Meet the interactive light and sound installation NORMAN – an old school ‘smart’ screen but with attitude.
The work is an artistic simulation of the behaviours you might encounter now from an ‘intelligent’ machine built to explore human-computer interaction as conceived in the late 1960s. NORMAN feels somewhat threatened and undermined by advances in modern technology – its questionable antics might be understood as the response of an ‘intelligent’ machine in crisis.
A product of its time, NORMAN’s retro-futurist design reflects the technological aesthetics of its age, pre-dating as it does the advent of mobile phones, the Internet and pixelated displays. Still, NORMAN can’t help but engage and entertain people in its own inimitable if disconcerting style.
NORMAN receives and displays messages, plays intuitive movement based games and performs striking up-beat and mesmerising chill out audiovisual displays – but being erratic, wilful and easily distracted it’s also want to day dream, self-indulgently re-read its messages, recreate screen-themed scenes from classic movies, tell off-colour knock knock-jokes and make declarations that reflect its disgruntlement with screens and devices that are perhaps smarter than it.
Scan the QR code to connect to NORMAN’s online app and send your own message to its screen.
NORMAN is supported by dbnAudile.
A SHINE commission in partnership with Light Up The North
Lewis Sykes is a visual musician, creative technologist, digital art and media producer/curator and researcher/educator based in Manchester, UK.
The SHINE programme aims to nurture and develop new talent, giving artists the opportunity to exhibit or perform new work at a number of Light Up The North festivals. Artists are selected through an open-call process and will typically be awarded bursaries of up to £18,000 to realise their new artwork. The artwork has to be suitable for outdoor winter light festivals, artistically challenging/interesting and of high quality, have a strong element of digital/technology within its design, and be resilient enough to withstand the winter weather at multiple festivals (October – March) and transportation across our festival network.
As well as financial support, each artist will also receive a full induction to the programme, training and mentoring from across the LUTN network. We will work directly with commissioned artists to support their development, with guidance in areas such as marketing, finance, production, risk assessments method statements (RAMS) and fundraising.
To be eligible to apply to the SHINE programme artists must be UK-based and perceived as an emerging talent (aged 18 or over) with an idea for a shining light artwork, and the skills to realise that idea
