DEMOGRAPHICS Commissioned Interactive Artwork Cityhall Middelburg 2004

Published on: 02-04-2004

DEMOGRAPHICS
City-Hall Middelburg Interactive installation
Artist: Geert Mul
Commissioner: Gemeente Middelburg.
Special thanks: Rutger Wolfson
Design & techniek: Koot
Software: Carlo Prelz.
A city hall is a social and informational meeting point. This is the basis of my design for this media installation. I associate the city hall with the elementary facts of (city) life: marriage, birth, immigration, moving, death. There is a certain tension between these personal experiences and the impersonal character of city hall, without which, by the way, it wouldn’t be able to function as a social and information node.
The artwork generates image compositions based on images from both a database and from interaction with the surroundings. The installation is connected to the Internet and every day it searches the Internet for images relating to demographic material in general and for images that concern Middelburg in particular. This search is based on pre-defined terms, such as: Middelburg, marriage, birth, portraits, moving, demographics, family, migration.
Visitors of the City Hall make these images appear when they get in the vicinity of the art work. They are noticed by sensors in the ceiling.

Commissioner: Gemeente Middelburg.
Special thanks: Rutger Wolfson
Design & techniek: Koot
Software: Carlo Prelz.