Data transcriptions

{ transcription } is a real-time media installation, created for the Courtauld Institute of Art’s back staircase, that reflects upon society's data-driven and information-saturated condition through the examination of news communications.

An amalgamation of image and text parsed from the BBC’s live internet news service is algorithmically recombined into a semi-abstract visual array, which is then back-projected onto a suspended screen situated in the lowest well of the staircase. Beneath the screen, a surround sound system emanates a seemingly garbled newscast. On the ceilings, geometric abstract patterns are painted directly onto the surfaces. These images are visual translations of the equations responsible for creating the real-time audio/visual elements of the installation – scribed in a data-language that, like the fundamental components of the media itself, is opaque to human perception.

the online version of the project fragments the images extracted from BBC site, and then juxtaposes them again on scrolling Asian characters.

By Michael Takeo Magruder.

Via furtherfield.