The Prediction Machine
The Prediction Machine is a new interactive artwork by artist Rachel Jacobs, and marks ‘moments of climate change’ in our everyday lives, tracked and recorded by a machine that prints out predictions based on ‘end of the pier’ fortune telling machines.
The machine combines local environmental data captured live in the area, aggregated global climate and storm data with predictions made by local residents. This data will be tracked and recorded by an online system connected to the machine, the machine then prints out predictions based on this data for the near future or for 50 years in the future.
The machine prints out a ‘climate fortune’ that visitors to the machine can take away with them. The machine tracks the local temperature, rainfall and wind speed, captured live from a weather station at the University of Nottingham. This is then combined with projected temperatures for the year 2045 to create the predictions.
This prediction will tell the visitor whether a ‘climate change moment’ is likely to occur in the near future or give them a prediction for 50 years in the future and propose an action to do in response based on suggestions by the local community, in collaboration with the scientists.
The Prediction Machine has been made in dialogue with local people, engineers, computer scientists and climate scientists. The predictions have been written by people who live in the East Midlandsand took part in public workshops with the artist.
Created by Rachel Jacobs, in collaboration with Matt Little, Ian Jones (Sherwood Wood), Matthew Gates, Robin Shackford, Juliet Robson, Dr Candice Howarth and Dr Carlo Buontempo, Lucy Veale, UpeshMistry, Thomas Steffen, Chris Sweetman, Stephen Flood and John Barton, and the Craft Group and Writers Group at Loughborough Library. The Prediction Machine artwork has been developed alongside the ‘Performing Data’ research project at the Mixed Reality Lab and Horizon Digital Economy Research, University of Nottingham.With financial support from the Arts Council of England, University of Nottingham, EPSRC, RCUK and Radar LU Arts.
The original concept for this artwork was developed by the artist during a residency on a farm in the Mata Atlantica (Atlantic Forest), Brazil.
Rachel Jacobs is an artist, consultant, researcher and co-founder of the award winning artist-led company Active Ingredient.The Prediction Machine has emerged from Active Ingredient’s previous project ‘Timestreams’.
Rachel is currently an Associate Researcher/Artist in Residence at the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham, and has a Doctorate in Computer Science. Her area of research focuses on how artists merge art, environmental science and technology through cross disciplinary collaboration and to ‘perform’ scientific data.
For more information about the artist click here.