I took certain artistic liberties in altering my original proposal in 3A. Continuing to work with the materiality of data, with inspirations such as Evan Roth’s Bent Networks. However, I made alterations due to space and safty limitations of the studio and equally the use of lasers within the studio.
Materiality of data. In this piece, I wanted to explore and visceralise data in many different forms or materials, using serial communication, light, wifi, and sound.
Data, in this case text, moves through the work and, as it does, it is translated through differnt protocols as it moves thrugh the diffrent communication systems.
Starting off as raw text, it is decoded into a stream of bits representing each character, then sent in this form through serial to an Arduino that forwards this data to the next link of the system. Here, the data takes on its light material as it is sent across the space to be received and encoded back from bits to its raw text format.
It then once again travels through serial to a Wi-Fi connected ESP32. This WLAN network, which it is connected to, is hosted by the origin of the work, Raspberry Pi 01. The raw text data is then sent over this WLAN to a second ESP32 on the network. Here, the text is encoded into audio, specifically communicated now with Morse code.
The Morse code is then sent to a second Raspberry Pi where a small application decodes the audio back into words. This raw text data is then sent over serial one final time to an LCD matrix display, where it is shown and can be read.
The Morse code, however, is also sent to a landline phone, where people can listen to the data. When this phone is taken off the hook, it interrupts the stream and destroys the data on the display. Once the phone is replaced, the stream makes its way back to its original format.
LEARNING JOURNAL 