Created by Juliane Götz and Sebastian Neitsch of Quadrature and currently on view within the Ars Electronica exhibition at the DRIVE Volkswagen Group Forum in Berlin, “Positions of the Unknown” is an installation of 52 custom-made mini machines that, ever so slowly, track unidentified objects (possibly classified satellites) in Earth’s orbit.

Created by Zach Lieberman in collaboration with Google’s Data Arts team, ‘Land Lines’ is a web experiment that lets you explore Google Earth satellite imagery through gesture. “Draw” to find satellite images that match your every line; “Drag” to create an infinite line of connected rivers, highways and coastlines.

Created by a Golan Levin, David Newbury, and Kyle McDonald, with the assistance of Golan’s students at CMU, Terrapattern is a visual search tool for satellite imagery that provides journalists, citizen scientists, and other researchers with the ability to quickly scan large geographical regions for specific visual features.

On February 28, 2014, the world’s first art satellite, ARTSAT1: INVADER was launched as a piggyback payload of the H-IIA F23 launch vehicle. INVADER, a 10 cm cube 1U-CubeSat with a mass of 1.85 kg continued its steady operation on orbit, successfully completed an array of artistic missions before reentering the Earth’s atmosphere for disintegration on September 2.

Created by Berlin based studio Quadrature, Satelliten is a custom build machine that brings the invisible movement of passing satellites in lower orbit to a tangible medium and scale.

Sorry, this is Members Only content. Please Log-in. Join us today by becoming a Member. • Archive: Access thousands of projects, scores of essays, interviews and reviews.• Publish: Post your projects, events, announcements.• Discuss: Join our Discord for events, open calls and even more projects.• Education: Tutorials (beginners and advanced) with code examples and downloads.•…

Sorry, this is Members Only content. Please Log-in. Join us today by becoming a Member. • Archive: Access thousands of projects, scores of essays, interviews and reviews.• Publish: Post your projects, events, announcements.• Discuss: Join our Discord for events, open calls and even more projects.• Education: Tutorials (beginners and advanced) with code examples and downloads.•…

Unpredictable atmosphere is a research project that investigates a thin and unstable layer above the ground where data, both transmitted and collected, acquire new dimensions in an invisible landscape of conflict.

Created by Franz Rosati, ‘Latentscape’ depicts exploration of virtual landscapes and territories, supported by music generated by machine learning tools trained on traditional, folk and pop music with no temporal and cultural limitations.

How does one find a place of which you don’t know if it exists? When looking for information online, you are probably most familiar with finding such using a search engine but the search is only as successful as you make it. It largely relies on how much you already know beforehand. “Unknown Territories” marks…

Created by Khulood Alawadi, Yi-fan Hsieh, Bahareh Saboktakin and Qifan Zhao at the RCA (Design Engineering, Future Interaction, 2019), ‘Fallback’ is an alternative platform for providing access to real-time news during times of Internet shutdown.

Created by Richard Vijgen, ‘Hertzian Landscapes’ is a live visualization of the radio spectrum. It includes a digital receiver to scan large swaths of radio spectrum in near real-time and using Three.js visualises thousands of signals into a panoramic electromagnetic landscape.

Created by Filipe Vilas-Boas, ‘Tracking Skynet’ comprises the recording of a surveillance satellite whilst being under surveillance of the same.

In Elektra’s 20th year common themes from throughout the history of the festival of machinic bodies and digital transcendence are explored in depth and pushed to their extremes.

Postgraduate designers from Imperial College and the Royal College of Art have developed an alternative positioning system based on the polarized vision of insects.

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Created by Matteo Zamagni, “Horror Vacui” is a non-narrative film that explores geological formations of Earth and the frenetic hyper-development attained by humankind.

A review, photos, and selection of highlights from the abundant offerings of the 4th edition of the International Digital Art Biennial (BIAN) in Montreal.

To enhance the hypnotic and ritualistic aspects of their music, Yerçekimi (Gravity), a band from İstanbul, Turkey created a website that uses satellite imagery of alien landscapes from around the world and in doing so matches the atmosphere of their music perfectly.

Created by London-based musical duo the Network Ensemble, Selected Network Studies is a series of audiovisual pieces created using network data collected from a number of locations across London, Berlin and Rome. It is released as limited edition UV-printed, vacuum-sealed mylar package containing a 2GB SD Card with one hour of video material and 45 minutes of sound material.

In just a short few weeks, NODE is back for another edition and invites you to take part in a week long exploration of creative technologies.

“Evidentiary Realism” is an exhibition that delves into the aesthetics of sites of inaccessibility, incarceration, and intrigue. CAN’s NYC correspondent Dylan Schenker ponders the Paolo Cirio-curated show, which emerges from the collaboration of NOME and the Fridman Gallery.

The 50 twigs in this installation point in unison in the direction of the oldest piece of human made space debris currently above the horizon. The debris being tracked are spent rocket bodies, parts from defunct satellites and wayward tools launched in missions as far back as 1958. When the piece of debris being tracked…

At its best, creative inquiry offers intellectual nourishment, empowerment and solace. At the end of 2016, we need all of those, which is why remembering – and celebrating – the outstanding work done this year is all the more important. Over the past twelve months we’ve added more than 100 projects to our archive – and with your help we’ve selected the favourite ones!

Created by Studio Puckey & Moniker, Radio Garden is a research project that places radio research within contemporary discussions about migration, cultural identities, encounters and memories by generating new knowledge about the meaning of radio and listening in the age of globalisation and digitisation.

CAN’s report on the audiovisual highlights (and our participation) in the 17th edition of Montréal’s venerable MUTEK festival.

CAN contributor Dylan Schenker considers AUTOMATA (“art made by machines for machines”) and the uneasy relation between human and machine aesthetics at the third edition of Montreal’s BIAN digital art biennale.

Created by Jochen Maria Weber, Foxes Like Beacons is an exploratory project using open data of public radio stations with inexpensive, low-power signal detection in order to create an open positioning system.

As 2015 winds down we look back at almost 200 extraordinary projects we’ve covered this year on CAN. And as is the case every year, picking the ten ‘best’ is hard if not impossible, as each of them has driven the conversation around the state of art and design in their own unique way. And yet, the following ten works stuck with us and, if anything, make great starting points for reflection and inspiration as we head into the new year. Until we continue our coverage in early January: happy holidays and thank you all for a great 2015!

Created by Quadrature, Kartograph is a drawing machine that updates old maps by drawing new geographic data over the infrastructure of old times using the internet.