In which Mackers presents more of his arty bullshit… This is the same work that was exhibited a few months ago in Valencia. If you missed that, here is a short video I put together of the evening.
Enter the world of SmileBunny, a realm created from human emotion. This piece is an exploration of how technology’s indifferent understanding of facial expressions can be adapted to create a sort of virtual dimension; a place reflecting that most pure of human emotions, joy.
This is an interactive installation. Digital tools such as projectors and webcams might facilitate the opening of this gleeful gateway, yet it is you the participant who must guide the journey.
Dartmaps is a Google Maps real-time DART mashup and has appeared in print in The National Geographic, on the radio on NPR and even on television.
All of these were as part of “tech” articles or programmes, appealing mainly to geeks and GIS types. However, now Dartmaps has entered the world of the arty farty. From February 24th 2008, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City are running an exhibition titled “Design and the Elastic Mind“, which features Dartmaps as one of its exhibits. From the blurb:
The exhibition will highlight examples of successful translation of disruptive innovation, examples based on ongoing research, as well as reflections on the future responsibilities of design. Of particular interest will be the exploration of the relationship between design and science and the approach to scale. The exhibition will include objects, projects, and concepts offered by teams of designers, scientists, and engineers from all over the world, ranging from the nanoscale to the cosmological scale.
I’m not sure how Dartmaps fits into all that, but someone somewhere must have decided it does. The exhibit takes the form of a video recording of the site in action and a short descriptive text.
I couldn’t make the opening party and I probably won’t make it there to see it at all. But if anyone is in the city between then and May 12th, then be sure to pop in and take a gander :)
Edit March 9th, 2010: the installation is no longer live.
Irish? Global? Mackistani? Mackers is an open-source hacker, mackatronic artist and digital drifter.
Using the Internet to facilitate a non-traditional lifestyle rejecting nationality, possessions and seeking adventure with like-minded, creative people, this is BoHo 2.0.
And then I’m going to Japan and walk all over that hilly country finding ancient little temples hidden and forgotten in the mountains and old sages a hundred and nine years old praying to Kwannon in huts and meditating so much that when they come out of meditation they laugh at everything that moves.
