CHIRPS (version 1)is a sculptural installation commissioned by Microwave International New Media Arts Festival 2009
CHIRPS (version 1)is a sculptural installation that generates a physical translation of everyday life patterns through creation of a circuit made of electronic components and a set of readymade plastic toys.
The piece converts specific physical patterns into the control of motion and playback rate of bird toys.the project consists in 2 versions being the first one presented at Langham Place Hotel.
This first version explores the encrypting of natural order events and transforms these into a score that will create patterns resembling a glitch staccato.
The aim of this project is to translate the common structure of visual elements in a determinate area. The basic concept is a computational interpretation of visual input data as a physical output.The images in Langham Hotel constitute the input of the system, the system translates these elements into the motion and sample playback of a cheap alarm toy bird.
The birds have two states of internal communication : natural state and alarm state. the visual input will be translated to voltage that can increase or decrease or trigger different modes in the output. It is the first of a sequence of steps that will constitute the first state of the system. As in real life , the communication between the birds will not be totally understood by the human viewer.The birds will execute a generative series of calls that after initiated by a first reading of the visual input will re generate itself till there is an interference ( motion) from outside the system.This will trigger the second state.
The second state is the alarm state. When the system senses motion around it ,this motion will affect the original state , the birds will then decrease their singing by only performing some alarm calls between them, the amount of alarm calls , and the silent between them will depend on the amount of motion that the system detects. If , after a while no motion is detected the system will do a new reading of the visual input translating again the given data to the be the initial score of its generative natural state.
The bird toy is a cheap attempt to copy real birds by mechanical means ,ie., every bird is built wit an audio sample and movements that are meant to resemble real birds . The mechanical bird is for this reason the perfect object to create an artificial output which is nonetheless based on the natural conditions of the environment.
The relationship between the ecology of the environment and the artificiality of the toys is a basic part of the concept.
The basis of the creative process is in the modulation of daily life improvisation , through the interference in the computational translation of the given data.
The work will then function as a feedback loop, the input is the images taken in the venue and the output will be sound and robotic movements in the same venue, the circuit direction will be from the reading of natural elements to the interference of the work itself with the environment.
This project intends to capture Hong Kong`s population attention to the sonic and visual qualities of their own environment despite the cultural and social connotations that it holds.
The effectiveness of the piece will not be perceived by its musicality but instead by the richness of the system reinterpretation of the natural elements.
The aim is not only to encourage the appreciation of everyday experience in Hong Kong but also to initiate a discussion on data manipulation in digital and analog media.
Chirps version 2 ( John in the Cage) commissioned by Videotage HK
In Chirps version 2 ( John in the Cage)the plastic birds react to the motion and sound of a new player - a real mynah bird named John Cage.
This autonomous species, with its amazing imitative abilities, will respond to the sounds and motion of the 120 plastic birds while the electronic songbirds inherit their own kind of copying ability and react to the environment accordingly. The duo combination is a blown-up orchestra where both the adaptive ability of the natural-born and the computational singers create a feedback loop system, of true biotech nature.
The mechanical bird is therefore the perfect object to create an artificial output based on the natural conditions of the environment. The sound and motion of the mynah bird will be used as the value that calibrates the amount of voltage sent to control the movement of the bird toys and the playback of the samples. With amazing imitative abilities, the mynah bird will respond to the sounds and motion of the plastic birds. This process will create a feedback loop, the circuit direction will be from the reading of the mynah bird’s behavior to the interference of the work itself with the environment. The orchestra will be divided into several groups and each group will have its own interpretation of the given data. The overall musicality from the bird toys together with the myna bird will be the final product of the piece.”
