text stream

Every Word I Saved is a software piece that continuously displays every word that the artist saved in various computers, from 2000 to 2006. The words were harvested from sent emails, text documents and instant messaging logs, which were put in a database and then arranged in alphabetical order. Each word preserves only its original capitalization; other than this, their original context is erased by the alphabetical organization. Source: artist's description on project website

Listening Post is an art installation by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin that culls text fragments in real time from thousands of unrestricted Internet chat rooms, bulletin boards and other public forums. The texts are read (or sung) by a voice synthesizer, and simultaneously displayed across a suspended grid of more than two hundred small electronic screens.

Listening Post cycles through a series of six movements, each a different arrangement of visual, aural, and musical elements, each with it’s own data processing logic.

Dissociating the communication from its conventional on-screen presence, Listening Post is a visual and sonic response to the content, magnitude, and immediacy of virtual communication.

Listening Post can be seen at The London Science Musuem and The San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, Calif.
(author-contributed entry, Ben Rubin post at EAR Studio)