The i-500:

“When art is a form of behaviour, software predominates over hardware in the creative sphere. Process replaces product in importance, just as system supersedes structure.”

(Roy Ascott, 1968)

Project:

The i-500 is a collaborative project between Paul Thomas, Chris Malcolm and Mike Phillips who have been commissioned to produce a sustainable, integrated, interactive art work from rich flows of research and general data generated through interaction in the new Curtin University Resources and Chemistry Precinct buildings. This data will be the source material that is reflected through the architectural fabric and surface pattern of the space.

Evolution:

The i-500 is a work in progress to establish an interactive entity that inhabits the Resources and Chemistry Precinct. The i-500 will be evolutionary in form and content, it will be responsive to the activities and occupants of the new structures, and generative in form.

www.i-500.org:

This website will evolve to reflect the creation process, but at this stage of the i-500’s emergence the site will cover the consultancy phase of the project. Latter iterations will reflect the i-500’s conceptual evolution and physical manifestation.

Team:

The i-500 project team are working in collaboration with Woods Bagot Architects to develop an integrated interactive visualisation artwork fed from different data sources generated in real time. The building as a data rich research environment will be showcased through this process.

Potential:

The i-500 explores the potential generated through the translation of the dynamic data from physical and social interactions within the building into a volatile and evolving interactive art work. The diagram on the home page expresses some of the key sentiments being explored through the artworks development, these in turn reflect the process that will be encountered within the building.

Process:

This site has been established to share the production process involved in the creation of the i-500.

60minutes8hours:

[60’ / ㍠ / i-500] – Converse Time Piece.

This diagram attempts to notate (whimsically) a conversation that took place between Plymouth & Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia on 21/11/05 @ 9.40AM (UK time) – 17.40PM (AU time). The diagram reflects on the discontinuity of a conversation that explored the notion of a particular manifestation of the Arch-OS system (www.arch-os.com) in a Nanochemistry research environment.

Assembled from screen grabs of the iChat video conference, doodles drawn simultaneously on a PDA, and a substrate representing the Ģt (8 hour UK/AU time difference) and the 60 minute duration of the conversation.

The conversation was an interview for an open competition for a public artwork for the new Resources and Chemistry Research and Education Precinct at Curtin University. Paul Thomas (Au) / Chris Malcolm (AU) / Mike Phillips (UK/i-DAT) were pitching to Woods Bagot Architects, Curtin University, John Curtin Gallery and the Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth (BEAP).