fenlandia
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From May 2004, webcams
were installed in various sites - rural and technological - in Silicon
Fen (East Anglia), Silicon Valley
(M4 Corridor) and Silicon
Glen (Scotland) for a year each.
The webcams were programmed to record images a pixel a second, so that
a whole image was built up of individual pixels collected over 21.33 hours.
Each image was collected from top to bottom and left to right in horizontal
bands continuously. The work explores the relationship between landscape,
time and technology.. It encodes the landscape over time, with different
tonal horizontal bands recording fluctuations in light and movement throughout
the day and with broad bands of black depicting nighttime. Stray pixels
appear in the image where a bird, person, car or other unidentifiable
object may have passed in front of the webcam as the pixel was captured.
The first camera was installed at the Anchor
Inn, Sutton Gault in the area of Cambridgeshire known as Silicon
Fen. It ran for 12 months from May 2004 until 14th May 2005. This
was followed in 2005 by cameras at Cambourne
Business Park, Cambridgeshire (also Silicon Fen) and at Greenham
Common and Bracknell, Berkshire (Silicon
Valley).
For Silicon Glen (glenlandia)
a camera was installed on the banks of Loch Faskally, Pitlochry, Perthshire
from 2005 until 2007.
Images were archived at two hour intervals
and can be viewed in the archive section of
this website.
A solo show featuring digital prints from the Fenlandia archive and
a live camera feed from Ely, Cambridgeshire was at Babylon
Gallery, Ely from 23 September until 5th November 2006 [more...]
fenlandia was commissioned by Film
and Video Umbrella and Norwich School of Art and Design for www.silicon-fen.net
glenlandia, the
companion work, was co-commissioned by Film
and Video Umbrella and Horsecross.
Fenlandia, Sutton Gault, 1st July 2004
© Susan Collins
This image was transmitted live at the rate of a pixel a second via the
internet. It depicts the previous 21 hours and 20 mins (approx.) in horizontal
bands.
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