La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela – Dream House

The Dream House is a sound and light environment created by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in the 1970s. It is currently available for viewing in a permanent installation space in TriBeCa in Manhattan. The piece invites its viewers to enter a room  bathed in pink-blue light. There are is a large loudspeaker in each corner of the room playing back seemingly dissonant sine wave frequencies into the space. As the viewer enters the space, the sound is encountered in relation to their position in the space – that is to say, dependent on where you stand in the room, you hear something completely different. The sine wave generators in the space are tuned in such a way that spatially-variable interference patterns occur. I chose to blog about this work because it is, essentially, an algorithmic artwork: using mathematic principles, La Monte Young was able to create an experience that transcends conventional perception.

David McCallum – Warbike

Warbike is a project designed to enable the exploration of electromagnetic space. A microcomputer is programmed to sniff out wireless networks as the participant explores an area with the Warbike. As different wireless networks with different attributes are encountered, the Warbike plays back a synthesized chime sound articulating the invisible activity. I like this project because it gives viewers a means of engaging with the wireless geographies that we are constantly immersed in.

AIDS-3D – World Community Grid Water Features

At first glance the World Community Grid Water Features are purely aesthetic objects – purposeless water fountains, decorative at best. What is concealed is that each of these objects contains a computer that is running a distributed computing platform, running processes that contribute to research towards cancer and AIDS cures, renewable energy projects, etc. AIDS-3D’s project targets the stereotypically self-serving and aesthetic nature of both computing and art, fulfilling Joseph Beuys’ famous question, “Can a sculpture change the world?”