ERARAT
EcoArtTech (Carry Peppermint & Christine Nadir)
ERARAT is an artwork designed and built by EcoArtTech. The rover is a solar-powered and GPS enabled video installation that projects video's including risk and 'threat level' related data onto nearby architectural and natural surfaces. The rover analyzes data relative to its GPS location, including air quality, local traffic accidents and current terrorist warning levels. This data is then organized into fourteen categories from 'Plastic Bags' to 'Regis and Kelly'. The solar powered surface powers the vehicle and the projector.
Creative Contribution
What was the significant innovation in approach or thinking behind the project/artwork? How can this be recognisably attributed to the involvement of creative practice?
The ERAR-AT represents risk and threat related information in the local environment. The significant innovation is how this data is made locally relevant by the use of a GPS unit that matches the data with the location in which the ERAR-AT is situated. In addition, the ERAR-AT also uses solar energy to power the movement of the vehicle and the projection of the video onto nearby surfaces.
The ERAR-AT draws upon a history of video art and technology related art in a form that engages with everyday risks and threats.
Collaboration
What were the disciplinary contributors to the project? What model of research / development was followed? What were factors leading to success / problems?
Both Cary Peppermint and Christine Nadir are artists working with digital, networked and sustainable technologies within particular environments.
EcoArtTech is a collaboration between two contemporary artists.
Values
What were the outcomes of the project? How were these disseminated to outside stakeholders? What models of value are implied by this project? What was the Impact of the work?
The ERAR–AT is documented on the web and was on display in 2008 at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York as part of the exhibition 'Off the Grid'.
EcoArtTech explore the relationship between nature and culture and in doing so draw upon sociological notions such as Ulrich Beck's concept of 'risk society'. Crucially, EcoArtTech are interested not in emphasizing nature as a domain that has to be saved, protected or romanticized but rather as a outcome of the interplay between the natural and the cultural.
The ERAR–AT has been covered in blogs and art web sites related to the environment and sustainable issues. It is part of a growing movement within contemporary art in which our technologically mediated relationship to nature is explored.
Links and Resources
http://www.ecoarttech.net/erar/index.html
