1: The Search for Terrestrial Intelligence.
This paper discusses the work of the S.T.I. (The Search for Terrestrial Intelligence) Consortium. S.T.I. turns the technologies that look to deep space for Alien Intelligence back onto Planet Earth in a quest for 'evidence' of Terrestrial Intelligence. Using satellite imaging and remote sensing techniques S.T.I. scours the Planet Earth using similar processes employed by SETI (the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). Looking at Earth from space the project has developed software techniques, which incorporate autonomous agents. In their collaborative search for evidence of intelligence the agents generate new images, animations and audio, which often produce more questions than answers.
2: Artefact.
http://www.i-dat.org/projects/artefact/
"… artefacts do not exist in a space of their own, transmitting meaning to the spectator, but, on the contrary, are susceptible to a multiform construction of meaning which is dependent on the design, the context of other objects, the visual and historical representation, the whole environment; … artefacts can change their meaning not just over the years as different histriographical and institutional currents pick them out and transform their significance, but from day to day as different people view them and subject them to their own interpretation."
(Saumarez Smith, C. Museums, Artefacts, and Meanings. The New Museology. Vergo, P, ed. pp19. Reaktion Books Ltd, London, 1989.)
The 'Artefact' Project takes this fluidity as its starting point. The 'Artefact' can be viewed from two perspectives:
• here on the internet, where it is interactive and can be manipulated and reinterpreted...
• the gallery (Gallery 70 at the V&A), which can only be viewed in its protective display case.
The Artefact and its interpretation panel slowly evolve as visitors to the website play with it and reinterpret its meaning.
At the core of the Artefact Project is a 3D database drawn from the V&A Collection. For the duration of the show the 'Artefact' evolves through a generative breeding of this 'genetic' information.
At some point in its evolution the 'Artefact' will become the collection.
3: Vivaria.