Antony Hall [ home ]
Coffee Cup Oscillator
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"Caffeine consumption can induce 'restlessness, nervousness, excitement, insomnia, flushed face, diuresis, gastrointestinal disturbance, muscle twitching rambling flow of thought and speech, tachychardia or cardiac arrhythmia, periods of inexhaustibility, and psychomotor agitation" *

*James Gleick, Faster: The acceleration of practically everything, Abacus Books,

A coffee pot in the Computer Science Department of Cambridge University, holds a unique position in Internet history as it was the subject of the first ever Webcam in 1993. 'Coffee Cup Oscillator' required, indeed demanded ritualistic attention to maintain the illusion that this coffee cup should exist continually almost full, despite my attempts to make this autonomous. while the cup its self was displayed within the gallery, the detail of the surface was filmed and relayed live to the projection window as well as the web cam. For the commission software was developed which enabled online viewers to make interactions by defining vibrations which created patterns on the mirror like blackness of the coffee surface.





Work commission by Site Gallery, Sheffield.





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