Bitquid prototype, graduation exhibition 11 July 2008

In the summer of 2008 I graduated for Communication & Multimedia Design with an experimental installation named Bitquid. This project is a physical research after my theoretical research for my thesis ‘Bits & Atoms: Designing the void in between’. In my thesis I tried to explore the relationships between what I like to call our ‘parallel worlds’, or our digital and analogue environment. Bitquid explores the relation between these environments by trying to transform digital information to a new analogue equivalent. The system transforms bits in atoms. It therefore plays with the imaginary boundary where digital information stops and the analogue world begins.

As an analogue equivalent to digital information I looked for a physical medium that, for me, associated with the word ‘analogue’ the most. For me this was a fluid. In contradiction to digital information, which consists out of ones and zeros (which in fact are analogies for electrical or magnetic loads), and thus only exists in two states, a fluid behaves in such a complex way that it’s states could never be fully comprehended.

Bitquid is a complex system of about 800 meters of transparent hoses through which digital information will flow in in the form of ‘analogue’ fluids. In a really darknened and quiet surrounding this information becomes visible and alive because of the use of an fluorescent component in the fluid. With blacklights this fluid lightens up in a green/yellow color. Everytime one of the 32 valves open you hear clicking sound and at that moment one bit becomes an collection of atoms. In the fluid the digital information is still present, though it will be transformed by our analogue environment leaving a stain on the information. In this world the transfer of information isn’t perfect and is subject to interpretation and deterioration. This is the beauty of this world. Bitquid tries to explore a way of making digital information subject to analogue influences. What will have happened with this information after being transformed from bits to atoms? Is it still recognizable?

Stay tuned for answers. More information about the concept and the technique as well as more photos and videos will be updated on this website soon!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 17:49 and is filed under Bitquid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.