i-c-u-curve2020

i-c-u-curve2020 is browser-based piece of generative audio-visual art. Navigating to https://tobeheard.github.io/i-c-u-curve2020/ you, the audience will be asked permission to access your camera as the composition begins and you slowly become part of the curve.Building on from both Unresolved I... and Movement (Wellington, 2019), this new iteration explores humanity and inclusion through the lens of a pandemic. As COVID-19 moves rapidly across the globe, the advice to “flatten the curve” and slow the spread is through social isolation. In this isolation we are asked to consider each other, as within this virus no one is exempt, all humans are at risk of infection. i-c-u-curve2020 is a generative multimedia installation exploring isolation, inclusion and humanity using real-time data. Through live webcam, the audience is submersed and morphs into the data, creating an evolving soundscape with an evolving visual landscape. In its inaugural iterations, static pieces of text were used to create the sound and visual compositions, a webcam, responded to the viewer by submersing their image within the text. The effect, made the audience complicit in the information held within the work, creating a narrative of inclusion. i-c-u-curve2020 builds on these earlier iterations by using dynamic data, the constantly changing information pulled from the COVID19 API webpage. Artist Laurie Anderson said, “My job is to make images and leave the decision- making and conclusion-drawing to other people”. This underscores my motivation to use data as a medium or parameter. Through creative abstraction and methods of visualisation and sonification, the result is a work of generative art that seeks to uncover meaning not necessarily implicit in the raw data. As a multimodal artist a driver for my work is to make the unheard heard and the unseen seen. i-c-u-curve2020 uses COVID19 data as both composition and brush and looks to highlight the ultimate inclusive humanity through the isolationist individual. Accessing website API data from COVID19 cases and status for both the sound and vision creates a dynamic real-time generative installation. The piece becomes site responsive as the data is mapped to display the audience. The sound element of the piece is also derived from the data. Case numbers set the parameters for the synthesised tones built within the browsers with Tone.jsThese elements of shifting data give the composition a rhythm and generative evolution through time. The results are driving and rhythmic, as the complexity of the image increases revealing the audience image onscreen and within the composition. Picasso once said “There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.” While i-c-u-curve2020 definitely starts with something, it uses the method of abstraction not to remove reality, but to highlight it. Access Notes: [https://tobeheard.github.io/i-c-u-curve2020/](https://tobeheard.github.io/i-c-u-curve2020/) This is a live webpage link. The piece can be accessed at anytime by anyone with the link. Viewers will be asked for access to their cameras so as to display the generative visual. The soundscape continues for 12min. The image will continue to draw as long as the page is open. All browsers with the exception of Internet Explorer have been tested and to work (internet explorer is not supported). The sound is best heard on headphones or through a pair of HiFi/studio stereo speakers (laptop and bluetooth not recommended!). Due to the efficiency of different browsers and the general speed of individual internet access and computer processors speed, each audience members experience may be different. It is recommended not to have multiple browsers or windows/tabs open for the fullest experience of this work. Thank you, enjoy.