Yesterday I went to Madison Square Park to “see” the installation Pulse Park I mentioned on October 27. I had understood from the article that people walking through the park were registering their heartbeat and that each light represented one person. I assumed that the point was to make the space “alive” and to represent through the light beams each of the visitors.  Another person with whom I went thought there were sensors and therefore as soon as you entered the park, your heartbeat was measured and “represented” by one of the light beams.

In fact, “Pulse Park” is more “individualist” as the light beams represent the pulse of one individual.When you arrive, in front of the entrance there is a machine with two handles that you have to hold. It registers your pulse and the lights start going up and down. People in the park experience your heartbeat and you can see your pulse represented, “choreographed in lights”. My kids run like crazy before registering their heartbeat, as they wanted to see how fast the lights will go. They also try each holding one of the bars, and then separately. Between each individual, the park goes dark and then it starts lighting, vibrating again with a new individual.

As I was standing there in the middle of the lights, with other people walking around, kids running, I remembered that in the NY Times article Lozano-Hemmer explained that his inspiration came from listening to the hearts of his twins in his wife’s womb and he wanted to “expand that into something that could be appreciated visually”. Indeed, being in the middle of Park, you could feel in someone’s body… experiencing her or his heart bit. Despite the public nature of the experience - in a park, with other people - it could also become something quite private.

Re-reading Lozano-Hemmer’s quote, I could not prevent myself of thinking of a topic which came up in several of my posts and comments recently: this attempt to make “visible” something audible… to make it more public in a sense… to share it with a public. We were talking about this point last Thursday with Aileen. I was wondering if art - more specifically interactive type of art - was not about making visible, audible, uncovering in some ways perceptions, interactions and embodying them in a different modality or medium to make the public aware of them. She was not completely convinced… I am not sure I am right either, but I keep thinking of this attempt to “make perceptible” as I read about, watch, listen to, and experience these different installations.Yet, in the case of “Pulse Park”, the aim is not to make the interactions visible; it is not to put in light the bodies, the heart beats of the different people in Madison Square Park, but it’s about making visible one’s heart beat - both for the individual and for the public. The body, the heartbeat becomes part of the instrument and the lights in the park the music… 

Last, it’s interesting that the picture in the NY Times is taken from above: it’s very beautiful, but it’s not at all what you experience as you come in the park… You are in it, not above it… Here are a few pictures taken yesterday… from the ground level… :-) al 

Here is a cool installation that was in Lower Manhattan this summer. See photos attached. The idea is to interact with the building and use its different parts as instruments.  Instead of making things audible, or visible, or embodying virtual interactions, David Byrne is playing with the materiality of the building to make us explore the notion of space. He says “ As far as space goes, I sense that different architectural spaces “want” to have specific kinds of sounds inside them. The space creates a hole for sounds to fill, psychologically and physically—but only specific sorts of sounds seem to “fit” in each kind of space. The inherent acoustics of a room have far-reaching effects: they make you walk different and talk different. They make you feel different.”  http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/art_projects/playing_the_building/  

The Listening Roomhttp://www.stalk.net/Piano/lausanne01.htm

Hi, I like this installation by Natalie Jeremijenko, the “Dangling String”. It’s a long plastic spaghetti attached to a small motor on the ceiling and the motor is connected to an ethernet cable. Depending on the business of the network, the motor vibrates more or less. It’s located in a corner of the hallway and people can hear “in the periphery” how busy the network is.  http://interactionthesis.wordpress.com/2007/02/14/dangling-string/ “Dangling strings” aims to make visible, or better to say audible, the virtuality of the network. Sitting in your office, you can hear how busy the network is, i.e. how many bits of information are sent to, transferred to on the network. This attempt to make the virtual  visible and audible is also at the core of  Hansen and Rubin’s work.  In  ”Listening Post” (presented at the Whitney in 2003) they present on a multitude of little screens the content from Internet chat’s rooms. Sounds and voices are also accompanying the presentation of text.  Hansen and Rubin highlight the “cacophony” of the web but also create for the visitor an experience where the individual is surrounded by the multiple voices going on online. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/museo/6/hansen_and_rubin/index.htm  Discourse is more central in their recent piece, ”Moveable type”, an installation in the lobby of the NY Times focuses on discourse - the discourse of the news produced by the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/arts/design/25vide.html  In this interactive installation, Rubin and Hansen present on a multitude of screens the “memory” of the  NY Times as excerpts from articles, letters, blogs, etc. collected from 1851 are displayed on the screen. The material is discourse and this discourse is made visible…”Moveable type” embodies the “organizational memory” of the NY Times and displays it. As for “Dangling Strings”, the aim is also to show the “live” nature as many of the excerpts come from real time comments of readers from around the world. Our project, Building_Space_With_Words, also aims to “make visible” “the virtual” by materializing a virtual space with the maze and by creating “walls of words”. We also aim to make audible as the visitors will be surrounded by a soundtrack composed of sounds from physical and virtual spaces - making us reflect on the “silent and solitary” experience of online interactions. Yet, our purpose is not to show “real time” how much discourse is created and shared (although the discourse projected in the installation are searched “live” from our blog); our project is more “symbolic” as it focuses on the “fabric” of which online interactions are made of - words- and explore the metaphor of the virtual space. We also wonder how language - through the development of discursive practices and language games - can allow us to reenact some of the affordances of physical spaces. Hence, it’s not only about making the virtual visible, audible, but it’s also about exploring the relationships between the material and the virtual.al  

http://www.mam.org/act/index.htm