Artists Daniel Sauter and Mark Hereld work together to create a digital artwork based on the ideas produced from the 2008 Chicago Humanities Festival. The contents of the day’s presentations, performances and panel discussions will be captured, analyzed and processed into a dynamic visualization that evolves from minute to minute to express “big ideas.” This innovative, real-time art installation will explore how complex systems and patterns arise out of simple interactions.

The Emergence Project is an art installation that will explore how complex patterns arise out of a multiplicity of simple interactions, a phenomenon known as “emergence”. Focusing on the actual discourse emanating from the Chicago Humanities Festival’s October 11 day of programs hosted in several venues in the Hyde Park area, the contents of the presentations, performances, and panel discussions are captured, analyzed, and processed into a multidimensional image that evolves from minute to minute. The piece will use simple morphological rules to excavate emerging word clusters and expressed “big ideas,” representing them on the Hyde Park Art Center’s digital façade.

Mark Hereld is a Senior Fellow in the Computation Institute at The University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory with research interests in computer science, computational neuroscience, scientific visualization, and astrophysics. He is also a multimedia artist whose works include digital projects on the Art Center’s façade such as Random Sky (2006) with Inigo Manglano Ovallep; he was the lead consultant on determining the software and technology for the Jackman Goldwasser Catwalk Gallery. Daniel Sauter is an artist who creates interactive installations and site-specific interventions dealing with the cultural and social implications of emergent technologies. His current projects focus on mobile interventions exploring the phenomenon of projection in urban spaces. Currently Sauter is an Assistant Professor at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

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