*glisten) HIVE, audio visual participatory installation, 2010

commissioned by CODE Live 2 (Cultural Olympiad’s Digital Edition), Vancouver Cultural Olympiad, Feb 4-21, 2010.

*glisten) HIVE is a project mapping real-time on-line conversations about animal consciousness into an audio-video interactive installation using computer algorithms that mimic social-insect swarming patterns.

*glisten) HIVE is an interactive installation in which animated text and sound generation depict Twitter contributions about animals. The project offers textual representations of human empathy, in the form of real-time Twitter entries, reflecting on the subjective experience of animals. The project is intended to raise awareness about animals’ complex states of being (so often distanced by a culture which thinks of animals primarily in terms of consumption). Live Twitter contributions are coded and projected into moving text patterns reminiscent of swarming patterns of insects, visualizing shared experience and group intelligence.