It has been almost five years since I removed the Earthquake Simulator from the former Earth Exchange Museum.
Back then I decided that I would approach the recommissioning of this unique machine as an exercise not
only in endurance, but the development of a skill base that could be applied in the future to a series
of works in both an arts related context and maybe some realworld use. I do not see my work with the
earthquake simulator as some ground breaking re-invention that could change or save lives, merely a
system of tools representing and mappingour current state of shifting tectonics and digital information networks.
The control for the earthquake simulator has been developed under Linux and the release for this installation is Seismonitor v0.9.
Why version 0.9? It merely signifies a starting point, a reference to a beginning and certainly not an end. Much more is to be done,
the future is near and how far away is a stable v2.0? First there are the DVA tests, the exploration of a
QDDS data feed, the turntable and more collaborative science. Science has had
to continually redefine its conception of the world. So has art?
Importantly there are several people who have been the greatest supporters of this work. To Richard Gracie, thank you for your
continual support from the beginning with technical and conceptual concerns, your hard labour and your enthusiasm and ideas are
always gratefully received. To Des Devlin for pushing me in the direction of Linux, your encouragement, your Linux support, your
hacking of smio.c and your skills with Perl, thank you! Richard and Des some day, somehow I hope you will be rewarded.
Ben Blakebrough and Miles Van Dorsen thanks for the attitude, the bits and pieces, the time and for being who you are. Thanks also
to Dr Warren Jasper for developing the driver for DIO48H, Curt Wuollet for the correspondence, smio.c and pointers and to the
Open Source Community in general. Andrew Michael of the USGS, thank you for the score and recordings of his Earthquake
Quartet #1 and the musicians who performed for the opening. Thank you John Conomos for the essay. Thanks Garry Manson for
the loan of the compressor. Thanks Denis Beaubois for cameras, listening and sub-patronage and to the late HGStenbo for the CAD
work. Tjeerd Van Dyk, thank you for the transport, and Rentcorp for the forklift. Denis Ritchie, thank you for developing the C
language in the first place.
Thank you to the Australia Council for the Arts, New Media Fund for keeping me out of a real job for the past twelve months.
Thanks to Amanda McDonald Crowley from her ANAT days and to Nicholas Tsoutas for approaching me twelve months ago and
seeking my interest in showing at Artspace - it would not be happening otherwise!
Lastly and most importantly thanks to Victoria - my love, my partner and mother of our two children, my greatest supporter!
D.V. Rogers |