While movie studios and record labels view torrents as a thorn in their side in their ongoing fight against piracy, Nicholas Maigret, co-creator of The Pirate Cinema thinks a little differently and has actually created an art installation in which he has turned torrents into art. Basically what he has done is together with a piece of software, comb through The Pirate Bay’s Top 100 video files, monitoring each and every one of them from which small and fragmented clips are taken and projected onto a wall as you can see above. According to its description:
In the context of omnipresent telecommunications surveillance, “The Pirate Cinema” makes visible the hidden activity and geography of Peer-to-Peer file sharing. The project is presented as a control room, which instantly reflects Peer-to-Peer exchanges happening in real time on networks, which use BitTorrent protocol. The installation produces an improvised and syncopated arrangement of files currently in exchange. The immediacy of the presentation of digital data, including fragmented information about source files and their destinations, depicts the topology of digital information use and the global reach of data dissemination.
Sounds pretty cool, huh? If you’re interested in checking it out, it is currently on display and will run through the 29th of May in the Montreal Eastern Bloc gallery. Details about the installation can also be found on We Make Money Not Art who interview Maigret about his creation.