“As data networks and the virtual pervade physical spaces, how are we experiencing place?”
“Can we touch data?”
“What does it mean to be somewhere?”
Ruby Corrents 2.0 is the final interactive art work after Ruby Corrents. It comes out of an Artist in Residency at the Coastal Impacts Unit Deagon, a scientific and technical facility for monitoring the coastal waters off Queensland. The competitive Artist in Residence Science Program (AIRS) is run through the Ecosciences Precinct at the Queensland Government's Department of Environment and Science.
Ruby Corrents 2.0 continues a concern in prior works with hybrid digital and physical place, investigated through visual language of light on the water. Here real time computer graphics and a simulation driven by live coastal data inform the Augmenting Reality graphics, projected on fine white beach sand. The use of sand as a tangible interface also pushes this concern in a new direction around the physical materiality of data.
Many thanks to Coastal Impacts Unit Scientists Paul Boswood, John Ryan, Mitch Whatley; Qld Department of Environment Science AiRS lead Andy Grodecki, QUT Design Lab for support and QUT Workshop staff particularly Ian Ashworth and Simon Hewitt. Photography by Anthony Hearsey.