Landschaftstransformation im technologischen Wirkungsprozess

2023

In parallel to creating 61.4223 I wrote my thesis on Landschaftstransformation im technologischen Wirkungsprozess (roundabout Transformation of landscape under influence from effects of technology on society). I propose that technology and the machine as artifact are subject to the systematics of Marx's fetish; efficiency and thus the capacity to create profit out of supposed nothingness are being naturalized into them. Technomass becomes an index of capital accumulation and follows the logic and interest of capital in its distribution and multiplication. Technological actions are guided by causality; in nature that is handled by them, a memory of transformation (Transformationsgedächtnis) is created inside the landscape that makes past and potentially fading possibilities of aesthetic perception (Vergangene Atmosphären) of nature (Seel) tangible and, through the thus dwindling freedom of nature, leads to a negative aesthetic judgment, an opposition to technological treatment of nature. To prevent this, the effect of technology uses a long history of appropriating nature, formulated as a promise of eternal growth and progress, to ensure a participation of the people underlying the labor that is performed. As a site of extreme landscape transformation and an extremely massive technological artifact, the open pit mine is a particularly suitable illustrative object of this entanglement: Once the justification/meaning of the open pit mine ends, it appears to be ugly; and is renaturalized in order to conceal the consequences of the technological treatment of nature from the aesthetic sense.

Download the thesis as a pdf (in German) or read it in HTML.

61.4223

2023

61.4223 offers a possibility of experiencing the moment of contemplative observation of transformed landscape. The sculptures of an open pit are perceived as aesthetic objects in an environment of technical influence and presence; the moment of contemplation of the aesthetic object, originally of instantaneous quality, is disturbed by the presence of linear, technical time. Increasingly, the influence of technological narrative on aesthetic judgment becomes apparent.

Inside a 1m³ cube there are sculptures of the ten active German open pit mines. In them, the hole becomes visible from the inside as nothing-within-something, from the outside as something-out-of-nothing. 41 machines represent the active bucket-wheel excavators. With their arms they perform the movement next to whose traces even the mighty excavator can be overlooked from a distance: swinging; here it appears to be an aesthetic purpose in itself. A light flash from the individual machines indicates the moment in which the real-world counterpart moves a cubic meter of earth. 61.4223 moments per second, in which the volume of the viewed cube is moved; moments of viewing an increasingly disappearing space.

Progress and growth are present even in the non-meaningful space of contemplative observation. Adjacent to the cube, the excavation progress is visible in a track-like devices showing exactly how many cubic meters have been moved since the installation started. The entire cube no longer seems to merely make use of machine aesthetics but, like the open pit mines themselves, to be a technological artifact. Aesthetic perception is no longer possible without technological influence.

Parallel to the artistic work, a theoretical examination of the influence of the relationship to technology on the judgment of aesthetic perception of nature was developed under the title Landschaftstransformation im technologischen Wirkungsprozess. The artistic work uses thoughts and insights of the theory, but exists independently as a primarily aesthetic experiment in the same thematic field. It offers itself as a visual object of one of the forms of the influence on the aesthetic judgment considered in the theoretical work.

Featured in:

• Creative Applications: 61.4223 – Technomass and Nature

Epic Fader Move

2020 – with Felix Fisgus

Epic Fader Move is an executed joke. While Felix and me had a talk with a friend about tendencies in electronic music performances he complained that "it's all about epic fader moves nowadays". This sentence immediately sparked the idea of a machine performing said epic fader moves in Felix' head. As happens with so many ideas we had no idea of how the execution might look like – it got parked and became forgotten.

A few weeks later we found an discarded A0 plotter at the trash bins and took it to our studio for its components to be salvaged. When we found a massive linear rail inside we suddenly remembered the idea Felix had. It became our calling: We had to make a large finger sitting on a fader performing the bespoken epic fader moves. Over the next days we took our 3D printers to the task and created the finger in seven separate parts. These were friction welded together before being painted and sanded (many times).
The fader is controlled and the sound generated by a Teensy 3.2. The seemingly ever rising and falling sound is mainly achieved throug a technique called shepard risset glissando.

Different to other works from our time at the university this whole machine has been thought of and created just for the sake of it. Not only did it not originate from a course but from a self-serving process of creativity; it also does not correspond to the (especially at universities usual) foundation of the creative process in reflection and theory – a form of practice that I myself hold dearly. Through its comparatively low depth of motivation for creating the work – a flippant remark of a friend in a casual conversation – it shortens the preliminary stage of artistic practice founded in theory as much as possible and proceeds directly to the process of creation. Its statement is thus as short as it is effective: "Look at me, here I am!" Surrounded by many well-considered and richly-thought-out works of art, the work thus stands out and enriches them, but at the same time, without this contrast, it would itself degenerate into nothing more than a dull and profane object of contemplation. With Epic Fader Move I learned that an artistic practice that dares to be equally content-rich and merely perceptive creates added value across its entire spectrum.

Floppy

2019 – with Felix Fisgus

Floppy is a robotic hade made out of scrap, suspended from a rail and thus able to move around. Composed out of a plethora of leftovers, spares and reclaimed parts, sprinkled with some RGB-leds, it is able to move its jaw, eye(s) and eyebrows, as well as tilting and swiveling its head. It is driven by three servo motors hidden behind its gums.
In order to be able to lunge out towards passersby it sits on a small cart fixed to a metal rail about two meters in width, using a motor connected to a spindle to propell itself forward.

Floppy is able to mumble at the passersby with the help of a simple TTS implemented on an ATmega328p.

Felix and me created Floppy, the talking robot head, out of scrap, fun and a bit of love for our metal friend. He was the centerpiece of the bar at Radio Angrezis 2019 Flutung party and continues his life in our university.

Lichtblick

2019

Lichtblick consists of a small machine placed in front of an audience. This machine consists of two parts: A small tower containing circuit boards with microprocessors that calculate various formulas and mathematical problems, and a box with a grid of 4x4 panels containing very bright LEDs. The LEDs each illuminate a quadrant of the grid, showing the program code that is contained on the microcontrollers in the tower.

The total of 16 squares in the grid each represent one bit of an instruction in the program code of one of the microcontrollers. If there is a 0 in the program code, the LED remains off; if there is a 1, the LED flashes briefly. In this way, the program code of all microcontrollers is gradually made visible via LEDs.

The viewers have the possibility to follow the program code instruction by instruction and to experience the processor and its inner state. The actual output of the program code is not taken into account.

In this work, the process of computation, which is usually determined by the final product and its usability, is brought to the foreground. Viewers are invited to observe the process of computation without prioritizing the outcome of the process. This represents a reclaiming of control over the process by the viewers, who are now able to view and understand the process independent of its usability. By placing viewers in the position of observing and understanding the process of computation, they become active participants in the process rather than passive recipients of the final product.

Hunter/Gatherer

2018 – with Timo Johannes

The world is flooded with the influences of human civilisation. With the harnessing of electricity, this world has been further hijacked by intentional and unintentional electromagnetic waves. If one sees these signals as an encroachment on the pristine nature, it is suddenly no longer possible for man to perceive and examine the existence of nature in the usual way with his own sense organs. The search for an experience of nature, under this premise, ironically requires the same technique from which one tries to escape.

Hunter seeks to be that tool. It guides the wearer on their journey through the environment to places of least influence by signals. By surrendering to and following Hunter's subtle instructions, the wearer discovers his or her surroundings subject to otherwise inexperienced impressions. At the places found in this way, whose position can only be determined in the course of the journey, the least influenced environment possible is to be found, which is not flooded by the deterministically motivated influences of human civilisation.

N×S

2018

An experiment on the impact of small things and how to affect them. N×S – the newton-second – is the SI unit for impulse. The very small impulse of a grain of salt is made audible by this small experiment. It has been created in the seminar Micromanipulations by Benjamin Maus.

1953

2018

1953 is an aesthetic experiment on transistors, logic and manufacturing processes.

SETART

2018

Recently, a tool called SETART (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Audio-Radio Transmissions) has been rediscovered. Although it was developed in the 1970s and quickly faded into obscurity, it may now offer us new insights into the depths of the universe.

The history of SETART dates back to the early days of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) research. In the 1970s, the SETART project was initiated by a small group of dedicated scientists who were captivated by the idea that intelligent extraterrestrial life could exist somewhere out there in the universe. The first SETART device was built and put into operation in Arizona. It was specifically designed to connect with SETI radio telescopes and listen for extraordinary audio-radio signals from space. The hope was that SETART would be able to detect signals from alien civilizations and provide us with evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth. Although the SETART project yielded some promising results in the 1970s, it soon faded into the background. It was surpassed by other more advanced technologies and new approaches in SETI research. The SETART device fell into oblivion and was eventually replaced by more modern instruments.

Decades later, in 2018, an old specimen of SETART was discovered, hidden away in a dusty storage room. The device showed significant signs of wear and tear, having been exposed to the passage of time. However, to our surprise, it still functioned when we switched it on. The rediscovery of SETART has sparked new hope and offers us the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the early SETI pioneers. With this unique tool, we can now embark on our own quest to search for extraterrestrial life. If we are fortunate, we may one day receive a signal originating from a civilization that exists millions of light-years away.s We stand at a crucial juncture in the history of SETI research. The revival of the SETART project could expand our understanding of the universe and provide answers to one of humanity's oldest questions: Are we alone in the cosmos?

SETART is based on a scene from the movie contact and tries to imagine how the tool a scientist would have held in her hands in the desert of Arizona had this kind of human-machine-interface ever existed.