The interactive sound installation “PANDEMIC SOUND MAP” transforms the statistical data on the spread of the SARS COVID-19 virus into sound, by means of sonication process based on the number of infected per day per country since January 2020 until today. On a metal political map of the world, 186 switches are located in the center of each country. The installation allows any number of countries to be “switched on” or “switched off” interactively by the audience, forming one common sound picture. This sound representation provides a new perspective on the pandemic, with the expressive means of sound art and digital technologies, reflecting the different approaches to controlling the pandemic, its scale, distribution and current state. The installation is an artistic metaphor for the impact of the pandemic crisis in political, social and cultural aspects, which, as a circuit breaker, almost “switched off” the world economy.
Category: Exhibitions
Concerto for public transport orchestra in four movements
The algorithms regularly receives data about the movement of public transport from a server in Latvia, which provides this data to several transportation services in several cities in Russia and the Baltic States, and interprets (sonificating) this data as a sounds.
The algorithms generates an array of tone frequencies within a equally tempered scale:
- for the first part: from the small octave note D (146.8324 Hz) upwards in a quarter-tone scale (24 notes per octave);
- for the second part: from the note A of the contra-octave (55.0000 Hz) upwards in semitone scale (7 notes per octave);
- for the third part: from the note in A of the contra-octave (55.0000 Hz) upwards in an eighth-tone scale (48 notes per octave);
- for the fourth part: from the B note of the first octave (493.8832 Hz) upwards in 300-tone scale (300 notes per octave);
In the following, the algorithm will map each of the tones to a velocity in km/h such that the higher the velocity, the higher the tone.
The first two parts calculate the average traffic speed and monitor its change. If the average traffic speed in the city increases, the distance between tones over time decreases (tones are played more often). In case the average traffic speed decreases, the distance between tones increases (tones are played less frequently).
In the third and fourth parts, the distance between tones is fixed.
Max Alyokhin
Born in 1994 in Krasnodar, Russia, living and working in Saint Petersburg.
Have higher technical education. Graduated from Krasnodar College of Electronic Device Engineering and the Academy of Marketing and Social Information Technologies with a specialty in “Computing Machines,
Complexes, Systems and Networks”.
Co-founder and active member of the Kiuss art-group. Main areas of work are street activities (street-art), neosuprematism and web development. Co-founder of the cultural center “The Mansion of Culture” (full name—Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization in the Sphere of Culture, Art and Creativity “Krasnodar Regional Art Research and Education Center “The Mansion of Culture”) and the gallery “The High of Culture”. Author of the
three-part essay “Instructions for Semiotics”. Developer of the web-application for psychogeographic research “Dérive”. Co-organizer of “Dérive” and “The Ark of Culture” festivals. Author of the musique concrète project “Digital fixation of audio processes”. Technical director and designer of the independent book publishing house “Asebeia”.
Falling
360° video / VR installation.
Synopsis : Falling is the study of a collapse. Consisting of nine “collapsology” scenes created from Internet culture imaginaries, this artwork tries to interrogate a possible dismantling of the human practices of nature subjection and species classification through a search of eco-feminist postures. The project is based on the power of utopian and feminist anticipations, and the idea of short-circuiting collective imaginations from the Internet to develop new utopias and invent sustainable imaginations.
Sandrine Deumier is a pluridisciplinary artist working in the field of performance, poetry, and video art whose work investigates post-futurist themes through the development of aesthetic forms related to digital imaginaries. With her dual philosophical and artistic training, she has constructed a multifaceted poetic style focused on the issue of technological change and the performative place of poetry conceived through new technologies. Using material from the word as image and the image as word vector, she also works at the junction of video and sound poetry, considering them as sensitive devices to express a form of unconscious material itself. The process of writing and the mobile material of the image function as underlying meanings of reflux which refer to her real installations and audiovisual performances in collaboration with composers.
Packetsphere: An Internet Travelogue
What does it take to send a single message halfway around the globe? What issues exist in the technological world just below the surface of your keyboard? Come join Zak, Becky, and a colorful cast of digital characters for a look into the grand tour you initiate every time you send a phrase as simple as “hello.”
Zak Argabrite is an interdisciplinary artist working in music, art and technology based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington New Zealand). Zak creates pieces for performance and installation and designs performance scores, handmade instruments, sculptures and circuitry. Zak’s artistic practice is varied and ever-evolving, exploring art making as a fluid and personal process that often involves learning new skills and stretching between
established disciplines.
In 2020 Zak received the Victoria Doctoral Scholarship to begin work on a PhD at Victoria
University of Wellington. The focus of Zak’s PhD thesis is on establishing a deeper understanding of the complex pasts and futures of technology through research grounded in creative practice. Zak researches the international network of land extraction, manufacturing, distribution, consumption and waste processing that make up technology’s
lives. Zak’s creative work surrounding this research (re)uses old, obsolete, discarded technology or e-waste to create audiovisual performances and installations.
Zak was born on ᏣᎳᎩ (Tsalagi) land (Louisville, Kentucky). Zak’s personal connection with that land and ᏣᎳᎩ heritage remains an important part of Zak’s life and artistic practice.
Zak grew up playing jazz, funk, blues, experimental and classical music, while maintaining a passion for visual arts. Zak moved to Lenapehoking (New York City) in 2012, where they studied Jazz, Composition and Sound Arts, and worked for several years in audio engineering and venue management. In 2019, Zak relocated to Aotearoa (New Zealand) and
is currently pursuing a PhD in Sonic Arts at Victoria University of Wellington.
As a composer, Zak has had the privilege of having international performances and has written for large ensembles, orchestras, big bands, chamber ensembles, and solo artists. Zak has also had the opportunity to exhibit works of installation and video art, and has performed internationally in a variety of settings on wind instruments (saxophones,
clarinets and handmade designs), handmade electronic instruments, and as a visual projection artist.
Becky Brown is a composer, harpist, artist, and web designer, interested in producing intensely personal works across the multimedia spectrum. She focuses on narrative, emotional exposure, and catharsis, with a vested interest in using technology and the voice to deeply connect with an audience, wherever they are. She is currently pursuing graduate
studies in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia.
Decoding Black Magic. Interventions in Infrastructure
Critical Engineers Working Group exhibition “Decoding Black Magic. Interventions in Infrastructure” will take place from the 15th of November to 12th of December 2021, showing well known artworks plus new works in progress by the artists Bengt Sjölén and Danja Vasiliev.
Black Book of Wireless (2020), Unintended Emissions (2019), Vending Private Network, WannaScry! [work in progress] and Unnamed Deep Fake Project (2021)
Black Book of Wireless
The Black Book of Wireless is intended to be a book of the dark magic that antennas and radios is, with pages that are circuits and PCB trace antennas (copper traces on PCB material) and of which some examples are shown in this iteration. The piece tries to describe the physical connection between form and function in high frequency electronics such that all the traditional passive electronic components can be implemented with just the shape of copper on a substrate: a resistor being the thickness and length of trace, a capacitor a gap in a trace, a coil literally being a spiral or coil shaped trace and more obscure shapes like filters, couplers, transmission lines. The more obscure parts of this is things that are not fully understood or even if you can model and simulate how you think they will behave you have to try them out to see how they actually behave. For examples in the pictures see e.g. the UWB antennas that look like little faces or funny cartoon shapes and the fractal antennas with funny shapes and turns trying to maximize their length in a finite space or the Vivaldi antennas curved shapes where the maximum and minimum gaps between the copper bodies define the range of frequencies the antenna is tuned for while not even being connected the input – the input is on the opposite side of the PCB being coupled and in that way conveying the received signal.
Black Book of Wireless receives and decodes radio signals present in the local environment such as Air Traffic transponders for airplanes flying past, AIS transponders from ships, GSM communication between local cell towers and phones, Wifi communication between devices and base stations. Decoded information as well as description of other artefacts such as pcb trace antennas and a software radio system that can be a rogue GSM baase station (the white beagle bone and the white usrp software radio board with gsm antennas) is continuously printed on terminal style min screens distributed across the table.
Unintended Emissions (2019)
Wireless (802.11) Citizen Surveillance Investigation
Inserted into urban environs, Unintended Emissions captures, dissects, maps and projects radio emissions invisibly shared by our portable wireless devices.
Unintended Emissions reveals meta-data such as make of device, networks the device previously connected to and Internet connection requests transmitted by the device out into the air, employing two arrays of directional Yagi antennae the project attempts to determine positions of Wi-Fi devices in the vicinity.
Similar to surveillance and tracking systems such as StingRay, Unintended Emissions places mobile Wi-Fi users on a 2D map indicating the kind of device user has, time of appearance, user’s network activity and other user-specific meta data. This information can be further analyzed to determine the user’s identity and movements within a locality and the Internet.
Using methods and technologies known to be deployed by federal, surveillance initiatives, the intervention seeks to engender a “healthy paranoia” in the interests of an increased techno-political subjectivity.
Vending Private Network
A vending machine for selling VPN internet access via gateways located four countries not involved in FIVE- NINE- ELEVEN-EYES internet surveillance program.
https://criticalengineering.org/projects/vending-private-network
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have come into increasing demand in recent years, providing route encryption through hostile networks. In China, Vietnam, Turkey and Pakistan they also serve to mitigate government censorship, such that foreign sites otherwise blocked by state firewalls are made available to VPN users (Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, activist sites and digital libraries being the most common).
Vending Private Network takes the form of a condom vending machine, such as those typically seen in public toilets, nightclubs and bars. Equipped with mechanical buttons, a coin-slot and USB ports, it offers 4 VPN routes, each with an animated graphic depicting the route as a fantasy destination.
Audiences are invited to insert a USB stick into the slot, a coin (1 pound or euro) into the machine, and to select a VPN destination by pressing a mechanical button. In doing so, a unique VPN configuration file is then written to the USB stick. Special instructions (in the form of a README.txt) are also copied, explaining how to use the VPN in a special ‘sheathed’ mode that evades detection methods (namely Deep Packet Inspection, or DPI) used by corporations and state-controlled infrastructure administrators. This is the only means known to work against state controlled firewalls.
Vending Private Network is especially designed for use in wealthy countries; only then can its ulterior motive come into play: leveraging economic and cultural privilege to benefit those less fortunate. With each VPN config paid for, another ‘shadow config’ is generated, to be later shipped to dissidents, activist organisations and others in Turkey, China, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran (other countries to be confirmed) such that those that need it most can enjoy protection and access to the open web.
The coins inserted into the vending machine also directly fund the VPN running costs, whose tally is displayed on each screen of the vending machine. Should a particular VPN not have enough money deposited to pay for monthly server hosting costs, it is shutdown, with a white on black notice on the display that it no longer functions due to insufficient public funding. Should money sufficient to cover costs be donated the dormant server will boot back to life and public service continues.
Just as one might expect to see on a condom vending machine, Vending Private Network is adorned with the sticker “Get Protected”.
WannaScry! (2021)
WannaScry! is a video-conferencing server that operates from an exhibition venue and publicly displays and stores video calls conducted through it. Real-time and recorded video-chat are projected inside a Palantir*-like scrying ball.
Practices of communication interception, distortion and manipulation are broadly exercised in cyberspace as a means of control and monetization; all the while the recent increase in usage of video-calling services created an abundance of personal media-data which itself became an easy and desirable prey.
Privacy negligence – like in the example of Zoom Leaks – intentionally or not may expose users’ most private biometric information to data harvesters and those alike.
WannaScry! illustrates a security breach of a video-calling service and demonstrates to the public the extent to which personal biometric data can be intercepted and extracted by malicious cyber-actors and state agencies.
Information such as age, sentiment, location of a user complemented by a transcript of their chat is collected. However, instead of being sold on the black market this information is presented publicly.
WannaScry! seeks to draw attention to the next generation of our interrelationship with the internet and vulnerabilities that come with our accelerating sublimation into cyberspace.
Taking the shape of a large scrying ball, or “palantír” on the surface of which images of
intercepted video-calls are projected, WannaScry! installation references “remote viewing” –
known as an extrasensory ability, today is easily afforded by the functional principals of the
internet.
Connected to a rigged video-calling service platform, WannaScry! covertly joins every call
placed on that service platform, copies complete video/audio streams of each call and
projects those onto its spherical display.
While displaying contents of each video call, WannaScry! attempts to extract facial
(biometric) and conversational (sentiment and context) data of those individuals participating
in the call, including their geographic location. That information is then relayed visually to the
audience.
Using their mobile devices audiences are invited to place video-call using WannaScry!
service and witness their own images appear inside the gazing ball.
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/523667524
*Palantir is a Techie Software Soldier Spy, Big Data’s scariest, most secretive unicorn in Silicon Valley1
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/523667524
FakeDeeper – Portrait of three critical engineers (Bengt Sjölén, 2021)
Minimal variant:
Photo manipulation has existed as long as photography has existed. Recent research has leveraged machine learning to do things such as face swap to replace the face of a person in a video with another persons face or to be able to drive one persons face with the motion of another face thereby e.g. making it look like a persons says or a reacts in a way that they didn’t do.
With our visual culture, in news, politics, social media etc, the ultimate proof of that something actually happened, or what someone actually said, has for many decades been the moving image documenting the event – what used to be perceived as the unquestionable absolute truth.
We have now rapidly moved into a time where this is no longer the case, where images and videos are malleable and easily edited to misrepresent events, to literally put words in someones mouth that they never uttered, or place people at a scene in which they never were.
This obviously has far-reaching implications in a society that puts the ultimate trust in the image be it a surveillance camera, a news coverage or a video posted on social media. FakeDeeper demonstrates this in a simple and direct way by having the face of a visitor drive the faces on 3 still images making them move their mouths, pose and facial expressions as the visitor does in front of the camera in real time. The live situation also allows for weird deformations and glitches and the possibility to easily break the illusion in ways that a deliberate fake video production would of course edit away but then also hints at artefacts that can reveal the fake while also emphasizing how much can be done easily with readily available code, machine learning models and only still images and a webcam.
Nearly ten years later, the relevance of the “Critical Engineering Manifesto” has only become more evident, as an ever-growing public becomes aware of the techno-political implications of using – and depending upon – integrated systems and complex, networked technologies. Today, one can find its 11 points listed on the walls of hacklabs, museums, engineering and media-art academies, and in a great many texts, the world over.
Around the manifesto, originally written by Julian Oliver, Gordan Savičić and Danja Vasiliev, gathered a larger group – the Critical Engineering Working Group – now including also Sarah Grant, Bengt Sjölén and Joana Moll.
Piksel will start a series of works inviting some of the representatives of the group Critical Engineering Working Group to work in Bergen.
☯
In the installation ☯, booklets (also entitled ☯) are stacked and presented on a pedestal, where Piksel21 attendees may take copies. The self-cover booklet is 40 pages long (10 sheets of paper) and presents Unicode glyphs opposite each other on page spreads, allowing readers to mediate on empty/full dichotomies and our current global text encoding system.
Nick Montfort studies creative computing. As a poet and artist, he uses computation as his main medium and seeks to uncover how the material and formal qualities of computing are entangled with each other and with culture. His computer-generated books of poetry include #! and Golem. His digital projects include the collaborations The Deletionist and Sea and Spar Between. His MIT Press books, collaborative and individual, include The New Media Reader,
Twisty Little Passages, Racing the Beam, and Exploratory Programming for the Arts and Humanities. He is professor of digital media at MIT. He lives in New York City.
De-fragmented Bergen
Carbon Death will transmit a live cinema experience at the crossing between environmental harsh noise wall music and bleak November landscape during Piksel Festival. A machine will received films and sounds to produce a new forms of live cinema based on landmarks and landscapes of Bergen. Defragmentation stands for the transformation of this material based on the analysis of the level of activities in the images and the sounds recorded. The semi-autonomous AI program will re-compose a new landscape with a cold perception of the evolution of the environment in order to creates a new machine anti-perspective view on our world. Man with a movie camera by Dziga Vertov creates a new vision of the cities in the early days of the 20th century industrialisation, 92 years after Carbon Death proposes a machine to reinvest the subject Defragmenting Bergen using no literature, no theater, no cinema, the machine is its author, editor and producer.
Carbon Death – non-collective experience
Carbon Death is a non-collective of artists that offers artistic and scientific research without territorial limits, potentially opposing artists, curators, scientists and academics, by way of a voluntary impertinence towards places and concepts and by revisiting, redefining and reorganising these domains.
The Live cinema installation will be displayed on the Piksel festival website and multiple streaming platform.
PAC-MOM
PAC-MOM [1] is a parody of the popular arcade game PAC-MAN (1980) by Toru Iwatani. Game scholars classify PAC-MAN as an eating game. PAC-MOM is a game about gender and food insecurity. PAC-MOM takes place in a situation where accessing
food requires PAC-MOM to work a disproportionate amount more than PAC-MAN. In
addition to having to work more for the same amount of pellets as PAC-MAN, PAC-MOM
has to avoid powerful ghost-enemies including patriarchy, misogyny, racism,
ableism, and many more. Watch a playthrough on Vimeo. [2]
- Links:
- [1] PAC-MOM Website: http://www.anninaruest.com/pac_mom
- [2] PAC-MOM playthrough video: https://vimeo.com/469158684
Annina Rüst is an artist-technologist. She creates electronics and software-based media art. Her works often focus on political issues within tech culture, including gender representation and online privacy. Rüst’s work has been
reviewed in such publications as Wired and the New York Times Magazine. The Huffington Post called her recent
robotics work a “Badass Feminist Robot”. Besides making and exhibiting technology-driven art, she writes scholarly
articles that contextualize her own work and the work of others. Rüst teaches programming, game development,
electronics, data visualization, and digital fabrication at the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College at Florida Atlantic
University where she is an Associate Professor.
Platform Sweet Talk
Today’s dominant social media platforms are designed to produce, above all else, user engagement. Engaged users contribute increasing amounts of data, transforming platforms from empty containers of nothing into profitable private stores of human behavior and culture. But this production doesn’t happen by itself; it requires careful engineering to craft and present the right message at the right time in a way that compels users to keep scrolling, liking, and posting. Platform Sweet Talk examines a primary tactic Silicon Valley employs to seduce its users into a one-sided relationship: notifications. Based on longitudinal research into a major platform’s notification strategy, this work presents their extensive notification language in a depersonalized form, revealing how notifications operate to encourage, manipulate, and woo users into maximal platform engagement.
Ben Grosser creates interactive experiences, machines, and systems that examine the cultural, social, and political effects of software. Recent exhibition venues include the Barbican Centre in London, Museum Kesselhaus in Berlin, Museu das Comunicações in Lisbon, and Galerie Charlot in Paris. His works have been featured in The New Yorker, Wired, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, El País, Libération, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Der Spiegel. The Chicago Tribune called him the “unrivaled king of ominous gibberish.” Slate referred to his work as
“creative civil disobedience in the digital age.” Grosser’s artworks are regularly cited in books investigating the cultural effects of technology, including The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, The Metainterface, Critical Code Studies, and Technologies of Vision, as well as volumes centered on computational art practices such as Electronic Literature, The New Aesthetic and Art, and Digital Art. Grosser is an associate professor in the School of Art + Design, and co-founder of the Critical Technology Studies Lab at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.