RITUALS OF WASTED TECHNOLOGY
In market-driven cycles of planned obsolescence, technological communication products are regularly replaced by better, faster and smarter successors. TVs, satellite dishes, PCs, smartphones and antennas are produced and consumed before ending up in landfill mountains of abandoned tech waste. Marco Barotti disrupts this cycle by giving former satellite dishes and recycled Wi-Fi sector antennas a novel tech life. His kinetic sculptures create „technical ecosystems“ that resemble the behaviour and aesthetics of real animals and plants. He creates post-apocalyptic landscapes in which the animal world exists as an electronic replica, as described by Philip K. Dick in his 1969 book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Rituals of Wasted Technology is Marco Barotti‘s first solo exhibition in Berlin. In silent green's Kuppelhalle, he presented an expansive sound installation consisting of APES & SWANS. Both species symbiotically relate to each other: APES are sound sculptures made of recycled Wi-Fi sector antennas. They are driven by algorithms showing dynamic counters of data consumption and cyberattacks: from Facebook likes, Google searches, tinder swipes, internet energy consumed and emails sent, to the adverse cyber events happening in real-time.
In cooperation with scientists from the Cluster of Excellence CASA - Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries and the HGI Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security at Ruhr University Bochum, these algorithms were encoded and give the tower-mounted APES the ability to generate specific behavioral patterns („quasi-rituals“). Barotti‘s SWANs, on the other hand, made of used satellite dishes, „float“ on an artificial pond in the Kuppelhalle. Two sound sources of bass frequencies and human breath streaming through brass instruments give them their voice and set them in motion.
Credits:
Rituals of Wasted Technology by Marco Barotti is part of the exhibition series Speaking to Ancestors curated by Pauline Doutreluingne and Keumhwa Kim.
The exhibition series Speaking to Ancestors is kindly supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
Artworks credits:
“APES by Marco Barotti, was created during the art-science residency “RE:SEARCHING IT SECURITY” at Cluster of Excellence CASA, in collaboration with STATE”
Software programming Marco Accardi / Anecoica Studio
Assistant Design Xueqi Huangfu
Deep fake research and production Lea Schönherr, Joel Frank
Cyberattacks API research implementation Endres Puschner
Digital Wellbeing, concept and implementation Asia Biega
Bitcoin electricity consumption, inputs Veelasha Moonsamy
Tecnical advisor Benjamin Maus
Video Frank Sauer
External eye Anna Anderegg
Assistant Cora Roschein and Francesco Zedde
Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy through the Cluster of Excellence “CASA - Cyber Security in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries” (EXC 2092) and BBK-Projektbüro NEUSTART
Supported by Pina, Izis Festival, Ars Electronica, Loop Space Seoul
Travel and transport are supported by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe
CASA team Angela Sasse, Asia Biega, Alena Naiakshina, Lea Schönherr, Joel Frank, Endres Puschner, Annika Gödde, Veelasha Moonsamy, Thorsten Holz, Estrid Sørensen, Gregor Leander, Markus Dürmuth, Tim Güneysu, Christof Paar, Konrad Rieck, Philipp Markert, Peter Schwabe, Patrick Schulte, Vladislav Mladenov, Federico Canale, Barbara-Henrika Alfing, Pascal Sasdrich, Johannes Tobisch, Paul Staat
Thanks to Christina Hooge, Victoria Domke, Angela Joseph, Sarah Möller, Benjamin Lehmann, Johannes Winterhagen, Yena Young, Marco Canevacci, Danilo Rasori, Dennis Malyska, Eurotruss
Swans
Concept: Marco Barotti
Curated by: Markus Wüste
Produced at Platoon Kunsthalle (Berlin)
Thanks: Anna Anderegg
Photos: Marco Barotti
Text: Isabel Andrés Portí