meanwhile - (Time Space Scanner)
Earlier this year I was invited to contribute a sound component to an iteration of Alex Hass' and Maria Lantin's ongoing Time Space Scanner project.
“Time Space Scanner [... is] a method of scanning living and dying organic matter that prioritizes neither time nor space but rather blends them to delve into the experience of memory, being and change. The Time Space Scanner uses a 2D scanner programmed to scan spatially random small samples at regular intervals, collecting 25,000 to 50,000 images over a period of 3- 5 days. These micro captures are then reassembled and animated in real-time in a constantly changing mixture of rhythmic time and space. Any frame of the animation contains pixels drawn from multiple times and locations.”
meanwhile is a generative media installation. The scans (micro-catures) are animated in real-time in TouchDesigner and projected on six 10' by 21" technical silk panels on which a full scan has been printed. Generative audio, synthesised sounds and recorded vocalizations from the artists, accompany. More details from our didactic text are below the video.
meanwhile — a Time Space Scanner work.
Emily Carr University of Art + Design ~Diffuser Gallery February 20 - March 9 2018
Epson V750 Pro 2D scanner
50,000 scans (scanned over 6 days)
reconstituted in TouchDesigner
audio programming in Max/MSP
chickpeas, mycelium, botrytis cinerea, forest floor leavings, sunlight
projected onto 6 10' x 21" panels
inkjet on technical silk
meanwhile is an example of scanning living and dying organic matter that prioritizes neither time nor space but rather blends them to delve into the experience of memory, being and change.
In any particular moment, we are composed of multiplicities of time re-enacted by memory. The present contains the past and the seeds of the future. Just as memory infuses the present, influenced by immediate and past experience of flux, rhythm, colour, our reconstituted scans are never experienced in exactly the same way twice and yet reflect multiple presents of our scanned subjects, each one as true as the other.
The eye of the machine plays a unique role in this work. A scanner does not see as a human eye sees, or even as typical handheld camera sees. It has a roving perspective that creates a somewhat flattened image. The scanner also has a very shallow depth of field further creating a sense of myopic interest hovering between alienation and intimacy.
The sound blends the voices of the scanner and the chickpeas. A 40 pixel by 40 pixel sample from the animated reconstituted image is analyzed and used to synthesize the scanner's voice. The chickpea voices are the artists' vocalized imaginings of the beingness of the chickpeas and their environment.