Bits'n Peopleinteractive audio-visual installation
"Real live" objects have attributes that artificial ones don't: A tree, a leaf from a tree, tell the state they are in. A car does the same. Yet its sounds are specifically "designed".
With a certain experience you can "read" and interprete these signals. They tell you something. "bits'n people" is the idea to treat a room, our classroom, as a blackbox and to document the state of the class as an audible, dynamic and living "sculpure". After a while it should be possible to distinguish wether people were present, moving around or talking. If the Network was active, if the printer was in use or wether there's a presentation going on, simply by listening to the sounds in the hallway and/or watching the colourplay on the wall.
Bjoern and me decided that the object the visual operations where performed on, should be a metaphor of our homepage. A representation of our class. A number of horizontal lines. The soundscape should offer a clear and significant distinction between "bitssounds" and "peoplessounds".
At the same time, the same actions should be performed with the metaphor/homepage itsself. Motion, Soundlevel and certain computer/network activities are converted into a shockwave loop.
"Bits'n People" was created 1998/99 and has been presented occasionally. The last Time at the "Sound Practice Conference 2001" at Dartington Hall, UK.
Thanks to Bill Gaver and Mina Hagedorn for inspiration.
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