DATA...DATA....DATA...a show of lights and sound @ Nuit Blanche!

Nuit Blanche is an annual night-time art festival. I was not impressed when the theme for this year was  The Museum for the End of the World, of course it is the topic that many are talking about at this moment. Although at the same time I think it gives a more retrospective meaning to the exhibition.

This year unfortunately I was not able to assist but one of the works I was very interested on from the beginning was Quasar 2.0. Jean Michel Crettaz and Mark-David Hosale star incubator is the come back from an earlier work from Hosale, Quasar. Take a look! http://www.mdhosale.com/quasarexhibition/. It is an awesome work! 

Quasar 2.0 at Nuit Blanche

Now Quasar 2.0 is a light and sound installation. It gets data streams from a few sources that are very distant from the installation itself. This makes me think that now we have access to any sources of data, and even might think it is something that is out of our control we can actually use ‘tools’ to manipulate it and change it somehow! 

Hosale explain in details his idea when he says: “In order to know something that is beyond our senses we have to capture it somehow and transform and scale it into the domain of what we can sense, and that’s when it becomes real.” 

It is true! We don’t actually pay attention to any of those data streams that we get from the weather or space for instance. We know they exist but has anyone ever browse online and look for this data just to look at it? No right, because we think it’s boring and it is just data, and we think cannot do anything with it! It is there and will be always there forever and that never, EVER changes! 

But no Quasar 2.0 I think brings it to a whole different level! Taking data from sources we might not know about and represent it with a show of light and sound, and also shows how these data streams are changing all the time! Oh and also the theme of The Museum for the End of the World as Crettaz thinks “pushes everything beyond to a new horizon, transform it into a new dimension! “ I think too as I mentioned before gives a different meaning to the works, just think about it, even if the world ends everything else will keep moving!

Many works have used data not only because it might give a ‘pretty’ or more generic look to the work itself, but rather by doing such thing works are able to provide a meaning for people! It drives attention to what is going on out there. 

I believe this work to me, and I would say to many others as well, would be a source of inspiration for their own works. When I started this program I never thought I would have a chance to do these types of work, get abstract data and represent it in a way for people to reflect upon!  It gives your imagination access to a river of infinite sources!

If you want to know a little bit more about this great project you can go to http://www.slaphq.com/quasar2/ there's a bit of more pictures, info and more!