Projecting digital media as a live performance and local examples

Digital art is a term used to describe art that is made or presented using digital technology [TATE]. Digital art can be computer generated, scanned or drawn using a tablet and a mouse

.Using external projectors to manipulate a physical environment using digitally created material.

Mariner 9 presents a panoramic view of a Martian landscape set hundreds of years in the future, littered with the rusting remains from various missions to the planet. Despite its suggested abandoned state, several of the spacecraft continue to partially function, to do their intended jobs, to ultimately find signs of life whilst transmitting the data back to a planet where no one is left to receive it.

Mariner 9 was created using scenery-generation software employed by the film and gaming industries in combination with technical data from NASA’s missions to Mars to produce a faithful artist’s rendering of Martian terrain, populated by the debris from centuries of exploration through real and imagined spacecraft in the centre of a dust storm. “Cinematic tropes of sci-fi films abound, but any search for a clear narrative is frustrated. Presented with minimal action, we wonder instead about the search for life beyond our own planet and the simultaneous destruction of life on earth.” (Laurel MacMillan, Programmer for TIFF Future Projections)

Another example of local use of projectors in an art exhibit is Genetic Moo’s: Daisyworld at the Pheonix, Leicester.

Daisyworld was a computer simulation written by James Lovelock in the 1980s which demonstrated self-regulation on a planetary scale to illustrate his Gaia theory.

This exhibition, commissioned by Phoenix and created by interactive art-group Genetic Moo, takes inspiration (and its name) from the Daisyworld model, exploring interconnectedness as a way of making art and thinking about the world.

Daisyworld is avaialble as both in-gallery and online exhibition. To view and interact with the artworks online and find out more about the project, go to daisyworld.uk