Located directly in front of the Centre, the installation is over twelve metres long. Comprising of 16 polished metal rods, the artwork responds to peoples voices.

As one speaks in to one end, the artwork leaps in to life, the sculpture modelling the amplitude of the persons speech.

The Copernicus Science Centre (Polish: Centrum Nauki Kopernik) is a science museum standing on the bank of the Vistula River in Warsaw. It contains over 350 interactive exhibits that enable visitors to single-handedly carry out experiments and discover the laws of science for themselves. Many artworks have been installed in and around the Centre.

The Centre is the largest institution of its type in Poland and one of the most advanced in Europe.

http://www.kopernik.org.pl/

At first glance each object would appear to be an ordinary bollard, ubiquitous in public spaces. However, these objects have been injected with a magic serum that has transformed them into elegant music boxes. As people pass through out the space, the columns respond directly to their motion and spin gently, playing unique fragments of sound.

A matrix of lights, embedded into the columns scores the music with a series of luminous notes. Together the columns form an urban choir, or orchestra, each with their individual voices that would come together to create a harmonious musical performance, capturing people’s presence in the space. The installation creates a series of digital melodies that weave together to create a unique composition, held in the air for a brief moment.

At first glance Monument to the Unknown Artist appears to be a simple bronze statue, dressed in a neck scarf and loose fitting suit. However, the six meter monument seeks inspiration from passers-by, inviting them to strike poses which he copies, continually changing his form in a light-hearted and mischievous way. The unique sculpture offers an alternative and accessible creative experience for the public allowing them to create a dialogue with the work of art.

The installation encourages visitors to navigate their way around the maze using sound, until they come across the centre where they discover two benches and a compass.

As visitors passed through the many green corridors of the maze, they are tempted to follow the tantalising sound of delicate laughter that disappears around a corner. Only to find as they turn the corner that they are drawn towards a dead end, where they can overhear the fragments of an illicit conversation happening in the near distance.

As they continued on their journey through the maze they encounter other conversations and sounds the gentle call of a songbird in the distance, the seductive rustle of fine silks, or the sound of more serious court business. Slowly the sounds weave together in the visitors’ mind to create a rich tapestry of the other people who have passed through the maze over the centuries and lost themselves in the seductive privacy of its secluded corners. Which ones are real, and which are imagined?

When they finally reach the centre they come across a compass. As they approach it, its dial spins violently until it rests on a particular location and plays the sound found in the maze at that moment – the rustling of a silk dress or perhaps the animated conversation of two people who are lost. The compass then takes the sound that is captured at that moment, locally, and feeds it back into the soundscape, so the present experiences of the maze are woven together with past sounds.

The benches are also sensitized and like the compass they capture the present conversations of visitors resting and combine them with past, generated, sounds to create a rich tapestry of experience.

There’s a good article about the installation from the Guardian that can be found here

The whole process of creating the sound work was documented by the BBC as part of their “Tales from the Palaces’ series, which was broadcast on BBC 2 in March 2006.

They had Freggo, a luxury ice cream brand, willing to get involved. And we were excited by the prospect of creating a generative engine to respond visually to how things tasted.

We set about creating a system that took data from someone who had tasted one of twelve flavours of ice cream. They then told the system how it tasted, based on six different criterior: Juiciness, Intensity, Richness, Sweetness, Creaminess, and Afterglow.

This data was directly linked to a generative engine that had been constructed to represent this information. We had constructed “visual universes” that flowed and blossomed as the new data arrived. Whilst we are not known for visual work, in galleries, it was a fabulous opportunity for greyworld to hone the generative engines that underpin many of our installations.

Exhibited in the Menier Chocolate factory in London, the work was also displayed on digital signage sites around London. Whilst an unusual project for us, we really enjoyed the opportunity to hone our generative art, and create variations on the art systems that we often employ in our installations.

Below are videos, each with three or four flavours. As the videos play, user data is changing, causing the visual sculptures to evolve and blossom.

These Taste experiments won 4 Gold and 1 Silver Awards at the DMA’s, London 2011.

See also Trafalgar Sun, Urban Sketches and Digital You