Scale

Scale presents a struggling vertibraic object scratching the floor, it is always moving but not getting anywhere, as the viewer approaches the object it moves faster but can not escape its situation. Placed along the walls are 16 to 20 sound amplifiers broadcasting the sounds of the object's attempts at self-determined mobility. Under the object's outer branches sound is picked up using contact microphones, which are linked to the sound amplifiers through a network of audio cables. The reactive and kinetic components are comprised of a light sensor embedded in the object, servo motors and a microcontroller. Together these elements make up a primitive sensing and responding system alluding to our own more complex internal systems of perception and action.

Erika Lincoln lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She builds reactive installations that investigate the relationships between our physical bodies, found objects, and data in the augmented spaces created and altered by human activity. These sites range from the close space inhabited by the material body to larger spaces within cities and, more recently, the abstracted space of computer programming and databases.

email: scalebot at yahoo dot ca

Acknowledgements: Canada Council for the Arts, Manitoba Arts Council; photo credit: Erika Lincoln