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The image above is documentation of the work at the site. The work was 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. I expect it will be up and running in the summer of 2025 at this location.
all images copyright Fiona Bowie 2005- 2025 with the exception of pre 1920 archive images (use granted by the City of Vancouver Archive, copyright City of Vancouver Archives).
Starting in August of 2025, Flow 24/7 Online will be a continuously changing online tableau in which hundreds of photographic portraits and altered landscapes,
shot by Fiona Bowie are blended as scenes. The scenes change every two to four minutes. Due to the proprietary software created by Bowie, with computer
scientist Morgan Hibbert and lead computer scientist Sidney Fels (Director of the Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC) and The Human
Communication Technologies Laboratory), no image is ever exactly replicated. In this online version, the work will unfold live in it's full expression
including transitions and live mixing of images.
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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, sound and text are the exclusive copyright of the artist and may not be used or duplicated without the expressed permission of the artist.
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