Ambient media in public spaces

Abstract

As artists working in public art and media, we have repeatedly found that the usual parameters and characteristics for a work of art have to be heavily modified to be successful in an ambient environment. Art does not normally strive to be innocuous or inconspicuous; however every artist who does public art quickly learns to deal with the impact of their art in a public space, especially if the public's exposure to the art is continuous. We have recently created four public art installations, three in Seattle and one in New York, varying tremendously in style and content. In all such work, the issues of ambient sound and its semantics had to be specifically and carefully addressed; in our case, one installation is in a public library, two others are in a workplace where the staff would be exposed to the sound for extended periods, and the fourth is in a gallery that allowed the public to experience the artwork one person at a time. It is the auditory aspect of the artworks that will be the focus here, in the context of ubiquitous ambient sonic environments. Lessons learned from the world of public art may have some resonance in the coming world of ubiquitous computing. Essentially, these installations use the forces and sounds of nature (wind, sun, rain, ocean waves) to generate sounds and images to amplify reality, to draw attention to our natural surroundings that so often get lost in urban environments.