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240912: OK and Lentos Museum - When machines dream
OK Offenes Kulturhaus
Lentos Museum
When machines dream
By Ursula Hentschläger
Machines that reflect their memory, randomly mix and rearrange their data - ultimately offering results without meaning and purpose. This is the brave, new world; a world that assumes an independent existence, seemingly able to trigger emotions without any personal effort whatsoever. This is what users experience when looking at the majestically arranged three-part work in progress “Desire of Codes” by Seiko Mikami in the large cellar rooms of the Lentos Museum.
Floating camera brackets – giraffe-like - stretch their sensors, capture individual faces, bodies, postures, store them and project them onto the wall. What, that’s me? But in which context? Data overlaps and suddenly the individual becomes a component of an opaque and at the same time obvious puzzle. Similar to world affairs, in which art becomes a critical comment about the present-day, explaining nothing but making everything perceptible. The flood of information glorifies the ineffable with so many statements - and in the end – it is left unspoken. Like Seiko Mikami’s work. moments overlap and in the next moment they fall into oblivion. When everyone has gone and the machine is left alone, it comes alive and reshuffles the cards.
Fifty people are in an exhibition room, all motionless; only if the sensors assume a general and lively absence, does the machine have its fling. The machines acquire adulthood and display individuality. Suddenly, long forgotten terms dating back to the 1980’s force themselves upon us and the phenomenon of autopoiesis turns into an unexpected poetic act.
Seiko Mikami, one of the most focused and at the same time renowned international media artists has become the first “featured artist” at the Ars Electronica 2012. Following how many years of male dominance? What a blessing to see her sensual view of technology - that is much more critical than that of her colleagues.
There are two more works that will be remembered - and they, too, are characterized by silence. Both are shown in the OK, Offenes Kulturhaus, among the curated selection of the submissions to the Prix Ars Electronica “Cyberarts”. At first one finds a darkened room on the ground floor, separated through a transparent wall from the adjacent room. Beyond a certain point, sounds become audible and after a while one feels compelled to touch the wall, which suddenly no longer exists. Illuminated stage smoke creates the illusion of a wall. The sound resembles that of glass breakage. At first, only your hand dares to breach the wall, hesitantly followed by your leg and finally the entire body. In the middle of the wall – caught between the rooms in the smoke – the sound becomes the space and the self a being between the worlds. All of this has a magical charm leaving most visitors with a big smile on their face. The work „BETWEEN | YOU | AND | ME (2012) by Ake Eckardt (Germany) won the recognition prize for Digital Music & Sound Art.
In the intermediate space of the OK, Julius von Bismarck’s work can be seen. It received the Collide@CERN Artists Residency Award, which was awarded for the first time. “Versuch unter Kriesen” (2012) shows swinging lamps, which then align to follow each other, and in the end draw their own circles again. From a distance they seem almost fragile, but standing beneath them they appear as massive and rather threatening objects. While the lamps never touch each other, the pools of light created by their movement overlap. This reminds painfully of different types of surveillance formats and what was at first poetically associated with scientific insights, suddenly – seen from a close distance - becomes oppressive.
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The Ars Electronica Festival is already over but the works mentioned in this article are still on display.
OK – Offenes Kulturhaus :: Cyberarts 2012 :: until 6.10.2012
Lentos Kunstmuseum :: Seiko Mikami :: until 30.9.2012
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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240912
OK Linz
4020 Linz, OK Platz 1
Tel: + 43 732 7720-, 52502
Email: info@ooelkg.at
http://www.ooekultur.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di, So, Fei 10-18 h
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz
4020 Linz, Ernst-Koref-Promendade 1
Tel: +43 70 7070 36 00
Email: info@lentos.at
http://www.lentos.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich außer Mo 10-18 Uhr, Do 10-21 Uhr
OK Linz
4020 Linz, OK Platz 1
Tel: + 43 732 7720-, 52502
Email: info@ooelkg.at
http://www.ooekultur.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di, So, Fei 10-18 h
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz
4020 Linz, Ernst-Koref-Promendade 1
Tel: +43 70 7070 36 00
Email: info@lentos.at
http://www.lentos.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich außer Mo 10-18 Uhr, Do 10-21 Uhr
