YOU:R:CODE

2017

Material / Technique: 7-part interactive computer-based installation; 1 mirror, 1 spy mirror with rear projection foil, 4 rear projection screens, 1 FlipDot display, 5 projectors, 6 Kinect depth cameras, 3 computers (PC, operating system: Linux), 1 computer (PC; operating system: Windows), 1 computer (Mac, operating system: MacOS), individual software, 5 loudspeakers, 5 LED lamps

Dimensions / Duration: 320 x 880 x 250 cm, installation: 320 x 880 x 400 cm, installation dimension variable

Description: The title of the work »YOU:R:CODE« by Bernd Lintermann and Peter Weibel can be read in two different ways: The interpretation “your code” indicates that in the installation visitors experience different kinds of digital transformations of themselves. Whereas first, you still see your familiar reflection in a mirror – the most real virtual depiction that we can imagine – the mirror image gradually transforms into a digital data body until finally, the visitors are reduced to an industrially readable code. In the end they break free from the virtual depiction, and are materialized in a flip-dot display. The second way of reading the piece’s title, “you are code,” emphasizes that we ourselves consist of code, which amongst other things is manifested in the genetic code. The genetic code constitutes the algorithm of life and from birth it determines what we do. In current research projects synthetic DNA strands even serve as long-term storage for digital data. But even the digital services operating in clouds, which give us daily instructions for action via our computers and smartphones, only perceive us in a mediated way, in the form of sensor data and via our electronic utterances. For them, we are codes.

Clara

Runge

Images