Ampd Labs (Ampd) is a collaborative venture that unites visual art and information science. We’re creating dynamic, generative art objects beyond the screen that respond to live data.
Ampd brings together experts from a multitude of disciplines - artists, designers, craftspeople, engineers, scientists, tinkerers, labs, data groups, governments - to create these projects. Ampd plays in diverse media, on the screen and off. Ampd, as the name implies, represents the ultimate desire to make people feel energized and ignited about collaboratively engineering dynamic art.
Ampd’s first piece is SunDial, an abstract weather display. A very talented San Francisco glass artist has been brought in to fabricate the outer panel in painted glass. Inside, a microcontroller connects via WiFi to a local network, from which it receives forecast meteorological data. The information is rendered in varying intensities and patterns of light. Ampd will create bespoke versions of the SunDial in whichever shapes, materials and color schemes can be dreamed up.
The second concept derives from Ampd’s interest in kinetic light. The private installation below depicts real-time vehicle traffic in a major U.S. city. The surface layer is a map of the city in wood, acrylic, steel and glass. It’s the work of a local artist we’re collaborating with. Underneath, the technology layer retrieves live traffic data from an open-source hub and renders it in emitted light. From this remove, a human/ mechanical network most often understood as a chaotic system assumes an unexpectedly soothing fluidity.
Here’s a 3D world map, styled after the iconic work of Piet Mondrian. Each of the world’s countries is represented by a solid “prism." The prisms change in two aspects—height and a specified set of colors. Both dimensions can be set to respond to any set of open-source data: energy consumption, GDP, deaths per 1000 births, roller coasters per million, active amateur radio operators, imprisoned artists, or other variables.
Reject dead and static art. Reject dead and static life. Reject loneliness. Reject the untruth of events happening in isolation. Come together, in conflict and in convergence. Start somewhere. Be honest and rebellious. Work with your hands and with your minds. Tear down silos and beat the walls with your fists. Reach for some noumenal upper territory such as the firmament or the first principle whose essence is existence beyond all essential distinctions.
Create tomorrow’s art.
We are looking for collaborators to work on data-driven generative art projects. If you are you an artist, engineer, scientist or designer, we would love for you to join us in creating unique works of art.
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