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Story Box-ID: 551337

ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe Lorenzstraße 19 76135 Karlsruhe, Deutschland http://www.zkm.de
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ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe

Infosphere

Fri 04.09.2015 - Sun 31.01.2016 / ZKM_Atrium 1+2 / Press conference: Thurs 03.09.2015, 11:00

(lifePR) (Karlsruhe, )
The biosphere, of the atmosphere through to the oceans, forms the life zone of mankind and other living creatures. However, since the discovery of electromagnetic waves and the wireless radio technology based on these, about 150 years ago, we have also been living in an infosphere. The large-scale exhibition Infosphere depicts which answers are being found today by artists, designers, architects and scientists to these acute challenges of the infosphere: How do artists deal with big data, data sovereignty and the pollution of the infosphere? The exhibition makes the hidden sides of the infosphere and its physical presence in the world visible: Cable and hardware, data centres, espionage, exploration and weather satellites, server rooms of financial companies and banks, the infrastructure of the infosphere. The infosphere is not cyberspace. It actually surrounds us in a very real sense. About 80 international artists and artist groups are offering an overview of art in the era of the digital revolution and its social consequences.

Algorithms define our social order

The infosphere transforms the earth with technical media, such as radio, television, mobile communications and internet, which use electromagnetic waves, and guarantee a global flow of information in real-time. Without the digitally-controlled global movement of data, products and people, the existential demands of more than seven billion people could not be fulfilled. Since the alphabetical code was supplemented by the numerical code, algorithms have been a fundamental element of our social order. There is still no sufficient operating manual for dealing with them. This clearly manifests in subjects such as big data, copyright on the internet or monitoring. Against this background, contemporary art, which deals with and processes these themes, is particularly relevant.

Every second, billions of pieces of data circulate the globe

The American artist collective The Office for Creative Research investigates the infrastructure of air traffic from the motorway to security checks. They show how flows of people on roads and intersections are similar to digital data packages: They are bundled, sent, redirected and distributed. The analysis of movements of individual passengers and the involvement of a wide range of industries far into the periphery of the airport produce compelling data, which is visually comprehensible.

Artists, such as The Critical Engineering Working Group, penetrate spheres which are actually concealed from the public: in the domains of unmanned aircraft and espionage, earth exploration and weather satellites. In a video essay by artist group Semiconductor, glimmering coloured images will show the radio waves which surround us everyday: As part of a research visit to the NASA Space Sciences Lab, they developed their own representations of scientific connections. In their internet project and non-linear essay film, Stéphane Degoutin and Gwenola Wagon give observers a view of the perspectives of data. You will experience how sharks bite through fibreglass cables laid on the sea floor and see inside data centres.

Pollution of the infosphere

The risk of pollution is just as relevant to the infosphere as the atmosphere:The artist group Unknown Fields Divison are exhibiting vases, which have been made from the sludge of a radioactively polluted lake in China. The lake is used as a collecting tank for the toxic waste products which arise during the production of smartphones, notebooks and car batteries. Tyler Coburn will also be focussing on the range of subjects concerning Waste Management.

New forms of knowledge accumulation

Through the rapid development of information technology, new forms of knowledge accumulation and distribution have developed. The infosphere is the basis and precondition of cognitive capitalism. In her video, Emma Charles reveals the internet infrastructure of the city of New York: The closer financial companies and banks are to server rooms in the heart of the financial district, the faster their algorithms reach their destination. The artist group Bureau d'Étude maps power structures and ownership structures in politics, economy and society: They show the symbiosis of the modern man with the information technology that defines our biopolitical order. The artist Zach Blas rejects, based on Beatriz Preciado's Manifiesto contrasexual, the neoliberal logic of the internet and presents alternatives to the infrastructure of the internet. In her documentation video Aleksandra Domanović investigates the beginnings of the World Wide Web in Yugoslavia and the fragility of the network, which depends on the physical infrastructure and historical changes.

Sterling Crispin deals with the question of the data tracks we leave behind everyday. He reshapes the visual recognition of Facebook artistically and generates templates from the programme, which are only vaguely reminiscent of human faces. In this way, he investigates the boundaries which run between individuality and general recognisability. In a type of encyclopaedia, Aram Bartholl presents thousands of leaked passwords in alphabetical order: To protect private data, only the passwords are listed, not the user names. Visitors can look up their own passwords.

The globalised financial system is based on algorithms and computer programmes, which operate in secrecy: Mankind can no longer understand their codes. In their installations, the group RYBN.ORG highlights the arbitrariness of computer processes. Their collection provides an overview of attempts to predict the price movement on the markets using different scientific theories, from the theory of probability to quantum physics and algorithm engineering and pseudoscientific theories. Stephanie Rothenberg focusses on the cultural phenomenon of crowdfunding with an interactive, kinetic installation. Oliver Laric and James Bridle deal intensively with the specific culture of the infosphere and its New Aesthetic.

Clement Valla shows how Google changes our perception of the world and generates new world views with his postcards from Google Earth: They celebrate the aesthetics of glitch and error. Internet art pioneers JODI cultivate the dysfunctional version of Google software. Mario Santamaria shows photographs from the musealization of Google Art: The Google photo-robot, which turns 360° and photographs the museum's premises, can be seen in the mirror: It creates peculiar selfies of the machine.

Development of writing as a prerequisite of the infosphere

The discovery of electromagnetic waves by Heinrich Hertz and their exploitation are considered a condition for the development of the infosphere. If you go even further back into the development of cultural technology, the development of writing can also be termed a prerequisite of the infosphere: Storage and coding, among other things, became possible as a result. For this reason one section of the exhibition with artworks of JIA, Natalie Bookchin and Adam Slowik among others will be dedicated to writing. In the longterm project REMOTEWORDS by Achime Mohné and Uta Kopp, messages are attached to the rooftops of cultural institutions and the ZKM_Vorplatz. They form a semantic unit with the place that is housing them. To open the Infosphere exhibition, the message written by Peter Weibel will be spread - on five rooftops, of five cultural institutions, on five continents. To understand the message, virtual views of our planet using Google Earth or Bing Maps will provide the suitable tools.

Module of The Appearance of That Which Cannot Be Seen: Part of the Infosphere exhibition is The Appearance of That Which Cannot Be Seen by Armin Linke. With his photographs, Linke takes a look at central themes of GLOBALE, such as smart technology, big data and Industry 4.0. Scientists such as Bruno Latour have chosen different photos from Linke's extensive picture library which now contains more than 20,000 photographs and commented on these in texts and interviews.

Involved artists: Timo Arnall & Jack Schulze & Einar Sneve Martinussen · Amy Balkin · Aram Bartholl · Wafaa Bilal · Zach Blas · Blast Theory · Bonjour Interactive Lab (Jean-Philippe Jacquot, Gustave Bernier & Alexandre Rivaux) ·Natalie Bookchin · Dineo Seshee Bopape · David Bowen · James Bridle ·Bureau d'Études · Emma Charles · Tyler Coburn · Sterling Crispin · The Critical Engineering Working Group · Stéphane Degoutin and Gwenola Wagon · Dennis Del Favero and Volker Kuchelmeister, Jeffrey Shaw, Elwira Titan, Peter Weibel · Aleksandra Domanović · Thomas Feuerstein · Fraunhofer- Institut für Optronik, Systemtechnik und Bildauswertung IOSB · Laurent Grasso · Yoon Chung Han & Byeong-Jun Han · Jonathan Harris · Mishka Henner · Femke Herregraven · Brian House · Scottie Chih-Chieh Huang · Jennifer Lyn Morone™ Inc · Jia · JODI · Matt Kenyon (SWAMP) · Erik Kessels · Jeong Han Kim, Hyun Jean Lee, Jung-Do Kim · Brian Knappenberger · Oliver Laric · Marc Lee · George Legrady · Rafael Lozano-Hemmer ·!Mediengruppe Bitnik · Laurent Mignonneau & Christa Sommerer · Jonathan Minard & James George · Achim Mohné / Uta Kopp · Warren Neidich · Julius Popp · Stephanie Rothenberg · RYBN.ORG · Mario Santamaria · Philipp Schaerer · Semiconductor · Adam Slowik · Smart Citizen Team in collaboration with IAAC | Fab Lab Barcelona, Media Interactive Design and Hangar · Karolina Sobecka, Christopher Baker · Werner Sobek, Stuttgart · Software Studies Initiative (Lev Manovich, Nadav Hochman, Jay Chow, Damon Crockett) · Superflux · Fabrizio Tamburini · The Office for Creative Research(Mark Hansen, Ben Rubin, Jer Thorp) · The Otolith Group · Shinseungback & Kimyonghun · Timo Toots · Suzanne Treister · Unknown Fields Division · Clement Valla · Alex Verhaest · Richard Vijgen · Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud · Addie Wagenknecht · Gwenola Wagon · "Where dogs run" group · Krissy Wilson · Manfred Wolff-Plottegg · Matthias Wölfel / Angelo Stitz / Tim Schlippe · Erweiterte Sinnesorgane · Schnelle Übertragung von Schriften im 19. Jahrhundert - Die elektrische Telegraphie

ANNEX

"To me, infosphere denotes that technical network of telegraphy, telephony, television, radio, radar, satellites and internet, which encompass the globe." (Peter Weibel)

Nowadays, mankind lives in a globally networked society, in which biosphere and infosphere penetrate and depend on one another. The earth is surrounded by a mantle of air, which we call the atmosphere. It is the result of photosynthesis, the work of algae over millions of years, during which sunlight has been converted into air. Evolution's answer to the atmosphere was lungs. For this reason, the atmosphere is vital to the lives of mankind and other mammals. We have also been surrounded by an infosphere for approx. 150 years. With this neologism, I denote that technical network of telegraphy, telephony, television, radio, radar, satellites and internet, which encompass the globe and facilitates the global exchange of data and the organisation of human and goods transportation. Without the global movement of data, products and people, the biological and social demands of more than seven billion people could not be fulfilled.

In the 19th century, new communication and transport routes were developed by machines on land, over water and in the air. Between 1886 and 1888, Heinrich Hertz generated the empirical evidence for the existence of electromagnetic waves through his radio experiments and proved that light exists from electromagnetic waves. So began the era of wireless radio technology, which facilitated the separation of messenger and message, so that data could traverse space without the body of the messenger. As a result, a densely woven communication and information network was created from mobile media in the 20th century: the infosphere - a mantle of radio waves encompassing the earth. Through artistic, technical organs, mankind can for the first time use the electromagnetic waves, for which he previously has no sensorium, to transmit words, images and other data without wires. Social media, which has changed our everyday reality, are part of these technical networks. For this reason, the equation of "Machinery, Materials, and Men"(Frank Lloyd Wright, 1930), which was valid in the 19th and 20th century, must be expanded for the 21st century to include the equation "Media, Data and Man" (Peter Weibel, 2011). Since the alphabetical code was supplemented by the numerical code, algorithms have been a fundamental element of our social order - from the stock exchange to airports. Against this background, contemporary art, which works in this field, is particularly relevant.

Peter Weibel

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Für die oben stehenden Stories, das angezeigte Event bzw. das Stellenangebot sowie für das angezeigte Bild- und Tonmaterial ist allein der jeweils angegebene Herausgeber (siehe Firmeninfo bei Klick auf Bild/Titel oder Firmeninfo rechte Spalte) verantwortlich. Dieser ist in der Regel auch Urheber der Texte sowie der angehängten Bild-, Ton- und Informationsmaterialien. Die Nutzung von hier veröffentlichten Informationen zur Eigeninformation und redaktionellen Weiterverarbeitung ist in der Regel kostenfrei. Bitte klären Sie vor einer Weiterverwendung urheberrechtliche Fragen mit dem angegebenen Herausgeber. Bei Veröffentlichung senden Sie bitte ein Belegexemplar an service@lifepr.de.