// Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien
// Opening: Friday 27/01 19:00
// Exhibition: 28/01 19/02 daily 12 19:00
// Workshop: 30/01 04/02
// Presentation: The Crystal World Salon on Sunday 05/02 16:00
In
The Crystal World Open Laboratory by
Martin Howse,
Jonathan Kemp and
Ryan Jordan, the basic materials of digital devices (gold, silver, palladium, silicon, etc.) are recovered by mechanical and chemical methods. Here, the often dangerous process of recovering rare raw materials from the waste cycles are revealed, just as is practiced by the dispossessed in all parts of the world for reasons of survival. In a second step, the raw materials gained during the process are used to construct new electrochemical test arrangements for producing sound, light and other events that make use of chaotic material processes. The closed, completely determined environment of digital calculations is broken into and opened up by forcible de-crystallization and re-crystallization in order to etch psychophysical distortions and uncertainties into the crystalline cycles. At the end of the workshop period the results will be displayed in a mixture between presentation and performance. Afterwards, the setting, the materials and the created artifacts will remain visible as an exhibit.
As part of the project
The Crystal World, Ralf Baecker shows his installation "Irrational Computing". The installation is an artistic examination of the materials, aesthetics, and potential of digital processes. The installation is based on semiconductor crystals, the raw materials of information technology, and, through targeted manipulation of these materials, it forms a digital signal processing engine that operates on the dividing line between order and chaos. "Irrational Computing" reinforces the mystique and magic of these materials, which are the core of the technology that exists all around us.
crystal.xxn.org.uk
no-surprises.de
Martin Howse (UK) operates within the fields of discourse, speculative hardware (environmental data in open physical systems), code (an examination of layers of abstraction), free software and the situational (performances and interventions). Since 1998, Martin Howse has performed and given workshops in venues and festivals worldwide, with actions crossing the division of code and matter
1010.co.uk
Ryan Jordan (UK) is an electronic artist working with self-made instruments and tools for live performance. He has presented his work internationally in a wide range of venues from art and academic institutions to derelict warehouses and squats. Ryan is currently undertaking a PhD at the Music Technology and Innovation Research Centre at De Montfort University.
ryanjordan.org
Jonathan Kemp (UK) has a long history of speculative and situational life coding events elaborated as active makings-in-the-world, with project collaborations that include data processing performances, environmental installation, speculative symposia, and social software events executed throughout Europe and the US, at various festivals and institutions including ISEA, Piksel, Electrohype, Cybersonica, transmediale, Siggraph, and ICA.
xxn.org.uk
Ralf Baecker (DE) studied computer science, attended the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, graduating in 2007, and taught at the Bauhaus University in Weimar and at the Bremen University of the Arts. Baecker builds installations and sculptures that deconstruct the fundamental elements of symbolic and technological processes. Ralf Baeckers installation is a production of
dock-berlin in collaboration with the
Ernst Schering Foundation.
rlfbckr.org
