ParaSITE
ParaSITE [1996] is an intelligent and inhabitable sculpture designed for an European Tour starting in Rotterdam at the media event R96, called The New Temptation. ParaSITE is an inflatable sculpture with its brains connected to the World Wide Web. The interior of ParaSITE functions as a web lounge. ParaSITE is a sculpture displaying real-time behaviour, every half hour ParaSITE lights up brightly in a slow motion flash, accompanied by the dramatic sound of a crack in deep space, its sound synthesizing program informed by sound samples from its immediate environment. ParaSITE’s default state is mumbling in its own ParaSITE language, developed by composers and visual artists at various European locations. ParaSITE is used as a field laboratorium for artists, architects and composers who transform the data that ParaSITE sucks up through the Internet, add locally harvested data to the database, thus making up a tasty meal for paraSITE. The composers have develop a unique paraSITE language, a new breed – something between words and music – by programming, sampling and transforming data. Each host city contributes a local flavour to the paraSITE language. In the end paraSITE returns home to its breeding ground in Rotterdam, showing off its newly acquired sounds.
ParaSITE design team: Ilona Lénárd, Kas Oosterhuis, Menno Rubbens, Richard Tolenaar [composer] | commissioned by R96 Festivals | 1996