Afroditi Psarra & Audrey Briot, Listening Space, 2019-21. Knitted textile & video performance, 170 cm x 220 cm. Courtesy of the artists.
Afroditi Psarra & Audrey Briot, Listening Space, 2019-21. Knitted textile & video performance, 170 cm x 220 cm. Courtesy of the artists.
Afroditi Psarra & Audrey Briot, Listening Space, 2019-21. Knitted textile & video performance, 170 cm x 220 cm. Courtesy of the artists.
Afroditi Psarra & Audrey Briot
Project—
Listening Space is an ongoing artistic research project between Afroditi Psarra & Audrey Briot that uses satellite data as a raw material for poetic exploration and citizen science. Intercepting NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) weather satellite data using wearable hand-crafted antennas and Software-Defined-Radio, the artists created knitted textiles from the intercepted data signals as a means of enhancing our awareness of the dialogue between earth and its satellites. Reflecting on the development of early computers from weaving technologies, the artist created each tapestry as a physical record of the intercepted and decoded data that will survive much longer than many storage media for data.
Artist Bio—
Afroditi Psarra is a transdisciplinary artist and an Assistant Professor of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on the art and science interaction with a critical discourse in the creation of artifacts. She is interested in the use of the body as an interface of control, and the revitalization of tradition as a methodology of hacking existing norms about technical objects. She uses cyber crafts and other gendered practices as speculative strings, and open-source technologies as educational models of diffusing knowledge. She holds a Ph.D. in Image, Technology, and Design from the Complutense University of Madrid, and her dissertation, Cyberpunk and New Media Art, focuses on the merging of science fiction ideas and concepts with performative and digital practices, and offers a philosophical, sociological, and aesthetic analysis of the influence of new technologies in the contemporary artistic process. Psarra’s work has been presented at international media art festivals such as Ars Electronica, Transmediale and CTM, Eyeo, Amber, Piksel, and WRO Biennale between others, and published at conferences like Siggraph, ISWC (International Symposium of Wearable Computers), DIS (Designing Interactive Systems), C&C (Creativity and Cognition), and EVA (Electronic Visualization and the Arts).
Audrey Briot (FR) is a textile designer, technologist, and researcher. She is cofounder of DataPaulette, a collective and hackerspace dedicated to research in textiles technologies and soft materials. Her work is dedicated to the impact of emerging technologies on the preservation of savoir-faire, especially in textiles. She is focusing on non-verbal communication transmitted by textiles which represent for her an entire culture and even a substitute of writing. In order to do so, she relies on anthropological research going back to the Paleolithic. Following this direction she connects machines and computers to make textiles which are memory vectors with added data and interactivity. Her work has been exhibited at Ars Electronica, BOZAR and ISEA and published at ISWC and DIS. In 2020, for her collective and personal work, she received two Nominations at STARTS Prize.
