>subcapeBALTIC images

>subscpaeBALTIC video

>subscapeBALTIC audio

sub_scape v1.0 Installation images
Location: Sea Princess Passenger
Cruise Ship somewhere in the
Baltic Sea, August 2004

 

sub_scapeBALTIC was about mapping as a way of knowing. A system for generating emergent and poetic ecologies of sound and image using environmental data; Baltic sea bathymetry, Australian desert video..

subscapeBALTIC was exhibited ISEA2004 - Baltic Sea, Finland


Data sets from the Baltic Sea (bathymetry transects of the ship’s course, pollutants found in grey seals and fish, historical and contemporary fish finds, etc) were transcoded and mapped in real time onto audio and video data modules (of Australian desert, both pristine and polluted).
sub_scape v 1.0 played with the reflexive synthesis of seemingly alternative spaces – the northern sea and the southern desert. Yet the sea and desert are isomorphs, having metaphysical, aesthetic and political connections between them. The western imagination represents the sea and the desert as “non-place” and negative space. But mapped as they are with lines of force and communication, trade and theft, disease and DNA, development and exploitation, they are highly political spaces. Both the sea and desert are “deep space” (a combinative trope of physical place and social connectedness) onto which we project our deepest, most troubling collective histories and desires. Environmentally, the desert was once a seabed; both places have similar geomorphologies.
Visitors interact with the work by turning a periscope device.

Physical description:
sub_scapeBALTIC was housed in a periscope object for single visitor use. The periscope has an in-built screen. The visitor views the periscope display from a seated position. Turning the periscope changes the data flows and effects.

Periscope dimensions: Approximately 140 cm H and 55 cm Diameter, weight 26 kg.
Materials: Aluminium, moulded resin, rubber handles. VC to midi box, midi box, LCD screen included.
Hardware: Mac CPU running OSX, min 1ghz processor, min 512 meg ram. Stereo headphones.

Sarah Waterson and Kate Richards
Concept: Sarah Waterson
Collaboration: Sarah Waterson and Kate Richards
Programmer: Jon Drummond
Fabrication: Lenny Bastiaans
Project support: The University of Western Sydney