Overflow
A real-time data sculpture that visualizes and sonifies traffic moving over an iconic bridge
Overflow Sculpture, 2021
Video documentation by Gregg Perkins
Overflow is a kinetic and generative sound sculpture driven by real-time traffic cameras that monitor the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Footage of traffic flow is interpreted by custom software and transformed into a living soundscape—a stringed instrument that maintains an indexical reference to the suspension bridge. String tension is robotically attenuated as dynamically changing traffic patterns create an indefinite suspension of time and space. Like the Skyway Bridge itself, the evolving sonic arrangement suggests a living connection between people and places.
OK! Transmit is a diverse artist collective and creative community based in St. Petersburg, FL, exploring a range of new media art and technology topics. The group was founded in 2018 by Mikhail and Olivia Mansion with a seed grant from the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance.
OK! Transmit creates a place and space for artists, scientist and researchers to gather and share about their practice and creative ideas for interdisciplinary art-making.
For this collaborative artwork, the group is composed of: sound artist and software engineer James Curran; artist, technologist and entrepreneur Mikhail Mansion; illustrator, entrepreneurship advocate, and higher-ed professional Olivia Mansion; and sound artist, filmmaker and University of Tampa professor Gregg Perkins.
Concept Drawings, Mikhail Mansion
Combining our skills, we designed a site-specific sculpture that incorporated sonic, kinetic and data-visualization elements, and that could seamlessly blend these elements into a cohesive body that conveyed the common relationship we all shared to one of the areas most iconic pieces of architecture, the Skyway Bridge. Thus, the “bridging” of disciplines became a helpful analog (and pun) for the integrated efforts of the collective.