules, which I have been interested in and working on for a period of time.
Chaotic system and fractals are some of the mosts advanced fields of mathematic researches and they are, very likely, the hidden rules that shaping our world.
When humans think they mastered the knowledge about the world, they try to play the role of God. From artificial life to another biosphere, human beings are simulating, or creating another, nature.
This work aims to create an immersive space of generated images and sounds, that give reaction to changes of the environment, temperature, humidity, human/animal passing. Remember what those theories tell us: any minimal action can lead to a brighter future, or the extinction of humanity.
Little Jack is a robot that reads tweets about Covid-19 from twitter and gives different responses in physical world according to the tweets it read. It will give sad faces and noise when the tweets it read are generally negative and give happy faces and noise when the tweets are positive. You can also interact with it to make it happier and it will kill it self if it’s too sad.
This idea came from the current situation: Covid-19 is sweeping all over the world and everyone is now in quarantine, meanwhile, for years we have been addicted to social media and we have let them control our life without noticing this fact. I think this is a good time for us to scrutinise what’s on social media and our relationship with the them.
This is a big, serious topic (social media and us), and I always believe that the best way to let people think about those big topics is not to make a profound speech, but to make a relaxing joke. And Little Jack is a relaxing joke, it makes you smile, and maybe have some thoughts after that, for me that’s enough.
The idea of tangible twitter robot is also very interesting, it’s like a retrograde in this more and more Matrix-like world (Think about it, now we do everything online!). Personally, I think Matrix is somewhere OK to live in, who knows this ‘real world’ is not a huge simulation? But before our technology level get to that point, I think tangible things still have their meanings.
And lastly, something about the suicide button. Here is the situation of Little Jack – it doesn’t have the courage or ability to deal with the social media control, so it can just kill itself. But we can have the courage and ability, as human beings, to make changes.
I always think that we need more humorous in the serious topics to keep people’s interest. And that’s it. You may down load the simulator for yourself to play in the links blow. Note that you need Java8 environment to run it.
Anyway it just a music visualiser that you can use to create some stupid stuffs if you’re a singer or you know how to compose. You can download it for yourself to play via below links. If you want the permission for commercial using, please email me first :p. Do note that you need a Java8 environment to run it.
“Social Network” is designed as an installation for exhibitions. The rule is simple: you log in with your unique user name; dislike a video will destroy it( kinda like what happen on YouTube); like a video will improve its quality. Your first experience of the video is based on how many likes and dislikes that the visitors before you gave to this video, when you click like or dislike, you change the experience of the person after you, but also, the corresponding factor will be enlarged to make an immediate change. The idea was inspired by Kojima’s Death Stranding in which Kojima tries to make an experience of feeling connected with others when playing alone. Here is the same, everyone’s experience of the videos is unique, but yet connected with others, when you click like or dislike, you join the network, together to create others’ experience, and that’s where the name comes from.
Let’s talk more about Kojima’s game. In Death Stranding, you could only like other’s buildings/signs or delete them in your own game if you really hate them. So no negative things can be spread. I think that’s kind of unrealistic but the original intention is good. So in my design, you can see who else also like the video if you clicked like, but not so when you clicked dislike.
There are also many details that cost me some time to think about it, like the animation in the start screen. It’s a portrait, but if you stay on this screen for long time enough, you will see it become more any more creepy, unrecognisable. I try to make a metaphor there. But I guess they are all not important.