‘The Most Boring Places in the World’ (2009) by Angie Waller
“The Most Boring Places in the World” is a Google Earth tour that pinpoints the location of bloggers, live journal-ers, and chat room commentators. These authors all claim that the city they live in or vacationed in is more boring than any other place they can imagine, at least during the time of their post.
<<launch movie>> (Google Earth plugin required)
Aaron David Ross, eZen Garden (2011)
http://www.aarondavidross.com/eZenGarden.mov
(Right click, “save link as”)
A simple way to use mouse scrolling as a direct means of meditation.
INSTRUCTIONS
* Download File
* Open in Quicktime
* DO NOT PLAY
* Two finger scroll (laptop) or use a scrollwheel mouse (desktop) to scrub the video
* Rake the garden at the rate you choose.
‘World Community Grid Water Features’ by AIDS-3D
A group of spectacular cast-fiberglass fountains stand together on an elevated server-room floor. A Fit PC 2 (the smallest PC currently available, 96% more energy efficient than a standard desktop) is installed in each water feature. Whenever the fountains are plugged in, the Linux PC’s will automatically boot up and run World Community Grid software, a distributed computing project which uses a massive network of PC’s around the world to model solutions for various humanitarian problems, such as: “Clean Energy Project”, “Influenza Antiviral Drug Search”, “ Fight Aids@home” and “Nutritious Rice for the World”. The delightful splashing of the water and twinkle of the energy-efficient LED’s act as relaxing and meditative status-light for the computers, tirelessly laboring within. Although there is no screen visible in the installation, the computation progress can be remotely monitored through a dedicated website.
This is a short clip from an episode of ‘Xavier, Renegade Angel’, by PFFR. It’s a series on the humorous musings of a wandering humanoid pseudo-shaman and spiritual seeker named Xavier. The episode is called ‘What d-d-doth life?’ and in it, Xavier confuses a redneck town’s computer system with a deep question, and when the resulting virus runs amok, he has to find another virus to save the citizens.
PFFR (or Pre-natal Fighting Frightening Remembrances) is a Brooklyn based production company/art collective/electro-rock band consisting of Alyson Levy, Vernon Chatman, Jim Tozzi, and John Lee. The group has been active since 2000.
Orogenesis Derain
Orogenesis Turner
Orogenesis Pollock
‘Landscapes without memory’ by Joan Fontcuberta.
For the project Landscapes without Memory Joan Fontcuberta used software developed by the US Air Force. It translates two-dimensional cartographic data into a simulated three-dimensional image. Instead of feeding maps into the software, in Landscapes without Memory, Fontcuberta inserts painted landscapes: from Gauguin to Van Gogh, from Cezanne to Turner and Constable. The software translates them into new, virtual landscapes.
‘DeResFX.Kill(KarmaPhysics < Elvis)’ (2004) by Brody Condon
Karma Physics < Elvis is a modification of the bloody science fiction first person shooter computer game Unreal 2003. When plugged into a projector/moniter and power, a small custom pink computer automatically starts and displays the work. The viewer is pulled slowly through an infinite pink fog filled with floating, twitching bodies of Elvis Presley. The convulsions of Elvis are controlled by the original game’s Karma Ragdoll real-time physics system – generally used to simulate the physical dynamics of game character death.
Andreas Templin
A 5 minute excerpt from ‘As if to nothing’ (2008) by Andreas Templin
The video ‘as if to nothing’ is comprised of a selection of statistical data of the earth and its population. This data, created by various governmental and intergovernmental sources and displayed in a specific and subjective interdependency, is combined with the highly dramatic second move of Bruckner’s 7th symphony which is being looped for the screening. The video-installation is in fact a computer-programme which utilizes the internal clock of the computer to calculate the statistical algorithms, which are updated on a yearly basis.