Naho Matsuda for FutureEverything at Hulme Community Garden Centre

Naho Matsuda for FutureEverything at Hulme Community Garden Centre, Manchester, 22 June–8 July 2017, free entry

Naho Matsuda turns data into poetry for FutureEverything’s digital art installation every thing, every time, which will appear across several public locations near and on Manchester’s Oxford Road Corridor – Central Library and Hulme Community Garden Centre included.

Using Internet of Things technology, every thing, every time will draw from existing open datasets, as well as new data deployed by Manchester’s CityVerve, the UK’s demonstrator for smart cities, translating them into poetic phrases and constantly evolving, reacting to real-time information. Here’s a bit of an idea…

the sun rises
and it’s colder than yesterday
the streets are empty
today is the last day of the term
the bus is on time and the bar is closed
the car park is almost empty
the traffic light turns green
the cleaning shift starts
someone commits a crime
and bread is being delivered

Naho Matsuda is one of seven artists selected for regular geek fest FutureEverything’s talent development and commissioning scheme FAULT LINES, supported by Arts Council England. She says: “every thing, every time is a piece of real-time digital writing, which is drawing from the many ‘things’ and ‘events’ and changes of ‘status’ that are constantly happening in Manchester. In every thing, every time, I have turned these data streams into narratives formatted as poems, that are stripped from their location information and any data-transmitting purpose. Smart information becomes impractical poetry.”

There will be the opportunity to gain more of an insight into the unusual methods Naho undertook to create the never-ending and ever-changing poem at a workshop on Saturday 8 July in conjunction with the folk from regular live lit night Bad Language and led by experimental and Oulipian poet Tom Jenks of The Other Room reading series. Participants will produce poetry utilising similar techniques to Naho, while creating unique pieces of literature. Please note that the workshop is free, but sign-up is essential here. The workshop will start promptly at 2pm, at Hulme Community Garden Centre.