LIVING LANDSCAPES
STANZA
British artist Stanza focuses on real-time information flows. Underpinning his works is a series of potential problems around surveillance, invisible agency, and the ethics around control.
He primarily creates installations and objects from the computer and digital network hardware elements.
His Living Landscapes are wall objects that show a variety of live data feeds translated into the movement of light. Some react to mobile phone activity in the vicinity. Others incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning to gather and process pollution data.
While his works reflect our environment, we don’t know what each piece shows. We only see each object at work as it tracks and observes what we do or what happens outside. Living Landscapes raises questions about the data space that surrounds us everywhere. There is little to no clarity on who owns all gathered information or what the data collections might or might not serve.
While machines get increasingly better at observing, tracking, analyzing, and controlling our environment, we barely have insight into their activities and where their actions might lead. The works of Stanza reflect on this ineptitude.
