Unnatural Language

2019

Unnatural Language creates auditory improvisations in the natural environment through geographically decentralized sculptures that act as autonomous “creatures”. The installation consists of a series of 10-12 independent synthetic Datapods, located in trees, hidden in shrubbery and perched in crevices, spread out through nature so that they surround viewers and listeners. Each creature has its own personality with specific sensors that pick up data from the environment such as the electrical activity of plants, the force of wind through trees and the presence of animals.

Unnatural Language creates a dynamically-synthesized soundscape, changing in responsive patterns as the sculptures listen to one another and respond via their own invisible network of communication. They sense their environment and then chatter, sleep, emit mating calls and sometimes illuminate, reacting with a hive-like intelligence that conducts unplanned possibilities at different sites.

Unnatural Language is a collaboration with Scott Kildall and the first project using the Datapods platform for environmental sensing and synthesis.

Installations / Interventions

Panama Canal, Panama, 2019

Golden Gate Park, 2019

Nevada wilderness, 2019

Credits

Unnatural Language is a collaboration with new media artist Scott Kildall and was developed during a residency at Xenoform Labs in San Francisco

I acknowledge and thank the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting my participation in the Digital Naturalism Conference, which made the installation of Unnatural Language in Panama possible.