Observation Instruments introduces two interfaces which enable the viewer to interact with time-lapsed projections of a webcam image from Kimmirut, Nunavut. The images are pulled from an archive, collected by the artists, over a period of two years and consisting of approximately 65,000 images as of May 2012.

About Constructed Land
Constructed Land is an exhibition and multi-format (multi-channel video, interactive projections, sound) project which proposes various experiences of reading this amazing database. The Kimmirut scene remains a constant throughout, but it is transformed, re-imagined, and presented under a different light by each process. The artists have assembled and recombined this vast array of images as new visual compositions representing different facets of this fascinating town on the edges of our imagination.

The work investigates the role of the webcam as an unbiased and unrelenting image collector, unimpeded by aesthetic judgment, as well as the use of natural data to define structure in time-based media. Through the multiplicity of a single image, the viewer is given a narrow perspective on this remote landscape, while at the same time exposed to a variety of ways of seeing. Evoking notions of solitude and encroachment, the fragility of “settlement” and the powerful forces of nature, the work exposes us to a region of the country few of us have ever experienced.