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Flow 2009-2023
Note: This work was finally decommissioned from the site at 1 Kingsway in 2023 due to failure of both of the 20,000 lument projectors.
As the public artwork outlasted it's 10 year tenure, replacing the projectors was an expense that the public art program understandibly could not undertake.
The live feed is being re-coded now so that it can run as an online work: the work itself still runs flawlessly, but additional coding is required to run
the work live online. It will be up and running in 2026 at FlowOnline
In this online version, the work will unfold live in it's full expression including independently transitioning layers of the scene(s) and live mixing of images.
The image above is documentation of Flow at the site of Flow at 1 Kingsway, Vancouver. In addition to the work
projected into panels of switch glass at the site, the work could also be viewed as stills (grabbed every two minutes) on the project Website.
You can see some screen grabs of the work as it evolved online here.
The continuously changing online tableau in which hundreds of photographic portraits and altered landscapes,
shot by Fiona Bowie are blended as scenes. Each element of the scene emerges and fades independently as layers: thus faces or objects
appear and fade away against their backgrounds independently. These transitions are very slow: some images fade out for up to 20 seconds
against their backgrounds. The overall scenes and their backgrounds, change every two to four minutes.
Through the use of switch glass going from opaque to clear, creating portals from inside to outside within the image area, or by the way Fiona detailed the behaviour
of the scene's components within the scene to very slowly fade in and out independently, portions of any scene are constantly disappearing or appearing in fragments
before the viewer in Flow.
"...as a departure from my immersive work (having to embrace right angles and windows), I dealt with the containment and rectilinearity of this framed image space
by creating an ever-evolving mise-en-scene, where each layer or component of a particular scene fades independently of its scene companions (whether a subject or a
background).
This resulted in making the image inherently unstable and tenuous, unlike coherent tableaus of conventional painting, photography, and scene changes typical of cinema.
As soon as any scene became coherent, the process of each portion of the image fading in and out independently would begin again, with individuals sometimes disappearing
over their backgrounds in a seemingly random manner. This meant, too, that the work, lacking the temporality of cinema, placed it somewhere between photography and cinema."
Another aspect of this image behaviour, through the proprietary software designed by Bowie, lead computer scientist Sidney Fels and computer
scientist Morgan Hibbert, no image is ever exactly replicated.
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Over the course of the day and night, Flow shifts between live tableaus in which hundreds of photographic portraits and altered landscapes,
shot by Fiona Bowie, are blended and projected into an everchanging dynamic mis-en-scene.
The transitions from one scene to another are so slow that a face is sometimes barely discernable over a background - prompting several people to characterize
this aspect of work as having a dream like or hallucinatory quality.
A system custom-designed by Bowie and Sidney Fels allows figures shot at different times to appear as if they simultaneously present, with a core group of these
individuals (both animal and human) recurring in a manner that implicitly suggests they're part of a larger narrative. Images that are linked (or 'friended' to eachother),
so that they appear with varying frequency: some are coded as best friends, aquaintances, strangers, affecting the frequency with which they appear with eachother over the course
of hours, days, weeks or months. These dynamic super-impositions also embrace unlikely combinations, such as disparate F-stops and purposefully contrary lighting schemes.
Due to the multitude of images and coding variations, no image is exactly repeated.
When viewers inside came in close proximity to the image, those portions of the image would disappear, as the switch glass changed from screen surface to clear glass, opening
portals into the room from the street.
The host of characters have been arranged into social groups: a core of main characters appear more often than most and more often with other main characters.
Because of varying likely hood of appearance, some will become more familiar than others over the months and years to regular visitors to the work The core group have
more focused (willful) countenances than the general population: they were shot as if engaged in dialogue/interaction. The general population are often far more candid in nature.
Flow runs every moment of everyday of the year, allowing viewers in any time zone to see the work unfold according to the dayly flow of the Northwest Pacific Time Zone,
where the work was created. Visitors to this site are encouraged to engage with the work by clicking on the "Put words in our mouths" link to play with dialogue and attribute
phrases to characters pictured within the work. Over the course of the day, the work refreshes every two minutes, so if there is an image that captures the viewers imagination,
they may capture it and choose from a number of phrases penned by Fiona Bowie and excerpts of lyrics by The Residents, The New Pornographers, Spores, SLickerslacker and Chopper.
This collection of phrases is dynamic and will be added to over time.
Once an image is chosen by the viewer, they can then attribute dialogue to the characters* captured within the mis-en-scene. This dialogue will be available to them in the form
of pull down menus. After choosing the phrase(s), it will be saved and be permanently attached to the uploaded image in the Flow archive.
Flow 24/7 online screen grab
all rights reserved/copyright fiona bowie 2023
all images copyright Fiona Bowie 2005- 2026 with the exception of pre 1920 archive images (use granted by the City of Vancouver Archive, copyright City of
Vancouver Archives) and may not be used or duplicated without the expressed permission of the artist.
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