Decoding the Islands, 2012-2013
By Alexander Reben

Reben’s work takes real-time water turbidity information from buoy 44013 in Boston Harbor. In this case, turbidity is determined by plankton count and it is matched with water temperature to see how quickly the marine environment will encourage life.

The data “seeds” the community you see on the screen. The community can grow if the conditions are right. Colors change from green to blue to red. When the new community reaches equilibrium, the program calculates a score to determine successful growth. Then the sequence resets and starts again.

For more information about the artist, visit http://areben.com/.