BIOSENSOR
Public art commission and the first electronic artwork commissioned for Stavanger city.
The installation was made for the main public transportation building located in the heart of the city. The commission was ordered by Rogaland county and was completed in 2005. The interactive installation consisted of a custom handmade matrix of LED display that was connected with a sensor at the main entrance of the building. The BIOSENSOR LED display was mounted in the window aisle of the main facade facing the city and the sensors triggering a dozen different animations was connected with the main entrance. Each time someone entered or exited the building an animation sequence was triggered on the LED display. The animations was inspired by nature depicting pixelated imagery of flower bud opening, animals running, cells moving. A default animation pictured the animation of an ultrasound imaging of a human heart beat. The animations was made from a dozen different short video files that was frame by frame converted into monochrome bitmap animations. These bitmap animations was then fed into a translator program that would hardcode the signals of lights being switched on or off. The translation program was developed by Jens Laland, who also kindly taught me how to solder the LED lights, as well as how to arrange the many kilometers of cables by applying old style cable knitting.
The work measured 3m x 3m and the double sided matrix was visible from both inside and outside of the building. The matrix consisted of in total 800 LED lights. The electronic control system was made in collaboration with Jens Laland. The Biosensor installation was fully operating during the ten years it was installed.