WHAT IS IT?

Collaborative #Sunrise is a computational art installation that draws on themes of nature, color, time and social connectedness, built a machine learning model that turned Instagram sunrise photos into a real-time algorithmically-generated sunrise. This digital sunrise is projected on facades of building and experienced publicly without bright day light.

Collaborative #Sunrise consists of two components, a real-time algorithmically-generated sunrise and the Collaborative #Sunrise Map. The first component downloads Instagram photos with the hashtag “#sunrise” in real time and uses a machine learning algorithm to filter out unrelated content. Another computer algorithm extracts colors from the photos and channels them into a synthetic animation of what the current sunrise looks like. The second component uses a mechanism that pins the Instagram photos used to create the synthetic sunrise onto a world map, based on associated geo-location information. The installation itself consists of a 90' by 40' projection of the sunrise on a clear plain colored facade and the map displayed on an interactive monitor nearby.

Using the abundance and instantaneity of these pictures made possible by technology and the cultural infrastructure of social media, I aim to translate this precious real life moment into a experience of perpetual digital content.