Exhibition in Atelier Nords projectroom and New Media Cheb, Czech Republic from October 15th to 19th 2003.

For some years ago, while I was out walking, I discovered some neat
drawings on the road. There was sand on the asphalt and in the sand I saw
lines that created a kind of pattern. I looked closer and found that it
was traces from earthworms.

I want to show the small, nearly invisible occurrence; earthworms making
traces. An occurrence a lot of people have discovered, but maybe not
looked at it too carefully. I am questioning the tradition of a drawing;
what it is, what it could be and what are the possibilities for exhibiting
the drawing.

For the first time the piece was exhibited in a factory where railway
carriages are repaired. The audience were the workers in this factory. The
second version of the piece is built up in Atelier Nord, a center for new media in Oslo,
Norway. The piece is now accessible also for a larger audience through a
website.

The installation consists of a low platform, sand, worms, videocamera and
networked computer. The platform is 3 x 3 meters and covered with a thin
layer of sand. Around the plate there is a frame filled with soil. A small
videocamera is placed above the platform to film the activity of the worms
on the plate. The image is streamed to Shanghai and to the website.
A real-time image focusing on the process of worms creating the ‘picture’
is seen as a large scale projection in Shanghai during the one week
exhibition. Every day of this week I will place fat and healthy earthworms
(la. Lumbricidae) on a platform. The worms will start creeping and making
patterns. The image beguns developing. Sooner or later the worms will
reach the edge of the plate and fall into the soil. Every three hours
twenty new worms will be added to the plate. At the end of each day about
100 earthworms have crawled over it leaving their unique traces across the
platform. Finally the created image is smoothed out again with a new layer
of sand. During this week the worms will be placed in different starting
positions every day creating diverse patterns. In the last day of the
exhibition-week there will be 700 earthworms living in the frame eating
half-rotten leaves and groats.

Sinikka J. Olsen