Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist, visual artist and designer. His first novel in 1991 was Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. He has published thirteen novels, a collection of short stories, seven nonfiction books, and a number of dramatic works and screenplays for film and television. Coupland’s novels and visual work synthesize high and low culture, web technology, religion, and changes in human existence caused by modern technologies.
Electric Ikebana is an audio-visual collaboration by writer/artist Douglas Coupland and musician Paul Humphreys from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark with the Global telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent.
The concept was to compose a musical track that interacts with telecommunications data of internet traffic and online activity, expressed in a visual manifestation.
Raw numerical data is visually translated into particles and their shape, colour, and quantity are determined by internet traffic volume and type.
It‘s the audio that initiates the coming together of the particles as they’re being driven by the music to build a digital form.
Each viewing is unique. This is due to the experience pulling in user‘s location and time of day while they control the point-of-view, fluidly moving around the environment.
The result is a creation that gives a voice and form to the online network, inspiring new possibilities of digital expression and electronic imaginings.
