poetech

The Pool by Jen Lewin. Cleveland, 2014.

Jen Lewin reminds us that we just need more whimsy in our lives. The Pool draws everyone into the playful wonder of children running around a fountain on a hot day. The piece consists of concentric circles, each independently reacting to their stomper with flurries of technicolorful luminosity. Together, the pods undulate and ripple out in response to the spontaneous community that they create.

inFORM by Daniel Leithinger & Sean Follmer. 2013.

Remember those old pin art toys that your next-door neighbor had? This project takes that experience of pushing your face against those cold metal pins and asks, 'what happens to the other side?' Using an array of actuators and a Kinect, the artists create a 3-dimensional amorphous space which they call Dynamic Shape Display. It exudes a unique rhythm of movement and precision that can remind you of pistons in an engine or that weird box performance from the Beijing Olympic Games opening ceremony. They illustrate some interesting real-world applications, such as notifications, games and telepresence. Yet the ability to virtually interact with and manipulate tangible objects evokes an erie mechanical coldness. That doesn't mean I don't want to try it out.

Check out the inFORM Project Page.

Conversnitch by Kyle McDonald and Brian House

Nothing you say is safe. Kyle McDonald and Brian House have developed a device that records everything it hears. And then tweets it.

They created Conversnitch, a lamp impostor, to listen to nearby conversations, automatically transcribe them using Mechanical Turk, and then tweets them out using the handle @Conversnitch. With an unassuming exterior and seeming ability to quickly replace any ordinary lightbulb, reading through the swatch of tweets causes you to pause and think, "did I say anything terrible while I was waiting in the line for coffee this morning?" This auditory interloper offers such surprisingly familiar fragments such as,

"She seems pretty young to have given up on her life already."

"I'm not pestering you, hun, I'm just asking why you didn't get the job!"

"What a shame. We've tried so hard to help that idiot."

As well as gems like

"Hi"

and

"Alright"

It's not perfect; occasionally the Mechanical Turks offer simply "[?]" or "[inaudible]." Somehow, though, they've convinced 4869 people (so far) to subscribe to the feed with delivering spy messages right to their twitter feed. Each day's volume varies wildly, presumably based on whether or not the device is active that day.

Whatever the intended message on privacy, if there is one. You can't help but feel a little uneasy that a someone might be doing this for real.

You can see the tweets at @Conversnitch You can learn more about the artists at their websites or twitter:

kylemcdonald.net - @kcimc

Social Turkers: Crowdsourced Relationships by Lauren McCarthy. 2013.

Our interactions with others, especially dates, often feel like they're racing down a river with infinite diversions, directions, and destinations. Lauren McCarthy seeks to answer what happens when we relenquish our conservatorial powers to an impartial 3rd party. She setup a series of dates, that she recorded–presumably secretly–with an iPhone. Then, hired Amazon Mechanical Turks to watch the live stream, and deliverinstructions to her via text message on her next move. She has since expanded the project into an iPhone app, where you can summon the help of your Facebook friends, the general public, or "hired assistants."

Find more about Lauren's initial project at socialturkers.com.

Find more pieces from the artist on her website.

MegaFaces: Kinetic Facade by Asif Khan. Sochi, Russia, 2014.

A giant, colorful pin toy depicts 3D selfies for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia. That is all.

Analog Digital Clock by Maarten Baas. Milan, 2009.

We are prone to a disconnect between the seemingly effortless use of technology and the intense labor required to create it. Baas challenges our relationship with an ubiquitous technological commodity, the digital clock, through his iOS app. At first, you see a normal, familiar LCD display. But upon closer examination, you discover that the app actually plays a 12-hour video of a person laboriously painting and erasing sections of the numbers, timed in perfect minute-long segments. It makes for a mesmerizing experience, or as one iTunes reviewer calls it, "like watching a fish tank."

You can find more from Maarten Baas at maartenbaas.com. 

Arm Ball Rollin by Rollin Leonard. 2013.

Stumble into rollinleonard.com, and you will be bombarded with a visceral, meaty, anatomic amalgam. Frequently using himself as the subject, the artist employs a "crude but systematic" photographic process to craft his pieces. Arm Ball Rollin – assuming the autological pun – offers a kaleidoscopic example of his fascination with a Deconstructivist perspective of the usually-familiar human body. An also notable artistic trait is his commitment to documenting the process and raw materials shown alongside the finished piece itself (e.g. 360 / Lilia).

Pepper Scan (2010): 

Call Me Choke Me by Gunnar Green. Berlin, 2008.

Studies have shown that we actually love – rather than crave – our mobile devices. Mechanical intimacy instead of addiction. The device seen above explores that relationship with a hint of masochistic pleasure. Each time the wearer's phone rings or receives a message, the collar further chokes the user, reminding them of the burden of omnipresent communication.

Match-Maker by Young Projects. 2014, Times Square New York.

The 2014 winner of the Van Alen Institute and Times Square Arts Valentine Heart Design Competition is now installed in Times Square. The giant tubular heart invites viewers to peer into periscopes according to their astrological sign. Inside their will catch a glimpse of their "four most ideal astrological mates." You can see the installation through March 11th, 2014.

Tweenbots by Kacie Kinzer. New York, 2009.

Tweenbots continuously roll at a steady, slow pace in a single direction. A mere motor and wheels beneath a flimsy cardboard shell. The artist, Kacie Kinzer, places the bots in one corner of a NYC park and watches as it perilously and aimlessly wanders. They rely on the kindness of strangers––New Yorkers nonetheless––to arrive at their destination, which has been written on an affixed flag. Everyone knows what its like to seek a destination, without the knowledge of the path. And most are eager to help a seeker, even these bumbling rovers.

"He'll get there eventually."

Find more about the project at tweenbots.com.

The Listening Post by Mark Hansen & Ben Rubin. London, 2002.

Culled from the abyss of chatrooms and online message boards, messages of the Listening Post are spoken by a text-to-speech system and marqueed across a phalanx of electronic displays. As in the video above, the artists specify a phrase to be filtered out––here, "I am". When synthetically spoken and simultaneously seen, the phrases allows the viewer to glimpse the ocean of anonymity and torrents of communications taking place every second on the internet.

Double Taker (Snout) by Golan Levin. Pittsburg, 2008. Double Taker was one of the first pieces that piqued my interest in interactive art. Levin playfully engages a subtle paranoia that we're always being watched. We know machines can't judge, but the inquisitive recoil of Snout almost always induces a chuckle. 

Welcome to poetech.

Over the past months, I've found that I accumulate lists of artists and works of interest to me. People all over the world are reevaluating technology's role in our ongoing, shared introspection as humans. At a voluminous rate. Until now, I have been using Twitter as the vehicle for sharing, but increasingly I have found the urge to explain the work or comment on my experience. Art is, after all, an experience.

So, I give you poetech. I hope you find this a collection, a destination, a dusty bookshelf, or a gilded hall filled with things that make you happy or sad or uncomfortable or excited. I hope you're surprised by someone's novelty, cleverness, or emotional language. But most of all, I hope you find the inspiration to create something yourself.