- 1. 1BRITTANY RANSOMDigital / Hybrid Media Artist + ProfessorA
part of the Hands-On Ideas seriesFebruary 21, 2013
2. 2Brittany Ransom // Creates interactive installations,
electronic art objects, and site specific interventions that strive
to probe the line between human, animal, and environmental
relations while exploring emergent technologies. Using technology
as a material, my work introduces concepts exploring the conflicted
Relevant image here relationships between our culture, the concern
for nature, and the way we interact with the natural world.
Explores the paradoxical bond between human, nature, its
inhabitants and the co-evolution between the living and budding
technological innovation while questioning these technologies. Work
invites the viewer to question how technology can concurrently
invent, destroy, enshroud, and expose itself within our shared
environments. Interested in art as a collaborative research based
practice. 3. 3@TweetRoach // 2012 - 2013 (Prototype 1) 4.
4@TweetRoach // 2012 - 2013 (Prototype 1) Twitter Roach is in its
first phase ofexperimentation. Utilizing a RoboRoach/backpackkit
(produced and sold by Backyard
Brainshttp://www.backyardbrains.com), customprocessing, arduino
programming and circuitry, itallows people to log into their
Twitter accounts tocooperatively affect the movement of a
cockroachfrom anywhere in the world. The project made its Relevant
image (if needed)debut at Life, in some form, an exhibition at the
hereChicago Artists Coalition on December 7th. Twitter Roach is
designed to parse specificcommands received through mentions
andhashtags by stimulating one of its antennaeessentially making
the insect feel as if it touchedsomething. In other words, the
cockroach is trickedinto turning left or right based on specific
tweets.The cockroach only wears the backpack for shortintervals and
is only accessible to the Twittercommunity during designated times.
The programis set up to only allow the cockroach to receivetweets
every 30 seconds. 5. 5What inspired this work? I regularly work
with insects in my artistic practice andresearch, often as a
metaphor for human life. Theavailability of consumer based
products, and so-calledcitizen-science, emergence, and technology
arethemes that I constantly explore. Through this piece,Im asking:
will the cockroach eventually learn toadapt to the stimulation and
learn to ignore it? At whatpoint does its intelligence and ability
take over? Howmuch does it take before we are all desensitized
tooverstimulation? Most importantly what does it meanthat these
materials are all open source and availableto us as consumers? Not
only is it available but it isbecoming a regular trend, see article
below. As we, ashuman beings, grow more cyborgian andinterconnected
through social media, this projectcould help us participate in
discovering the answer. We are heading towards a world in which
anyonewith a little time, money and imagination cancommandeer an
animals brain. Thats as good areason as any to start thinking about
where wed drawour ethical lines. The animal cyborgs are here,
andwell each have to decide whether we want a turn atthe controls.
- Frankensteins Cat by Emily Anthes
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/17/race-to-create- 6.
6Around We Go // 2012 - 2013 (Versions I & II)Image here 7.
7Around We Go // 2012 - 2013 (Versions I & II)Image here 8.
8Around We Go // 2012 - 2013 (DFW Versions I & II) Around We Go
is anexperimental video andprojection series that recordstermites
following the lines ofthe Dallas-Fort Worth majorhighway systems.
The termites follow thedrawing (made with a bicpen) because
ofpheromones. Thepheromones (smell) of theink mimics that of one
thatthe termites excrete tocommunicate with oneanother 9. 9What
inspired this work? Interested in the transition from movingfrom
Chicago to Dallas, I have becomeobsessed with the amount of time I
nowspend within my car commuting asopposed to using public transit.
This pieceis a somewhat tongue and cheek attemptat observing our
systematic tendencies ashumans (routines) and the way these
alsoexist in other species. This piece was projected on a building
indowntown Dallas (the central point of theroads connecting) and it
was alsoprojected on a log sourced from Dallasthat was moved to
Chicago. 10. 10#Tag // 2011 - ongoing Image here 11. 11#Tag // 2011
- ongoing The #tag project was developed from the official release
of Twitters 2010 Year in Review. In Twitters year in review they
provide the top hash tags, trending topics, celebrities, and
re-tweets that were posted over the course of the year. This review
is released annually. In this particularRelevant image (if needed)
installation, a commercially available producthere called the Magic
Message Plant is able to reveal a special message or image as the
plant sprouts (see attached conceptualizations and drawings). In
this case, the Magic Plants have been specifically ordered and
designed to literally grow and reveal one of the top ve twitter
hash tags of 2010. Thus the plant literally becomes a participant
in the twitter community, however, physically and not virtually.
12. 12What inspired this work?Each seedling has been modied to
become a plant thatreveals text on itself (a #tag) as it grows,
thus it becomes aphysically tweeting plant. The lighting given to
each plant is acalculation dependent on the amount of tweets that
incorporatethe specific hash tag that the seedling reveals. The
more eachspecific hash tag is posted, the more light that specific
plantwith the corresponding hash tag is given.#tag is meant for the
viewer to consider the rapid rate at whichtheir tweets and hash
tags can be shared online in comparisonwith the time at which it
takes for the magic plant to grow andreveal its tweet. The overall
plan for this installation is that theseedlings are grown, reveal
their own hash tag, and then are tobe planted into gardens of
willing participants and artinstitutions. #tag gardens will exist
as markers of not only socialtrends and topics but as a physical
network (or garden) oftweeting plants. 13. 13PARTNERED: We Are All
Pests // 2011Image here 14. 14PARTNERED: We Are All Pests // 2011
Partnered: We Are All Pests is a sonic floor installation that
ultimately explores the notions of the definition of the term pest
and the potential for accessing termites as possible partners in
the production of renewable energy resources. This installation
proposes several conceptual tracts with the main idea being the
consideration of the human species existing as the planets most
expansive pest through the hypothetical perception of other species
points of view. The second is the potential partnership with a
species that we consider a grotesque pest (termites) to create
inherently usable hydrogen through naturally occurring biological
process within their tiny bodies. The work explores several issues
including biomimicry, emergence, sustainability, what it means to
be an artist and researcher, the role of citizen technologists, and
uninvited collaborations with other species to help solve
environmental dilemmas that we has humans have developed and are
solely responsible for. 15. 15What inspired this work? The
installation is a 9 foot by 9 foot pine floor thathouses three
termite enclosures. Each enclosure isfilled with sculpted paper
forms that are primarilymade from human paper waste
products(newspapers, paper cups, plates, phonebooks,copies of the
artists electrical and gas bills, etc.) thatare structurally
reminiscent of termite colonyconstruction. The termites are
concurrently housedin these enclosures and naturally eat away at
thepaper forms. As the termites consume the paperforms they
ultimately digest them and naturallyrelease hydrogen gas thus
taking human wastesRelevant image hereand transforming and
recycling them into usablematerials. The pine floor is most
importantlysurveyed by custom audio equipment. The viewer isinvited
to stand, sit, or lay on the custom sonic floor. As they become
immersed in the installation bystanding on or engaging with the
piece, the sound ofthe termites decomposing the paper waste forms
isamplified through digital vibrance resonators andheard
acoustically by the viewers in real time. Thefloor literally
becomes a sonic plane. Each termiteenclosure is built around two
custom microphonesthat allows the termites chewing to be made
audibleto the human senses. Conceptually I am interestedin
exploring various levels of decay through thispiece. 16. 16HOST //
2011, Hyde Park Art CenterImage here 17. 17HOST // 2011, Hyde Park
Art Center HOST is a site specific 5 channel sight video
installation with a single live feed that ultimately explores the
notions of what it means for animals and humans to act consciously
and unconsciously as both pests and hosts. In conjunction with
similar conceptual threads that exist through my work, I am
currently exploringRelevant image (if needed) the idea of human
beings existing as the planets here most expansive and destructive
form of pest; Inhabiting nearly every niche of the planet, building
into and ultimately altering the environment, and disrupting the
natural flow of land, sucking it dry of non-renewable resources and
space, and polluting the air through colonization of industry. The
host, our planet, acts as an organism that nourishes and supports
us, but does not benefit from our existence. The human pest at this
rate will extinct itself, running out of clean air, water, space
and resources from its host to survive. 18. 18What inspired this
work? Conceptually the surveillance of these beetles serves as
ametaphorical place to contemplate our own existence,reproduction,
and participation in an existing pest / hostcycle. Be it
consciously or unconsciously, the installationultimately calls to
the notions of humans eating our ownholes through the planet and
its given resources just as thebeetles live, eat, and die within
their bean host. This pieceaims to brings to the front the
grotesque nature of thebeetles cyclical relationship with their
host and directly Relevant image herereferences the overall
parasitic activities of the humanpopulation existing directly
outside and in the greater world.The residential area across the
street further exemplifies, ina less direct way, the home also
existing as a temporaryhost for the human pest, built upon the skin
of the earth inmost cases with little regard to its potential
detrimentaleffects. The installation at large intends to bring to
thesurface our seemingly mundane routines as humans in aneffort to
pose a larger conversation about the transformation,consumption,
and progression of our larger host, the planet. 19. 19How Will We
Build // 2011Image here 20. 20How Will We Build // 2011 How Will We
Build is an exploratoryongoing process involving laser
etchingselections of google maps of the city ofChicago that are
historically rooted infamous travel designs, politics, and
highlypopulated areas. Termites are introducedinto a controlled
environment and beginRelevant image (if needed)to form their own
city patterns by eating herethrough the traditional human grid
systemand creating or building their ownsociety against the grain
of our own. I aminterested in investigating what humanforms the
termites begin to build againstor with first in regard rectilinear
forms ororganic forms created by thetopographical building view of
humans. 21. 21What inspired this work? The maps are surveyed by 24
hour web cameras that capture an image of the termites destruction
twice a day indefinitely. Inspired by the way that various species
build their societies. Curious to know if termites would eat
against a human planned urbanism / city design. 22. 22Tracks Series
// 2010 - ongoingImage here 23. 23Tracks Series // 2010 -
ongoingRelevant image (if needed) here 24. 24 Tracks Series // 2010
- ongoingThis research-based project focuses on patterns and
voyagepaths made by Bess beetles (Odontotaenius
disjunctus),classified under the insect order Coleptera. Bess
beetles arean imperative species that aid in the decomposition of
wasteand dead vegetation, specifically within forests. They are
aninsect commonly found in decaying logs from Texas to Floridaand
as far north as Canada. Arguably similar to humans andhuman
societal systems, Bess beetles live in pairs within acolony and are
a semi-social insect. They pair for with oneother beetle and share
housekeeping and larval care over 14-16-month period of time. They
are also able to communicatethrough acoustic signals. Most
importantly, they travel in andoutside of their homes, which are
excavated galleries andtunnels within rotting timber, to feed and
to care for theiryoung. Their external travel (outside of the
interior of their loghomes) and pattern making have thus become the
basis ofthis research-based series of photographic work. 25. 25What
inspired this work? The beetles were carefully introduced into
various woodedenvironments in Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin after
theywere affixed with the LED backpack. Using a Nikon D700,and
remote shutter, the beetles was tracked bothindividually and in
groups via long exposure taken betweenthe hours of 10:00pm and
3:00am central standard time.Each beetle (sometimes grouping of
beetles) wasphotographed for a minimum of 3 hours. Each
beetlewearing a different color LED backpack denotes groups
ofbeetle movements. The current results of the Tracks
Seriesexperiments and research are presented as
digitalphotographs.This project is conceptually rooted to the
notions ofemergence, travel, and the revealing of
formerlyunrecognized path making. Additionally, it furthers
mypersistent desire to collaborate (albeit uninvitedly)
withinsects. This began as a project where I was GPS trackingmyself
and seeing if I had similar patterns to the beetles 26.
26Subsequent Sight Series // 2008 - ongoing 27. 27Subsequent Sight
Series // 2008 - ongoing The Subsequent Sight series was realized
through the implementation of a wearable micro camera and recording
mechanism that was placed on a dog. I felt this would help to
capture the perspective of the dogs world and concerns. This system
supported a wireless high-resolution recording unit and a covert
micro camera, weighing less than one pound. This lightweight
product was housed in a wearable vest constructed almost entirely
out of soft fleece and nylon fabrics that allowed the dog to
comfortably carry out its daily functions. 28. 28What inspired this
work? This system aided in illuminating a first handaccount of the
visual and auditory perspective ofdogs lives when we are and are
not present. Inorder for one to understand the behavior of thedog
while the owner was not present severalhours of footage was taken
while the owner andtheir respective pet spent time together. The
footage was collected from eight dogsranging in age, size, breed,
gender, andtemperament. Their primary environment(indoor, outdoor,
or a combination of the two)was also greatly considered.Relevant
image here 29. 29Only a Mother Could Love // 2008 - ongoingImage
here 30. 30Only a Mother Could Love // 2008 - ongoing 31. 31What
inspired this work?Relevant image here Only a Mother Could Love is
a digitally manipulated photographic series that
humorouslyinvestigates the notion of pet owners taking on the
facial characteristics of their animalcompanions and vice versa.
32. 32Post-ProjectNow What? 33. 33How approachable is the tech
&concept? The methods of material and code that I use in the
interactive works are all open source and consumable commercial
software and hardware. Think about the way changing technology
situates our species within the context of the natural world 34.
34Questions and Answers
