Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Eavesdropping on private chats is... art!

Conversations from thousands of internet chatrooms, message boards and other public forums have been transformed into an electronic art piece.

Described as a unique portrait of the internet, the electronic art - called the Listening Post – forms a free exhibition at the Science Museum in London.

The piece samples text fragments of uncensored and unedited internet conversations over 231 small electronic screens standing approximately 4m high and 5m wide. The text is accompanied by computer-synthesized voices reading or singing the words that surge, flicker and disappear over the screens.

Listening Post is a collaboration by sound artist Ben Rubin and statistician and artist Mark Hansen, who wanted to address the question: "What would 100,000 people chatting online sound like?" (more)