| When considering the natural environment, how can we approach the problem of representing the ‘point of view’ of the non-human world, that of wildlife, biodiversity and animal species? Eco Media proposes a new exploration of the ecosystem as a communications network that can allow exchanges of ‘viewpoint’ between the human and animal worlds. There are many implicit forms of media in nature that transmit information, such as tides, reproductive hormones, scent markers, and migration patterns. These different processes can be reinterpreted and used as the potential carriers of encoded contents or ‘messages’. Eco Media looks at integrating this ‘natural media’ with human media so that its contents and signals are accessible to both humans and non-humans, producing a challenging exploration into the social aspects of open spaces. “We want to find a way of communicating between the human and non-human world, to find a way of transmitting messages through the already existing communication systems in nature. People assume that the non-human world is too different from us to communicate with, but really the only difference is that animals don’t have a sense of humour.” Richard Wright Graham Harwood, Richard Wright and Matsuko Yokokoji haved achieved a considerable international reputation through their work under the name of Mongrel, the artist’s group specialising in digital media and pioneering arts projects, including the first online commission for the Tate Gallery and work in the permanent collections of the Pompidou Centre Paris and the Centre for Media Arts in Karlsruhe. The team works with marginalised people on low incomes, cultural minorities and those who are socially excluded to create software and digital arts based community projects that encourage these groups to gain visibility, self reliance, and self confidence. |