Created by Vienna based artist duo Depart (Leonhard Lass, Gregor Ladenhauf), and commissioned by Soundcloud, Rebus Cumulations combines abstract data visualisation and cinemagraphic still lifes into an alchemy of different artistic languages presented in the three meter installation for Soundcloud HQ in Berlin.
For weeks, Leonhard and Gregor arranged and filmed about 120 still lifes of surreal frozen sceneries that are enlivened by moments of movement. The still lifes have been structured into five movement categories depending on the displayed spirit: dissolving, rotating, oscillating, flowing and accumulating – related to usage data of Soundcloud. In the running installation, vvvv is working as a control environment. Here, data on global plays, uploads, and favourites are processed every minute, the visual output is triggered and the control-data for Reaktor is sent. The Soundcloud data has been set up as webservices which were especially developed for this purpose by Soundcloud’s IT team. Although having started with Processing to sketch out the first prototype of the system Leo switched to vvvv for better scalability and performance. Gregor is using Reaktor for the generation of sound which is then controlled via OSC by vvvv.
Based on the data analysis, symbolically related objects are queried and new still lifes are chosen to appear in the triptych. So, for instance, a decline in Soundcloud plays and uploads produces a “dissolving” still life, whereas a constant rate displays a “flowing” movement. At the same time, the still lifes are accompanied by generated poems. Every object is linked to certain associations and through simple grammar different poems are composed for each scenery. For example every upload from Germany (the country where the installation is located) produces a flash in the background. The individual uploads of the countries create an instant impact on the data sculpture as they “shoot” out tiny lines and light up.
The objects and their linguistic references have been cataloged in xml based structures. Depart developed several plugins in C# for a more efficient data handling and the processing of the linguistic output. The still life selection process is laid out in a way to minimize repetition (with weighted random and markov chains) and due to a large number of still lifes and their possible combinations as well as algorithmic overlays and text generation the output is never really the same.
The centerpiece of the installation includes a clockwork that displays the rhythm and energy of the data system. It is an abstract visualization of country related data and maps the strength of the specific data activity while also following the five categories. In the “oscillating” state, countries demonstrating a higher degree of activity oscillate with a higher frequency. This way, the complexity of more than 200 involved countries creates an seemingly organic data sculpture.
See also: DEPART walk a ‘semiotic and semantic line alongside experimental poetry’
