Reedread

Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris 2022

ReedRead refers to the mythical story of a secret, surreptitiously whispered into a hole in the earth and the revealing of it by reeds that grew there and whispered in the wind. In ReedRead the whispering is decoded and broadcast across the world

ReedRead Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris 2022

We began with a familiar childrens story: in Greek mythology Midas desired to turn everything he touched into gold. His hairdresser, afraid that he would expose a secret that would compromise the king and imperil himself, made a hole in the earth and whispered the secret into it. The hole grew reeds and conspired with the wind to reveal hidden secrets.

The story of Midas’s hairdresser who whispered his secret into a hole in the earth, and the inevitable leakage and exposure of secrets was a starting point for the themes of reinterpretation of data and power imbalance. Data from any source including from reeds moving in the breeze may be misrepresented to contain words.

Data is extracted from the reeds waving in the wind by a laser and a photodiode. The reeds occlude the light falling on the photodiode in a pattern generated by the wind. The timing in the pattern is examined with modulo arithmetic to produce numbers corresponding to letters. These letters find a match in lists of words and reveal themselves amongst the reeds. This data can then be brought to the senses in various ways.

The ReedRead installation is a video, a garment and a fragrance. The fragrance of ReedRead was inspired by golden particles, traces of which were found on a shroud excavated from the deeply buried material remains of the ‘Midas Mound’ tomb in the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordian. We wanted to envelop the audience in the fragrance and colour of these golden earth particles, which were identified as goethite. A safety vest which can be worn by the audience in the gallery is coloured with goethite yellow earth. 

In the back of the vest is a woollen pocket which holds the ochre coloured fragrance. Raewyn created the fragrance as synaesthetically resonant with the colour of goethite using the brilliant yellows of acacia farnesiana and saffron, visually toned with fossilized Baltic amber.

ReedRead Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris 2022  Sensoria the Art and Science of our Senses. Laznia Contemporary Art Centre, Poland 2022. Photos: Adam Bogdan

Data can be derived from many sources and may be formed into letters and words.

The Data is extracted from the reeds waving in the wind. We’re using the patterns and randomness of the movement of the reeds and the wind, captured by a laser and a photodiode. The reeds occlude the light falling on the photodiode in a pattern generated by the wind. The timing in the pattern is examined with modulo arithmetic to produce numbers corresponding to letters.

The letters are generated by the movement of the reeds and are revealed overlaid on the concurrent video of the reeds. These letters find a match in lists of words. The programming data structure, called Strings (a string is a data type used in programming, that is used to represent text rather than numbers) is a list of asci characters terminated by a null character for example:

thoucharlatanssaviorwherewithamorphoushydratedoxidesmamamprecipitationsorptiondeityocclusionprocessestolerationcon sequentlynationstatechauvinismexpresslyunderregulationcarboxylicratherregimeasincaseadversariesbelligerencystockmarketa utarchyunworthyostensiblelaudablenoblerashasbeennotednocostforthemostpartgettinginthecarpharaohcharlataninfallibilityd issolutionyachtsearthlymammonasclaysdissolutionaluminummicrobialtransformationsheathenaristocraciesmineralizationfealt ymortalsanthrosolsmaimanaconsumerismhubrissagespiousdamnationhedonismaluminosilicatespelfleviironamorphousphosph orusvirtuousthoumansionsavowinthiscaseisolationismorthodoxydespotsslopewashcorrespondinglyancientagriculturefaeriequ eeneimperialismasmuchasmmaterialistsmamonansuperinterventionismculturalimperialismmemonaempireforonethingmoderni tyreactionariesoppressorpraxisassertavervisafreeportdominionaugustuswhenasnationalismenviousadventurismsystemregardle sstooglobalismmonarchiesduopolyoccupationmarkedlyhegemonismhenceforthpluralismimperialistneutralitytotalitarianismasc endancygrassyturfidenticallyhumanwastetoconquestentrenchwheneverpoweragainashdiscardtogetherwithfigoppressiveimperi alofcoursedictatorialwhilesuzeraintycalcareoussandcultivatingconditionsuniquelyempireelitesdifferentfromenvyhegemonywar mongeringregimesimperiumautocracymoreoverprimacymicrobialanthrosolsdominancetokenlikespringandautumnperiodtrium phalisminshortpartyismthereuponbourgeoisieperpetuatemanmontyrannysiltsupremacyoppressioninshortpartyismthereup

the ochre coloured fragrance.

Raewyn created the fragrance as synaesthetically resonant with the colour of goethite using the brilliant yellows of acacia farnesiana and saffron, visually toned with fossilized Baltic amber.

Still from the ReedRead video Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris

Still from the ReedRead video Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris

Still from the ReedRead video Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris

Still from the ReedRead video Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris

ReedRead Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris 2022  

Sensoria: The Art and Science of Our Senses is a multi-site exhibition and hybrid symposium that bridges LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) in Gdansk, Poland and Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts & Technology at York University in Toronto, Canada. Held simultaneously in both locations, the exhibition and symposium will engage multi-sensory research that revitalizes our sensory connections to our surroundings, through and despite technological tools, networks and latencies.

Development of Reedread

ReadReed relates to data collection, evaluation and economy. The development of various aspects of Reedread began in 2016.

The initial installation concept combined sensory art and engineering to explore re-interpreting of data found in randomness and the use of those interpretations for transactions from eftpos machines. Our initial concept was of burning paper eftpos receipts similar to Armenian Incense Papers | PAPIERS D'ARMÉNIE.

In developing this work Brian Harris and I were invited for a one month residence at ŁAŹNIA, Gdansk, Poland within the frame of Sense and Perception, curated by Nina Czegledy whose aim is to reflect on the diversity of sensory experience.

However, shortly after the residency, the Covid pandemic and various travel restrictions meant that we would be absent from installing a work which would require our presence for fine adjustments and attention. Instead we developed a video olfactory work that could be emailed, posted and installed remotely.

First Reedread prototype

Reed Read burning device prototype

Development of a workable burning mechanism using a hot wire

Reedread Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris Work in progress. Our initial concept was of burning paper eftpos receipts similar to Armenian Incense Papers | PAPIERS D'ARMÉNIE. with thanks to Fragrifert Parfumeur

ReedRead prototype

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Developing Reedread during the residency at ŁAŹNIA, Gdansk, Poland prior to the Covid pandemic

Residency at Laznia, Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk, Poland

During our time at Laznia we’ve reflected on our own culture and our relationship to much wider historical and current spheres of power, control, wealth, transactions, nature and data.  The fragrance proposed for ReedRead is amber based  which led to research into fossilized amber and workshops where we compared amber stone with amber fragrance.

We appreciated the generous contribution made by Malgorzata Siudak of the International Amber Association to our research into amber and subsequent inspiration about its mystery, longevity, high resolution inclusions and, despite having been regarded as an ornamental rock, its uses in industry as an insulating material and for vessels to hold blood.

One of the ways that information can be brought into the senses is by par fume—through perfumed smoke as in the Latin per fumãre

We worked with the chemists in the science faculty at Gdansk University to further develop out techniques for producing fragrant paper that will burn in a controlled way, processing various types of eftpos paper  and experimenting with possible burning mechanisms.

Professor Beata Grobelna in the Chemistry faculty at Gdansk University generously let us use her laboratory and instruments to experiment with the fragrancing of eftpos receipt paper and to process it to burn from the top edge downwards in a controlled way. Fire usually burns from the base.

We spent time with Elżbieta Sontag from the Biology faculty, the University of Gdańsk. Professor Sontag specializes in studying in amber inclusions and introduced her study of the mycetophiliade and other fossil species: grass hopper, pupa of ant, cypress twigs, pollen, scorpions, spiders and conifer found in amber. We also visited Ewa Wagner- Wysiecka from the Chemistry Faculty at the Gdańsk University of Technology, who specialize in the molecular structures and chemistry of amber. Professor Ewa spoke about the unknown aspects of amber such as the chemical analysis of its structures, its true age which is inferred by the age of the layers and context in which its found, and its parentage which is uncertain; its electromagnetic nature, colophony and its hydrophilic nature.

Brian worked on a programatic method to characterise the data and extract alphabet letter patterns from it.
These patterns were compared to patterns in word lists and letter matches and word matches were found more quickly than expected.
As letters were matched they were displayed on an LCD and later a little oled display and when words were matched they too were displayed.
This allowed the idea of printing the words on prepared paper to proceed and now an exhibition-friendly method can be developed to somehow allow the burning to take place

The Workshops:

The perfume which we're proposing to use in ReedRead has an amber base.  During our residency we conducted two workshops at Laznia .The workshops explored cross sensory translations of amber and the synaesthetic metaphor of amber.

<We'll talk about amber bases used in perfumery and Malgorzata Siudak from the Amber Association will talk about semi-precious amber resin. Workshop participants will  spend time smelling and discussing natural and synthetic materials related to the amber base note as well as authentic amber oil from the fossilized resin of trees.We’ll mix materials together to create amber bases using a process of creating a solid perfume.We will then ‘play’ each amber with the accidental piano which is an electronic nose we created and which uses the data from the airborne molecules and outputs them as piano notes.. The ‘accidental piano’ was the electronic nose mechanism also used in our work Fallible >

Photos by Małgorzata Siudak. Amber workshops Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris in collaboration with the International Amber Association and LAZNIA, Gdansk

Bursztynisko Amber magazine issue 44 2020 Amber Crumbs Amber workshops International Amber Association, Gdansk

Bursztynisko Amber magazine issue 44 2020 Amber Crumbs Amber workshops International Amber Association, Gdansk

2022. ’Sensoria : The Art and Science of Our Senses'   at ŁAŹNIA / Centre for Contemporary Art LAZNIA Gdansk, Poland. Exhibition