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| Spinne Networked audio installation consisting of four sculptures. In the information age media has a strong part on how we construct our world, what we believe and what we consider to be true. In media different views create different meanings. For example the very same person or topic can be rendered totally opposite by different media - this expierience is an every day phenomenon. The installation is focusing on these moving and shifting processes and the differences in the information landscape, spcifically in the world wide web. On an aesthetic level we decided the piece to be constructed as a sculptural installation to create enough distance to be able to represent this constantly changing information. The piece contains two parts; an installation shown in an exhibition place and another part, which is functioning in the internet. The internet part contains a website and four software programs. These four programs are little search engines and are known as web-spiders. The name comes from the way these virtual spiders are crawling through the web looking for "a prey". The four web-spiders are sent out into the internet with the objective to chase some predefined words or phrases in different regions of the internet. For example the word "women" can be searched from informational, religious-, entertainment-, and shoppingsites. The data generated out of these websites is piped out to the physical installation. This website linked to the installation gives information about the piece, which words or phrases are chased by the spiders and where in the web they are looking for these words. Everytime someone online is accessing this website, the pysical installation is reacting to it by shaking of the cables ("touching of the spider-web"). This shaking is produced by a small motor, which is linked to this website. The physical installation has four spider-like objects. These sculptures are constructed out of transparent plastic spheres, loudspeakers and metallic leg constructions. The hollow sphere-body of the spider is functioning as an audio subwoofer. There are little spider replica placed on top of each loudspeaker membrane. These small spiders are made out of glass and eyelashes. Each audio-sculpture is connected to one of the virtual spiders. They represent the result of the chase by means of sound. The amount of the chased words and their appearance can be heard as a changing spacial soundscape which embeds a unique rhythm produced by the glass spiders dancing on the membran. All the technical equipment (computer, network conncetions, amplifiers, etc) which is an essential part of the technical core of the piece, is left to be visible in the installation space. The viewers are able to see concretely the network conncetions and other technics. The searched words and they frequencies on different websites can also be observed from a computer monitor, as well as which spider-sculpture is connected to which website. The visuality and the setup of the spider-sculptures refers to a "traditional" installation-art. This composition is however broken by the way the piece is using constantly changing information as a part of its structure. The piece is not static sculpture, but continuously and dynamically changing installation. The piece points at the different values and the different truths in the treatment of the same issues on the different locations of the world. The selected websites and words create the core of the piece. Through them the piece is commenting on current and emerging topics. These pre-defined websites and words can be changed and in this way linked concretely to every different exhibition location and -time. On the one hand the piece is transforming the searched data into an aesthetic experience (sculptures with shaking cables, vibrating speakers and ever-changing soundscape). On the other hand, the piece is creating comments about society and current topics through the constructed system and selected words. The idea is to create a piece; which can be adapted to the different athmospheres of various exhibition locations, which is conceptually commenting about the surrounding reality and first of all, a piece which offers an aesthetical audio-visual experience for the viewers. |
