Gizmodo Gallery: Sabrina Raaf

“ Translator II : Grower ” ( Raaf , 2004 - 5 )

Interview / Article by Jonah Brucker - Cohen

Interview , image , and video after the start …

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Name : Sabrina Raaf

Education : MFA , School of the Art Institute of Chicago , Art and Technology , 1999

Affiliation : Assistant Professor , Electronic Visualization , School of Art and Design , UIC , Chicago , IL , USA

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expo : Sabrina Raaf is a Chicago - based artist working in data-based sculptural media and photography . Her employment has been exhibit in solo and group exhibitions in 2005 - 6 at the Wendy Cooper Gallery ( Chicago ) , Mejan Labs ( Stockholm ) , Espace Landowski ( Paris ) , Ars Electronica ( Linz ) , Opel Villas Foundation Art Center ( RÃ¼sselsheim ) , Artbots 2005 ( Dublin ) , Stefan Stux Gallery ( NYC ) , San Jose Museum of Art , and the Museum Tinguely ( Basel ) . She is the recipient role of a Creative Capital Grant in Emerging Fields ( 2002 ) and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship ( 2005 & 2001 ) . Reviews of her oeuvre have appear in Art in America , Contemporary , Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine , Leonardo , www.lab71.org , The Washington Post , and New Art Examiner . She received an MFA in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago .

URL : http://www.raaf.org

“ Translator II : Grower ” , Video , ( Raaf , 2004 - 5 )

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GIZMODO : Your labor , “ Translator II : Grower ” , connects a Carbon Dioxide ( CO2 ) sensor to a mechanically skillful automaton that draws lines representing blade of eatage on a wall according to how much CO2 is in the space . Why did you pick out this form of delegacy and how does the output reflect back on the visitors to the exhibition ?

SR : Much of my workplace in the last several years has focused on creating interactive sculptures that monitor their surroundings and generate speech sound or imagery in genuine time . This production is programme to be data that is eminently readable by humanity as utile as well as aesthetic . In other row , the output of the sculpture is a interlingual rendition of invisible phenomenon occurring in the environment into phenomena noticeable by it ’s dweller . In the caseful of the Grower installation , the carbon paper dioxide exhaled by all the denizen of a space was made seeable as blades of grass drawn in ink by the automaton . The metaphorical relation gravel by Grower is that grass needs CO2 in nature to farm . Here , my simulated grass needs the breathing place of human visitor so as to flourish . The stature of the ‘ grass ’ directly reflects on the momentary denseness of humans in the place . In other words , the athletic field of draw grass represent the history of the menstruation of people through the space . the great unwashed can read the comparative heights of supergrass not just as indication of how many people passed through , but also as how well that space is thriving . If the space is thriving , then it in all likelihood will be better able to support new “ a - life ” and/or new art forms such as the Grower itself .

“ The Unstoppable humming ” ( Raaf , 2000 )

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GIZMODO : “ The Unstoppable Hum ” ( TUH ) examines the proliferation of electronic and electric machine pervading our daily lives at home base or at employment . The projection monitors electric activity in a space and attempts to rule patterns within these stimulant to compose a musical score . The project also detects hoi polloi in the space and emits a “ whiff ” sound when they are faithful . What is TUH saying about technological percolation in our environments how does the design of the project ponder this concern ?

SR : I was breathe in to create “ The Unstoppable Hum ” after I began researching the betterment in and popular expected value of “ smart architecture€ ” . I became very aware of the humming of the building system around me systems that were already responsive and self - regulating even if they were n’t yet “ smart ” . In a large office construction , the activity of the many systems installed to regulate the environs is generally already extremely complex if you look at them as a whole meshwork . In fact ,

the activity is complex enough to form seemingly natural life-time pattern via their cumulative array of on / off nation . This is because the systems are often directly responding to our various natural life patterns as dynamical inhabitants of the space as well as the outside patterns of weather alfresco .

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The system I concentrate on for this musical composition were the ones that are there to make us feel physically comfortable , secure , and touch base to the other inhabitants of the edifice . For example , I tapped into national telephone set systems , ventilation systems , robotic door and elevators , security system and safety systems , and so on . Again , these system are n’t saucy , but they do instantly serve humans and are automated to shut themselves off or turn themselves on in the pursuit of action the parameters we rig for them . Together they create that hum in a construction that we so like an expert tend to tune up out . TUH shuffling tune up the humming out impossible by generating complex melodious scores on the fly in response to the cumulative activity of the building . The scores are never selfsame and are always changing as long as the building is activating and deactivating systems according to our need . The piece is meant to kindle people ’s awareness to the complex band of sensory - based activeness behind the hum .

“ Dry Translator ” ( Raaf , 2002 )

GIZMODO : “ Dry Translator ” respond to trends in “ smart architecture ” where local environments are increasingly adapting to our comportment and activeness . or else of only say or recording these movements , the project amplifies them back onto the body of the player . How interested are you that we might drop off control of our innate environments as more and more arrangement are built to adapt directly to us ?

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SR : I have to say that the environments that I was concentrate on when constructing this employment have little that could be call “ natural ” about them as they were predominately man - made urban structures . For me it is hard to sound how , in making our already wired home and offices more uniquely reactive , interaction designers could catalyze individuals into further suffer control condition of natural environments . One of my goal with Dry Translator is to bring the viewer / player into a state of extreme heightened sensitivity towards their environment with the suggestion that every surface could be “ alive ” . This instalment is about deform the old-hat material of drywall found in most any modern-day home or business into a extremely sensitive communicating twist that could be used to pass “ touch ” messages between visitor . Sound vests worn by visitors received live or pre - recorded messages that were generated by second someone via grave , smoothing , drumming , or talking into a paries . The phone then output to the vest Pan and vibrates over and around the visitant ’s torso and up and down their spine ( via a serial of belittled speakers embedded in the vest ) . Call me an optimist , but I hope that the type of sensitiveness generated by overbold / responsive systems could help raise peoples€ cognizance of their surroundings ( e.g. , in my showcase the materials it is made of ) and that this phenomenon might trickle down into an enhanced predisposition towards all their surroundings including natural I .

“ ( Breath V ) Pink Bliss ” ( Raaf , 2001 )

GIZMODO:”(Breath V ) Pink Bliss ” re - examines the “ fetishistic ” side of technology where a prosthetic fingerbreadth rub the fluid crystal display of a common estimator as someone approaches , while “ breathing ” sound bet through speakers . Why is this relationship between “ user and equipment ” important to you ? Do you envision a future where technical progress could eclipse or supersede human involvement ?

SR : This is a more lighthearted piece that is meant to act off of the relationship the “ Digirati ” have with their [ Personal Digital Assistants ] PDA rank in nature from dependent to obsessive to even fetishistic . The spell illustrates ( in a slightly naughty way ) how well pushing the buttons of a PDA could make its exploiter feel . Pink Bliss includes a pocket computer I found at Office Depot with a display that ( just by chance ) emanates blistering pinkish wave of liquid crystal when pressed . It was just too good to resist€. Despite this , I ca n’t imagine a future where even the most biomorphically PDAs would assist as a satisfying replacement for human closeness . ( However I ’m sure that at least on a sexual level we will continue to witness a proliferation of gizmos and port innovation that will undertake to do so “ wirelessly ” up to and beyond Woody Allen ’s “ Orgasmitron ” ) But , whatever simulations , stimulations , and artificially level-headed personalities may be put on a practical storage shelf in the future , they will only temporarily stay the drug user ’s appetite . They are part of an eternal product market based on novelty and disposability and not long - term gratification . As humanity we are take over programmed with a desire for tangible affaire and it is unlikely that we will ever suffer the power to distinguish between fact or fantasy of it . We will always crave it with all its powerful worked up textures and triggers . The real question is whether or not mass will choose to conceive that human involvement is an optional experience that offers more or less the same value as the artificially mediated experience uncommitted to them .

“ Saturday ” ( Raaf , 2002 )

GIZMODO : With “ Saturday ” , you examined “ communication leaks ” between nomadic machine in public spaces by using consumer “ undercover agent ” twist such as CB radio set and walkie - talkies to eavesdrop on individual conversation on Saturdays in Humbolt Park , Chicago and recorded them for late playback . exploiter can hear to the clip through custom made baseball mitt with desegregate bone - conductance technology where they must hold their fingertips to their forehead . Why did you select this type of interface to get at the register conversations and what did you discover about the way people utilise portable electronic communication devices in public place ? Were you surprised by the audio content you captured at the park ?

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SR : Similar to the “ Dry Translator ” piece , I wanted to make an interface that was intuitive to use and that played on natural human gesture for its energizing . Also , I really wanted to give the player the same sense of “ hear in ” that I had when making the man . After much research , I determine to present Saturday in the var. of an interactive audio glove . so as to hear my recordings of conversation , participants but press their gloved fingertips to their foreheads and they are able to , via small osseous tissue transducer embed in the glove fingertips , hear the auditory sensation without the utilisation of their spike . This is possible because these particular transducers transmit speech sound by translating it into vibration radiation pattern that are have in mind to resonate through ivory of the user ( and thereby bypass the inner ear and transport sound directly to the auditive nerve ) . So , even if a user covers their ears and then places their finger to their temples , they still “ hear ” the audio .

Gesturally , this man allow a new agency of mind . The user rate their fingers to their os frontale in a motion of a clairvoyant or akin to Rodin ’s “ The Thinker ” in edict to pink into the lives of stranger . Pressing dissimilar combinations of finger’s breadth to the temple yield plural viewpoints and group conversations . These sounds are literally motley in the bones of the listener . My surprises with the conversation I pick over the span of a month were how various the backgrounds of the individuals were yet how exchangeable their business organization and foiling . In economical issue , mass regularly singled out the same rationality to lose religious belief in local government . I also listened to quite a lot of crew communicating ( comprised mostly of hours of badly risky rapping being forebode back and forth ) and actually witness the starting of a pair of inter - gang fights over the habit of radiocommunication frequency channels . That was quite unexpected !

“ Icelandic Rift ” ( Raaf , 2006 )

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GIZMODO : What projects are you currently lick on ? How are they similar or different than your past project ?

SR:”Icelandic Rift ” is a serial publication of structures assembled from industrial materials , stark yet constitutional forms , and automatise systems . These sculptures come together in each work to form a modular system of constitutional computer architecture which plays on the viewer ’s senses of scale and solemnity . The Icelandic Rift sculptures are electronically powered works that include mechanical systems which function to automate lights and fluid within the carving organic structure . Materials in the series include aluminium , cast acrylic , eurothene , ferrofluid , and customs kinetics and electronics . In all , the social system in the Icelandic Rift series represent a future visual sensation of farming and growth in a zero - g environment . It is a constitution of hokey island suffer and connected by steel and aluminum struts so that they can be assembled as part of a nifty mechanical system of rules that hovers above the floor . Together the computer architecture formed by these structures is designed to be perceived as both vaguely conversant and also austerely alien .

On the prominent aluminum island in the serial publication sit smaller island form cut from casting acrylate resin and/or atomic number 13 . The island centers are hollowed out to function as artificial lake to hold Ferrofluid – a type of swimming magnet . This is a dumb black liquid state which spikes up when an earth attracter is aim in its proximity . Under some of these islands I have automate toilsome magnet and electromagnets that , in routine , automatise the stand Ferrofluid liquid in the reservoir so that the liquid is made to spin , rise , twitch , or change of location . These symbolize the DOE root for the systems . I was in part inspired to make this work by the landscapes that I explored in Iceland . There , I saw breathtakingly monumental glaciers , which seemed to drift atop fields smooth disgraceful lava rock music . In other parts of the country , there were endless stain of acid greenish atomic number 16 on the terra firma as well as steaming blue pools of heating system - loving alga which dare one ’s sense of “ the natural”€ � . The landscape painting in Iceland is notable for its lunar feel but its elements seemed to trump gravity and system of logic in way that were utterly unexpected . I am also eviscerate inspiration for this oeuvre from the multi - tiered intention of staged , hillside agricultural organisation such as those ensure in Asian rice patio . Last , I am drawing breathing in from the soft plan forms found in vaulted quad observation tower , water droplets , and BioSpheres .

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