Artists from around the world streamed sensor data with the intent of activating robotic devices in various social spaces. The data streaming project was developed during Scrambled_Bites – a year long artist residency at the Western Front.

Art’s Birthday is an annual event first proposed in 1963 by French artist Robert Filliou. He suggested that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no art. But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born. According to Filliou, it happened when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Modest beginnings, but look at us now.

Filliou proposed a public holiday to celebrate the presence of art in our lives. In recent years, the idea has been taken up by a network of artists and friends around the world. Each year the Eternal Network evolves to include new partners who work with ideas of exchange and telecommunications-art.

Artists have celebrated Art’s Birthday with lavish parties and gatherings, correspondence and mail art, and through Telematic networks using Slow Scan TV, Videophones, music composed for telephone lines, modem-to-modem MIDI connections, early bulletin board and chat systems, and Internet streaming.

Check out www.artsbirthday.net