Every Passing Moment
This new artwork upon the Big Screen Liverpool is an investigation into the use of emergent communication technologies and wireless networking protocols to offer a playful public art experience. Developed by new media artist Maria Stukoff to suit the outdoor realm, Every Passing Moment created a space in which any discoverable Bluetooth device automatically seeded a flower in a virtual garden environment.
As people walked across Clayton Square in front of the Big Screen, anyone with a Bluetooth enabled device automatically seeded a flower in one of a dozen rendered landscapes, ranging from placid meadows to volcanic backdrops. Depending on the direction of the pedestrian path, a red, blue or yellow flower was generated in one of three virtual garden patches. The colour of a flower depends on their proximity to gardeners wearing corresponding costumes and colour t-shirts. Audio accompaniment via the built-in screen speakers included the sound of running water and children laughing.
If the MAC ID (which every Bluetooth active device emits) responsible for seeding a flower is recorded only once, the flower will slowly start to fade away. But anyone who directly approached a gardener and became a team member generated a larger flower that thrived in response. In this way it became a much more human means of digital intervention, relying not on broadcast or downloadable instructions, but on the gardeners themselves providing a face-to-face explanation.
This project emerges from Maria’s PhD research into mobile and wireless networks as public art. Developed in collaboration with ONTECA, Liverpool. Environmental sound scapes by Jonathan Fisher. Funded by Arts Council England, North West.