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Science and Technology in Cultural Context

Low Voltage Exhibition

Last update: January 22, 2008, at 10:50 AM

Tuesday, July 10 to Saturday, July 14

LOW VOLTAGE EXHIBITION

Location: ewz-Unterwerk Selnau, Daily from 14:00 - 17:00

About the Low Voltage Exhibition

''Coming soon" would be the one statement that a curator would use to signal the process of filling one of the largest halls in Zurich with art works of high international character and at the same time making sure that these same art works worked in a clubbing situation. So beyond the animalism of club visitors, the "put your mind on ice" situation of a chill out room and the absolute necessity of remaining fool and idiot proof, the exibition content proves not only the Digital Art Weeks "coolness", but the fact that exhibitions that can have a hard core intellectual edge hidden in the shadows of retinal beauty are "coming soon". To paraphrase what Marcel Duchamp perhaps once uttered in a soft voice during that timeless moment between chess moves: Let us go beyond the art of the retina and seep into the inner world of the mind...

Exhibition Host: Carla Stoppini, ewz.

Participating Artists

Art Clay (CHE)
Louis-Philippe Demers (CAN)
Urs Jaeggi (CHE)
Corrina Mattner (DEU)
Luke Murphy (USA)
Sebastian Ulbrich (DEU)
Lars Vaupel (DEU)
Pablo Ventura (ESP)

Artworks

Code Reflection (12th Gate Reflected) Luke Murphy (USA) The primary projection will be of the source code from the script running the work and from various other collected source code. This projection is divided into a positive image and its reflection into a “virtual pool” of water - often referred to as the “Lake” effect. This effect is commonly found on the web to make images appear to be reflected in a softly rippling lake or pool. A camera is aimed at this from across the stairway and its image projected and reflected on another wall. Additionally, a second camera is aimed at this and its image projected on another wall. It is a kind of house of mirrors with a virtual reflecting pool. The Twelfth gate in some alchemical texts is know as “projection”, and is a step in the transmutation of matter from one form to another. "Reflection" is a term used in some programming languages and refers to the means by which an interface or function can describe itself to a user – that is, reveal what it is. This work will start from source code, normally hidden, project and reflect it.

Zeichenspinne (Drawing Spider) Installation Lars Vaupel (DEU) (Blacklight Environment: Art Clay & Barabara Strieff) Two robotic platforms equipped with felt pens are driving on paper and produce random drawings. Each platform has electro-mechanic sensors for edge and blocking detection. It is possible to choose the basic driving mode (straight ahead, curves, circles), then the behaviour changes after every edge contact, so the result is unprecdictable and every drawing is unique.

Church According to McLuhan Art Clay (USA) & Urs Jaeggi (CHE) The Church is a conglomeration of messages in the form of icons. The most apparent and the one that is at the root of the design of the church is the stereotypical form of the TV. The steps fo the church, indicating an ascent to enlightenment in the form of ultimate delusion, bring the electronic consumer of "the message" (i.e. the- try-me-and-buy-me-world-belief) to the pinnacle of necessity: adjusting the TV antenna. The metamorphoses of the TV into the symbol for death (pre-Christian) is seen as an ascent to a modern g.o.d. (global omnipresent delusion). The TV antenna itself is actually the new Consumer Cross in the form of a traditional TV antenna. The metaphorical use of the word "cross" indicates a balance of the mind and the body. The cross in its pre-Christian form had balanced parts. The Latin cross places more importance on mind over body wtih a vertical beam longer. The post-Latin cross, (TV-antenna) places more emphasis on the body by doubling the horizontal line.

The 3rd Mind Art Clay (CHE), Corrina Mattner & Sebastian Ulbrich (DEU) The Dream Machine was conceived by artist and writer Brion Gysin in the early sixties with the help of the Scientist Ian Sommerville. It consist of a cylinder with slots cut into its sides and it is placed on a turntable that is set at the speed of 78 rpm. A light, suspended on a wire into the center of the spinning cylinder, allows light to come out from the slots as it spins on the turntable. The user sits comfortably in front of the Dreamachine, with the closed eyes approximately at center (half height) of the cylinder and quite close (5 cm). The resulting pulsating light seen against the eyelids stimulates the optical nerve and thereby alters the brain's electrical oscillations, causing vivid visions of very bright moving and morphing colours in geometrical patterns to appear "projected" behind the eyelids across the complete the field of vision. We would to thank Corrina Mattner and Sebastian Ulbrich for the building of the Dream Machines.

Kubic’s Cube Pablo Ventura (ESP) & Louis-Philippe Demers (CAN) The robot “Kubic”, developed by the robot artist Louis-Philippe Demers for choreographer Pablo Ventura’s “Fabrica/Clsuter III”, takes over now the performing space as the only performer in a “dance” piece. “Kubic” hangs in the center of a cube formed by 8 neon lights and LED lamps with the public freely moving in space around the robot. The choreographer Pablo Ventura operates the robot 'live' to the music of Francisco López, a famous exponent of electronic music, and invite’s the viewer to discover Kubic's Cube from different perspectives. “Kubic’s Cube” was developed in an artistic residence in Tesla-Berlin and presented at Berlin’s Transmediale 2006.

Copyright @ ETH Zürich

Page last modified on January 22, 2008, at 10:50 AM