Symbolic Grounding

About

An artistic exploration into the world of analog computation and analog pattern generation, a world that is governed by self-organization, emergence, chaos and pattern formation. Randomness comes for free in this world and is integrated into any process. The artists use the unpredictable as raw material framed into stable emergent patterns. These patterns are oscillations that are made audible and visualized by tracing temporal activations. In this laboratory the artists not only work with strange attractors but also with strange sounds and visuals that are highly autonomous and out of  control, but open to modulation.

Analog computation is characterized by an openness towards subtle changes. For example, historical  analog computers might compute different results at different temperatures. While in technological applications this was seen as a drawback, from an artistic point of view this renders analog computation extremely interesting, because it exactly allows autonomous processes to be modulated  and played with. These are modulatory networks of analog circuits that will produce an ever-changing ensemble of oscillations.

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Ist eine künstlerische Entdeckungsreise in die Welt des analogen Rechnens und analoger Mustererzeugung, eine Welt die bestimmt ist durch Selbstorganisation, Emergenz, Chaos und Musterbildung. Zufall gibt es hier umsonst und Zufall ist integraler Bestandteil aller Prozesse. Die Künstlern  verwenden das Unvorhersehbare als das Rohmaterial in einem Rahmen stabiler Muster. Diese Muster sind Schwingungen die wir hörbar machen und die wir visualisieren in dem wir ihre zeitlichen Verläufe mitschreiben. In diesem Laboratorium arbeiten nicht nur mit seltsamen Attraktoren sondern auch mit seltsamen Klängen und Bildern. Diese sind hochgradig autonom und entziehen sich unserer Kontrolle bleiben aber offen für Modulation.

Analoge Rechenmaschinen zeichnen sich sind durch Ihre Offenheit für subtile Änderungen aus. So haben zum Beispiel historische Analogrechner immer mit Probleme gehabt dass sie Temperaturabhängig unterschiedliche Ergebnisse generiert haben. Während dies in technischen Anwendungen als Nachteil gesehen wurde, ist es künstlerischer Perspektive gerade interessant, weil es so möglich ist mit grundsätzlich autonomen Prozessen zu spielen und sie zu modulieren. Dies sind  also modulierende Netzwerke analoger Schaltungen bauen, die ein sich fortwährend wandelndes Ensemble unterschiedlicher Schwingungen generieren.

Christian Faubel

In his work he is interested in what enables autonomous behavior and how complex autonomous behavior may result from the interaction of very simple units and from the dynamics of interaction between such units. In his artworks and performances he tries to convey insights about theoretical concepts such as emergence or embodiment along an aesthetic dimension. He considers his artworks, workshops and performancesto be in the tradition of philosophical toys as they combine the mediation of scientific concepts with pleasure and amusement.

Wolfgang Spahn

is an Austrian-German visual artist based in Berlin. His work includes interactive installations, miniature-slide-paintings and performances of light & sound. His art explores the field of analogue and digital media and focusses on both their contradiction and their correlation. Thus he is also specialized in re-appropriated and re-purposed electronic technologies.  He teaches at the Professional Association of Visual Artists in Berlin (BBK-Berlin) and is associated lecturer at the University of Paderborn, department of media studies as well as at the University of Oldenburg, department of art and visual culture.

Baruch Gottlieb is a Canada-born media artist exploring navigable fiction and documentary and an active member of the Telekommunisten Network. His work's focus is the industrialisation of the subject of industrially-produced media. He lectures in digital aesthetics at the Studium Generale of the University of Arts, Berlin. He is curator of the traveling exhibition Bodenlos: Vilém Flusser and the Arts, and  FEEDBACK: Marshall McLuhan and the Arts. His latest book A Political Economy of the Smallest Things explores the reproduction of digital information at the nano-scale.

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