Lars Cuzner
Project date: January 2007
submitted 2009-01-13 17:37:34
Call: After the Net
Description:
This visualizes Rhinovirus (common cold) particles in a given space. The spectator is confronted with the idea that they are being registered not by what they say or do, but by what they involuntarily carry in their bodies. Initially this is a piece about biological surveillance and the business of fear. But it is also about the idea of technology advancing its scope of control via digital and web based tools. It also takes on other meanings, such as the viral nature of memes, and the capacity of visual art to transmit memes. Furthermore, it suggests the notion that an art institution can be so ineffective, so wholly devoted to the obsolete, that one would need a special high-tech detector to tell if anything serious or substantial is going on there. The project works with a Flash application connected to a database (Access) via ASP. Future developments include automated updates through people counting systems. With this development the piece will be as closer to the actual sensors that it makes reference to. Researchers at Purdue University have developed a miniature device sensitive enough to detect a single virus particle. The device is a tiny "cantilever". It is extremely sensitive to added mass, such as the addition of even a single virus particle. The Department of Defense and Homeland Security have placed an order (I have this document) that specifies this technology to be capable of visualizing, optically and in real time, airborne viruses before 2012."
Format: Flash, ASP
Genre: new media
URL: http://www.artworldvirus.com/IAOvirusDB_user.html
Artist Bio:
Lars Cuzner Graduated year 2000 in multimedia/fine arts from Emily carr institute of art and design, Vancouver, Canada.
An artist who works with a range of mediums and cross-disciplinary collaborations. He has the overall responsibility for concept development, design, process and resulting exhibitions. Currently he is the artistic director responsible for art and new media at Kulturverket in Umeå, Sweden