TRESS CANLEY


EXPERIENTIAL


This collection features a blend of projects that merge experiential installations and conceptual art. Each piece delves into space, perception, and meaning, offering immersive experiences for exploration.
MIT Illuminations

 An interactive lighting installation powered by open source creative code. Early concepting and creative development with SOSO Limited. Boston, MA.



Gravity 

 “Gravity" is a kinetic sculpture embodying the dynamic interplay of movement and electromagnetic forces amidst human interactions. Stalks swayrotate and bend towards observers as they traverse the labyrinth of its magnetic field. This interaction evolves with each new observer, as the turbulence within the field redistributes energy, causing the stalks to gravitate towards all those within their sphere of influence.  


Europa
Europa, one of Jupiter’s Galilean moons, is an intriguing celestial body in our solar system. Beneath its icy crust lies a vast subsurface ocean, making it one of the most promising candidates for hosting extraterrestrial life within our own solar system. 

“Europa,” a tactile and video installation showcasing hypothetical life forms as soft, flexible coral-like structures inspired by the mysteries of space and the depths of the ocean.

 As you interact with each of the structures, the video representations respond to human touch, moving and twisting.

Reconnected: A Collective Poem
 Public Art Installation; Austin, TX, 2022
In collaboration with Lauren Malkani & Nick Harbaugh of Seven Mile Media
THE INSTALLATION is comprised of a 48-screen display using crowd-sourced data and algorithms to create collective poems around programmed themes. These themes include family, work, community, loneliness, fear, unexpected joy, and categories organized by keywords.

Each poem uses intimate public messages about the pandemic from online forums like Twitter, Reddit, and NBC New’s Coronavirus Confessions database. We used a series of natural language processing (NLP) algorithms and sentiment analysis to stitch the phrases together, creating new common narratives; or a digital haiku.

THE 100,000-LED INSTALLATION was built from 48 daisy-chained IP65 outdoor-rated matrix panel displays, combined to form 24 individual display panels. The array is controlled by a Raspberry Pi 4 and suspended from a rail and cable mounting system.
 The installation is accessible and viewable from the library courtyard at all times of day, regardless of weather and light. This location contrasts beautifully with the natural garden and park area that is across the walkway, creating an arresting visual display that brings to light the intimate emotions and paradigm shifts we are all experiencing, despite our everyday natural surroundings.

This project is an exhibition in the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places (AIPP) program TEMPO. TEMPO is a temporary public art program that fosters work by local artists and cultivates exploration of the City of Austin. Nature of U.s.

 “Nature of U.s." explores the intersection of art, nature, and technology. Through this physical data visualization installation, viewers are immersed in an experience that weaves the growth of plants with the ebb and flow of political domains.

This curated garden has a watering system tapped into data sources capturing the impact of accessibility, democracy, and equity on various communities across the U.S.

Observers witness fluctuations in plant growth and vitality, serving as a mirror to the effects of societal pressures and oppression, or the lack. As negativity permeates discourse, the plants receive fewer nutrients, while positivity fosters vibrant growth.

This symbiotic relationship between nature and data reflects on societal well-being, serving as a visual metaphor for our interconnectedness with the natural world.


The Void Conceptual installation of data visualization
Probable Women: Black Southern Matrilineality and the Genealogical Archive
 Ink on Canvas, Wood; New York, USA, 2019



Probable Women: Black Southern Matrilineality and the Genealogical Archive examines the impact of patrilineal genealogical archives and archival tools of practice on black maternal histories in the deep south. It exposes blind spots in the archive and explores a remedy to the fallacies of the historical focus on maleness and its inherent suppression of female lineages. The method of evaluating a circumvention of the archive is through the transformational potential of machine learning. By examining the first forty years of the United States Federal Census data from the postbellum state of Georgia, an algorithmic clustering model isolates attributes of the archive that pertain to black female histories. 
 This concept is encapsulated as a collection of written portraits and data visualizations organized by a multi-dimensional classification scheme facilitated by the machine. This thesis asserts that this ontology establishes an intersection between the Census and the individuals situated within it that reconstructs matrilineal discontinuities and brings prominence to an underrepresented class.

ACADEMIC RESEARCH PAPER AVAILABLE HERE.

←