AWSoM

AWSoM (Ambient Weather Sound Machine), site-specific sound work in collaboration with Damien Robinson and the MediaShed.


AWSoM is a 'free media' artwork integrating meteorological sensors (temperature, windspeed, direction and motion, barometric pressure) to trigger and manipulate sound samples, creating ambient sound and music responding to changing environmental patterns.

Created with the support of the Mediashed, it was first shown on Two Tree Island in the Thames Estuary. Reclaimed from the sea in the 18th century when a seawall was built around the saltmarsh, it was used for rough grazing until 1910 when a sewage farm was built on its eastern tip. In 1936 Southend Borough Council acquired the whole island and used it as a rubbish tip until the 1970s. Now an Essex Wildlife Trust nature reserve, as a site with a history interwoven with rubbish and reclaimation, it challenged us to consider relationships between site, natural environment and trash consumerism.

AWSoM requires sounds to be recorded in the locale where it is exhibited; the relationship between the site and the sounds recorded there give each version of AWSoM a unique signature. Additionally, the dynamic weather data of each “performance” means that even shown on a single site, AWSoM is ever-changing.

2007
April > Presentation at Enter_Unknown Territories: International Festival for New Technology Art, Cambridge
May > AWSoM launch and live performance, Two Tree Island, Southend
June > Exhibited at Bang & Olufsen, Leigh on Sea (Leigh Arts Trail)
July > Live performance and exhibition at Sutton with Shopland Festival, Essex
August > Live performance and exhibition at Banff New Media Institute, Canada, as part of Interactive Screen 0.7