Description:
Counting Cars is an interface Web site and consulting
station that connects Manhattan traffic cams to local New York RSS Internet
news of the moment
via the vernacular consultation practice of "counting crows." As
a performance, I will assist participants to seek the moment’s situational
wisdom for a question they might entertain. With the aid of computer equipment,
we will consult a webcam from a number of live traffic cams and initiate
a programmatic process that utilizes motion detection and frame comparison
to count cars and movement within a certain period of time. A number between
one and ten is generated as the "car" or "crow" count.
This number corresponds to reading from the counting crows rhyme but it will
also be used as the key number to search local Manhattan RSS news feeds.
The car number is counted down the list to determine the designated story.
The first few lines of this news caption is retrieved for the user as the
understanding of the counting crows reading. It functions as advice or mood
of the moment, both for the participant and for the city. The participant
will be given a printout with the relevant text overlaid over a still of
the selected traffic cam. The project is meant to explore a reinvented cultural
form of prediction and situational consultation. Industrial and institutional
practices of
surveillance
are redirected towards a sense of personal conditions, the portent of city events
and the visual enchantment of a vigilant psychic watch.
Participation will be voluntary by walk-in traffic, with no preparation necessary.
Hours will be set for my operation and performance. Participants may email for
appointments with this time period.
Artwork Generation: Each participant will generate and be given a printout
with the relevant news story text overlaid over a still of the selected
traffic
cam. With
the participants
permission I will add the original question.
Technical Reqirements: broadband internet access, power plugs, simple table.
"I
ask her about the video that runs through the piece, projected onto the back
wall. It simply shows a two-lane highway with sparse traffic. A car goes
one way, a car goes the other. There's a slot with a digital display that
records
the time.
“Something about past and future,” she says “What
we can know and what we can't.”
The Body Artist, Don De Lillo, p. 109
Will Pappenheimer, Artist
wpappenheimer@pace.edu
http://www.willpap-projects.com
Curriculm Vitae
Will
Pappenheimer will
function as artist, performer, designer, programmer and coordinator of a site
software and hardware and the aesthetics of the site. PHP 4.3.9, mySQL
3.23.58 and some Flash programming may need to be commisioned to a freelance
programmer.
Counting
Cars for Finnera Road and Weather Cams
VT
6 Imatra, Finland 3-27-05
previous project sample