One of my favorite ways to doodle away time on the internet is to participate in research based crowdsourceing activities. In particular, I've donated many hours of my free time (which, at the moment, I have in abundance...knock on wood) to various Zooniverse projects: I've identified, counted, and measured craters and other surface features on the moon and Mars, sought out and labeled cosmic bubbles, monitored the sun's surface for ejections of plasma, scanned the skies for distant galaxies and supernovae, and squinted out over the grassy plains of the Serengeti looking for wildlife. In addition to the coolness of getting to flip through images from all over the cosmos, the "busy work" that I and my online "colleagues" complete, often leads to the publication of real scientific papers, and it feels great to think that I've made some small contribution to humanity's search for knowledge.
As many of you know, when I was a kid (long before I ever made a noise on a trumpet), I told anyone who asked that I wanted to grow up to be "and artist and a scientist," so when I came across a blog post about modern gallery installation involving crowdsourcing, my curiosity was piqued.
On the surface, Tobias Klein's Virtual Sunset seems a little odd. Gallery visitors are invited to stroll through a hanging cascade of translucent PVC pipes through which light from hundreds of sunset photos create a play of color meant to convey the experience of one gigantic shared sunset. I'm not sure I entirely understand how the physical installation works, but I've found the online portion of the piece--through which all those global sunset pictures are procured--to be a lot of fun.
Each time a visitor uploads a sunset photo to the project's website, in return they are emailed a composite sunset "mirage" made up of their photo in the center, the nearest sunset at the time of upload on the right, and a "live" sunset image on the left that changes each time you refresh your submission. Examples of my own email "postcards" are shown below...yes, that's right...I got obsessed enough that I uploaded 14 sunsets over the course of the day...I AM getting productive things done in my life...really, I PROMISE!
If you've been around since I started my blog you may recognize some of the central images...
Taken on my first trip to the shore of Lake Eerie soon after I moved here...and someplace on the left that I couldn't begin to pronounce...
An evening drive through the Turtle Mountains to Dunseith...with African foliage...
Spray from Niagara...or is that blowing sand...floating through the air above Rio...
A surprisingly exotic view from my apartment in Holladay...
Niagara...with buffalo...
Sure can see a long way from my attic window...
Castle mountain in Graz...
Calm waters in Ithaca...and the Indian Ocean...
This one's kind of a mess...
A SLAS star party...
International Peace Towers...raised over more than one border...
Northwestern reflections...
Bryce Canyon...and a rising Southern star scape...
More hills and tall buildings than I ever expected to see in North Dakota...
It's fun to think that others who submit might get my sunsets merged with theirs, and that for the first time in my life, I'll have my photography displayed in a major gallery...sort of:) It's also interesting to watch my postcards change as sunset moves around the world, and I encourage you to submit sunset photos if you have them.
One thing to keep in mind (that is probably obvious to you, but took me--a tech idiot--a few tries to figure out) is that when you enter the image location into the google maps form on the project website, you can move the little red pin around to the exact spot you were when you took the photo. For example, I took the last photo in the string above at Kelly's Slough National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota. Well, Kelly's Slough doesn't come up in the location list, but knowing that it's a few miles west of Grand Forks on Highway 2, I just typed in "Grand Forks," and then moved the pin down the highway until I reached the right spot...which I then learned falls within the Blooming township. I guess I'm a little obsessive. Most people probably don't take the trouble.
That sure was a pleasure! It took me back to our trip last year.
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