Invisible Influenced
Will Pappenheimer and Chipp Jansen
2008
live on Turbulence.org
Turbulence.org
Invisible Influenced is a Rorschach test for envisioning the US as the recipient rather than the cause of worldwide events. Contrary to the notion of impervious superpower, the artwork projects the emerging perception that the country is vulnerable to foreign conditions of climate, public opinion, economics and a variety of social institutions. Shape reads, in this case, as the confluence of intercontinental subconscious activity. The work also operates metaphorically through the concept of the “butterfly effect” from chaos theory. Small changes to nonlinear dynamical systems can produce large long term transformational phenomena. The beating of a butterfly’s wings in the Kurile Islands causes a hurricane over Florida. The US map flows like ink as current international forces exert their particular magnitude of influence.
"Invisible Influenced" is a 2007 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation.
Invisible Influenced II (below)
Will Pappenheimer and Chipp Jansen, 2008
projected computer image, continuous computer generated animation fed by real-time internet information, dimensions variable, commissioned by Turbulence.org (see credit above)
A second version of Invisible Influencedvisualizes international influences as counts of pompom shaped dots filling the outline of the US. This work utilizes the same Invisible Influenced database of realtime natural forces, indices, disturbances and social networks to cycle through a series of comparative groupings of each set of statistics. Relative forces produced by each category source, such as tides, stocks, earthquakes, etc. are assigned a color and then multiplied into real numbers of pompoms ranging up to 800. The pompom shapes are then injected into an invisible outline of the US where they bounce and move until the designated numbers are filled. The sound at each group of poms' entry is the Australian Bell Bird, a community based bird with a unique haunting "bell" call.
This work was part of an installation entitled “Globlots” at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston February 1st through March 3rd, 2008. It is presented as an RGB projection with sound as a series of “global inkblot” works testing global Internet information and imagery for a reconsideration of “situations” or “conditions.”
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