Data as Culture - Art that uses data as a material

Inspired by the work of painter J.M.W. Turner, 53°32’.01N, 003°21’.29W, from the Sea foregrounds the elements lost in data depictions: the natural forces of the world. This audio-visual installation uses data transmitted from a Waverider buoy deployed in Liverpool bay at the coordinates to create various outputs: a motion-corrected film of the buoy at sea, synthesised sound-waves produced from tracking and stabilising the buoy in the video frame, and a motionless online representation of the buoy and its produced data. Through a display of both the vigour of the sea in the first video, and the stillness of the second, the piece draws a sharp contrast between the buoy and its data. It is almost as if the dynamics of the buoy’s physical context come to be neutralised by the stillness of its corresponding data representation.

Courtesy of the artist. A new commission for FACT with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, EU COST Action IS1307, National Oceanographic Centre – University of Liverpool. With additional support from Datawell BV. This was the premiere of the work.