Ars Electronica Archive
Prix
Prix Map
Pictures
Videos
Publications
Special Projects
Women in Media Art
Prix
The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Firebirds
Paul DeMarinis
Original: flamediagram2005.tif | 530 * 441px | 244.7 KB
Original: toungues of fire.jpg | 2048 * 561px | 375.1 KB
Original: singuhr1.jpg | 2048 * 1536px | 2.3 MB
Original: singuhr4.jpg | 2048 * 1536px | 2.2 MB
Original: singuhr7.jpg | 2048 * 1536px | 2.6 MB
Original: singuhr8.jpg | 1536 * 2048px | 2.4 MB
Firebirds examines a power complex of interrelationships between fire and language from a diverse variety of technical, historical and metaphorical viewpoints. Firebirds is an audio installation consisting of four flame loudspeakers that recite the speeches of Benito Mussolini, Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. The four flame loudspeakers of Firebirds are housed within birdcages, for me a reference to the afterlife. The voices of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt are accompanied by the trillings and warblings of birdsong.
The cages of Firebirds are activated according to a precise score that allows for variation of speaker, number of voices speaking at once and location. The audio files are stored in CF-RAM as MP3 files. A number of PIC microcontrollers activate solenoids, solid state relays, audio hardware and high voltage modulating circuits to coordinate the ignition and modulation of the flames.
The cages of Firebirds are activated according to a precise score that allows for variation of speaker, number of voices speaking at once and location. The audio files are stored in CF-RAM as MP3 files. A number of PIC microcontrollers activate solenoids, solid state relays, audio hardware and high voltage modulating circuits to coordinate the ignition and modulation of the flames.
Paul DeMarinis (US) has been working as an electronic media artist since 1971 and has created numerous performance works, sound and computer installations and interactive electronic inventions. He has performed internationally. Much of his work involves speech processed and synthesized by computers. Major installation works include The Edison Effect that uses optics and computers to make new sounds by scanning ancient phonograph records with lasers, Gray Matter that uses the interaction of body and electricity to make music, and The Messenger that examines the myths of electrical communication.