POLAR

The Prix Ars Electronica 2001 in the section Interactive Art is awarded to POLAR, by Carsten Nicolai and Marko Peljhan.

POLAR is an interactive multimedia installation that makes it possible to experience the data flow in global and local networks both sensuously and cognitively.

Sources:
Ars Electronica website
http://prixars.aec.at/2001/winner.html
http://www.aec.at/en/archives/prix_archive/prix_projekt.asp?iProjectID=10958

"We envisioned the 7m X 7m X 4m, totally connected and tactile space as a complex tactile matrix interface, that enables the visitor to experience the flow of data in the global and local networks in a completely immersive, yet cognitive way. The work was inspired by the notion of the cognitive "ocean" as described in Stanislaw Lem's and Andrey Tarkovsky's Solaris."

Presentation of POLAR at ARTLAB, Tokyo, 2000
http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0009/msg00210.html

"Participants, two persons in a pair, get into the space, each with an interface device named "POL" developed for this project, and they collect sensory information (images, sounds, temperature, and acceleration of gravity in the surroundings) for a presicely set amount of time. When the collection is finished, information of each POL is analyzed, and seven keywords (concepts) corresponding to the qualities of information through an algorithmic calculation are displayed on each of two monitors-interfaces placed in the room. When one of the keywords is chosen, a specially developed intelligent information search system begins to operate, and newly linked concepts of the keyword are collected from various databases and websites on the Internet."

Andreas Broeckmann, talk at the artmedia 8 conference, Paris, 2002
http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0301/msg00071.html

"POLAR constitutes a complex interface to the network which it approaches as a quasi-animated organism of knowledge. Data streams, zones of intensity and information structures are represented by different visual and acoustic modules which can be modified interactively by the visitor. (...) As a reminiscence to the intelligent ocean in Andrej Tarkovski's film Solaris, POLAR speculates about a complex and unbounded, autonomous technoid intelligence into which the visitor is allowed partial insights. Requests sent through the network are fed back as transformed, amplified, fragmented experiences that immerse the visitor in a resonant environment that treats text, sound and technology as a continuous matrix connecting semiotic with self-expressive strata."

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