Adventures at the Frequency Festival - Part 2

Adventures at the Frequency festival Part 2

Hello everyone
Heres a few more exhibits I saw at the Frequency Festival. This is an event which happens at two year intervals so it will be a little while until the next one, But I'm already looking forward to it.
If you missed it here's the link to Part one: http://buzybobbins.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/adventures-at-frequency-festival-in.html

Squid soup 
Displayed inside the waterside centre

This installation was at the back of a large dark room, at first it looked like a strange lit area in the distance and I walked up to it with some puzzlement. 

However on closer inspection it's is an area filled with large strings of lights all dangling from a frame. As people walked through them they sensed the movement and lit up accordingly. While nobody was inside the lights would gently pulsate out from the middle or from an edge which gave the impression of ripples floating on a ponds surface. 
The fun started when somebody walked through. an excitable child trying to activate as many lights at once caused a bright twinkling trail behind them as they rushed through the strands. While a more sedate man who stopped in the middle to take a photograph has the lights die down around him as he stopped walking and stood still.

I'm afraid that pictures don't do this piece justice as is the case with many great instillation art works. The true experience is to see it for yourself and to watch your own movements influence the patterns in the lights.
However this seems to be the joy of the Frequency Festival to experience as well as just look at art pieces. 

The exhibit shown in the light, as you can see the slights are equally spaced along each wire and suspended from a metal structure.

Blind data by Co_lab

Shown in the Waterside Center

This is an exhibit designed to make you think and in particular think about how your data is collected and used online.
It seems like a very simple premise, you are given a sheet of information about a person with all of the personal data stripped out. You are left with information such as email keywords, search terms and items ordered online. Then are asked to take the role of a government agent who is trying to work out from this small collection of information who to put on a terrorism watch list and who is innocent. 

You get to pick between three official looking folders. There is a child friendly version of each one too so younger people can join in without the more adult data being shown.

However once you are handed the sheets you find the choices far more difficult than first thought. 
Heres one of the sheets I got to look at:

Take a look at this one, do you think this person is a Terrorist? If you don't think so what do you think this person is? Why do you think they are making those internet searches and ordering those products?
You may realize after asking these questions that this information is actually very little and hard to make a judgement upon.


This is an interesting piece, while some may argue its status as art, you must remember that the purpose of art is to make you think and the Frequency Festival often has pieces which are very interactive. So in fact this piece fits perfectly within the festival. It was nice to see something which relies on your participation to get the message.

That's all for this festival. There were loads more are pieces I could write about but them I would be writing until Christmas and I would like to get some more Christmas themed cross stitch designs up before the big day.

Bye for now, Happy crafting and big hugs to you all.

Useful links:
The Frequency festival official web page: http://frequency.org.uk/
The Frequency Festival Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/frequencyfestival?fref=ts

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