~ CONCEPT ~

~ FUNCTIONALITY ~

-- DATAmadeFLESH is a New Media Installation that seeks to bring the binary command-codes that govern so much of the contemporary world to life by exteriorizing and aestheticizing the central digital coding-elements that drive the work, and translating them into various different media formats which play out across myriad sites. The piece is centered around the use of QR code's, which provide the entry point into the larger informational network that comprises the work as a whole. Audience members interact with the work by scanning the QR code's which are situated on the galleries walls and the surrounding city streets.

Embedded within each QR code is a link to a webpage which features an animated audio-visual piece that has been created using a process of generative synthesis from the basic binary data that comprises the code which has been scanned. Upon scanning one of the QR codes situated on the gallery walls, the web browser on the audience members phone is redirected to the correlating web-page via the link embedded in the code, and the animated-piece specific to the code in question plays over their phone. Each time a code is scanned, the in-house projector/sound-system is also cued, and plays the corresponding code in synchronization. The same basic interaction occurs with the street-based code's which all affect the in-house projector/sound-system.

The piece is being developed towards facilitating multi-site interaction, so it can be installed in multiple-galleries at once, creating a more complex/involved sphere of interactivity, and more aesthetically elaborated animated pieces.

The artists behind the piece are Mr Simon Berman of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, & Mr Richard Keys of Wellington, New Zealand. Having met in Melbourne the pair established a creative partnership grounded in a music, which has ultimately extended to media & sonic arts.

Simon Berman

Simon Berman is an artist from Melbourne who specializes in Audio Visual Installation, Animation and Sonic art. He studied Media Arts at RMIT University, and has been an active part of the Melbourne art-scene for a number of years. He has had numerous solo and group shows over the past 10 years. Lately he has been exploring animation and sculpture.

Richard Keys

Richard Keys has an academic background in Media Studies, and a creative background centered around experimental music. His collaboration with Simon has seen him start to use media-arts as a forum to explore his ideas regarding media, information theory, semiotics etc which were previously confined to paper.

Exhibition & Funding Details

The first incarnation of DATAmadeFLESH was installed in BusProjects, Melbourne in October, 2011. We are currently developing the piece to allow for multi-site installation, with the interaction between the sites creating more complex/developed audio-visual output.

Subsequently we are looking for suitable installation site's across the globe, to install the piece during 2012.

Digital media technologies have become an increasingly ubiquitous part of the contemporary world; from smart phones and social networking platforms, to surveillance cameras, automated assembly lines, and the digital dollar signs flowing through the circuits of the global-economy, their influence and effects bleed out from the screen onto the street. Digital-algorithms govern "real-world" interactions, their coding-chains extend across across myriad layers of spatial-strata; informational networks take on biological nodes just as readily as they do silicone ones; data made flesh and vice versa. In such a world technology and biology fuse into integrated circuits; we have become part of the machine, and the machine has become part of us.

-- DATAmadeFLESH is a New Media Installation that seeks to bring the binary command-codes that govern so much of the contemporary world to life by exteriorizing and aestheticizing the central digital coding-elements that drive the work, and translating them into various different media formats which play out across myriad sites. The piece is centered around the use of QR code's, which provide the entry point into the larger informational network that comprises the work as a whole. Audience members interact with the work by scanning the QR code's which are situated on the galleries walls and the surrounding city streets.

Embedded within each QR code is a link to a webpage which features an animated audio-visual piece that has been created using a process of generative synthesis from the basic binary data that comprises the code which has been scanned. Upon scanning one of the QR codes situated on the gallery walls, the web browser on the audience members phone is redirected to the correlating web-page via the link embedded in the code, and the animated-piece specific to the code in question plays over their phone. Each time a code is scanned, the in-house projector/sound-system is also cued, and plays the corresponding code in synchronization. The same basic interaction occurs with the street-based code's which all affect the in-house projector/sound-system.

The piece is being developed towards facilitating multi-site interaction, so it can be installed in multiple-galleries at once, creating a more complex/involved sphere of interactivity, and more aesthetically elaborated animated pieces.

Simon Berman

Simon Berman is an artist from Melbourne who specializes in Audio Visual Installation, Animation and Sonic art. He studied Media Arts at RMIT University, and has been an active part of the Melbourne art-scene for a number of years. He has had numerous solo and group shows over the past 10 years. Lately he has been exploring animation and sculpture.

Richard Keys

Richard Keys has an academic background in Media Studies, and a creative background focusing on experimental-music. His collaboration with Simon has seen him start to use media-arts as a forum to explore his ideas regarding media, information theory, semiotics etc which were previously confined to paper.