James Coupe

James Coupe is a digital artist whose work focuses on emergent systems, surveillance cinema and aesthetic machines. His projects have been commissioned by New Contemporaries, Metapod, Low-Fi, SCAN, Lancaster City Council, Enter_, and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Several of his installations have been created in collaboration with A.I. scientist Rob Saunders, including 9PIN++ and The Difference Engine. His work has received all levels of national and international awards including an Arts and Humanities Research Board Innovation Award, Creative Capital and Artist’s Trust. Coupe is also a Professor at the University of Washington's Center for Digital Art and Experimental Media (DXARTS).

www.jamescoupe.com

For three months in the summer of 2009 US-based artist James Coupe returned to the UK to develop the first phase of Surveillance Suite, a non-linear generative film installation supported by Creative Capital in New York.

Whereas normally films are made by writing a script, and then shooting footage to match the script, in Surveillance Suite this process is reversed. Stories are automatically constructed from whatever video footage is available. The Surveillance Suite films are automatically generated via an array of custom-built computer software. Video footage is analysed using computer vision software that can detect people and profile them according to age, gender, race, facial expression and location. This operates as an autonomous "casting" system that seeks out narrative possibilities from random video footage.

While resident in Ulverston, James spent time building the software required for this project and generating test films from footage shot around the town in collaboration with young film makers. He also worked with a number of local writers, discussing the kind of non-linear narrative structures that would best fit Surveillance Suite.

During the last two weeks of James’ residency, we were delighted to present video works in progress at Lanternhouse, generated from footage captured in Ulverston and short stories written by Kate Pullinger, Robin Vaughan-Williams and Lilian Ryan. The resulting films reorganised Ulverston and its inhabitants, re-imagining peoples’ everyday lives as interlocking narratives.

Part One: Ulverston from James Coupe on Vimeo.

Once completed, Surveillance Suite will be exhibited at a number of museums, galleries and public spaces throughout America and the UK. The intention is to eventually use robotic cameras and automate the entire story-making process. As people enter the museum, gallery or public site where the work is exhibited, the cameras will profile them, cast them into narratives, and then display the resulting films on a series of monitors or displays. The entire project will work in real-time, permitting the installation to appropriate exhibition visitors as characters in plots that may have nothing to do with who they really are.

During his time in the UK James was also able to give a talk on his work, and the progress made during his residency, at the inaugural Abandon Normal Devices (AND) Festival in Liverpool 2009. As a result of his residency, folly were also delighted to be able to invite James to develop new online work for Abandon Normal Devices, launched during the festival's second iteration, Spring 2010 in Cumbria, Lancashire online. Today, too, I experienced something I hope to understand in a few days, is a site-specific  artwork that auto-generates films based upon narrative data collected from Facebook profiles. Using a combination of status updates, YouTube uploads and video portraits, the work looks at people in Barrow-in-Furness from a range of different perspectives, each one a form of surveillance.

Images: Top from Surveillance Suite (2009) by James Coupe