SYMBOLIC GROUNDING
By Christian Faubel (DE) & Wolfgang Spahn
(AT/DE) 2018
A kinetic light and sound installation that runs on a network of 100 artificial analogue neurons.
Symbolic Grounding is a kinetic light and sound installation that runs on a network of 100 artificial analogue connections. This network produces an ever-changing set of rhythms and patterns that are not programmed beforehand but that result from the very connectivity of this network. These rhythms and patterns are made audible and visible using different devices such as loud-speakers, motors, an oscilloscope, liquid-light projectors and a xy-recorder. These devices allow the visitors to experience the complexity that already happens in networks with only 100 neurons and provide a glimpse of the complexity of interactions in a network of 86 billion neurons such as the human brain.
EXHIBITOR BIOGRAPHY
Christian Faubel is an interdisciplinary researcher and artist. He is currently working at the laboratory for experimental computer science within the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. He holds a PhD in electrical engineering and has completed research on autonomous systems at the Institute for Neural Computation from 2002–2012. In 2002 he founded Derstrudel, a collective for the mediation of a relaxed approach to electronics robotics. Since 2002 he has taught more than 50 workshops in building simple analog robots at international venues and festivals.
Wolfgang Spahn is an Austrian-German visual artist based in Berlin. His work includes interactive installations, miniature-slide-paintings and performances of light & sound. His art explores the field of analogue and digital media and focuses on both their contradiction and their correlation. That‘s why he is also specialized in re-appropriated and re-purposed electronic technologies. Spahn‘s immersive audio-visual performances merge the technically distinct production of images and sounds. In this respect the data stream of a digital projector becomes audible whereas the sound created by electromagnetic fields of coils and motors will be visualised.
LINKS
Video: pylon-hub.com/hub/article/symbolic-grounding
Website: christian.faubel.derstrudel.org
Website: wolfgang-spahn.de
CREDITS
Spahn/Faubel
with support from Künstlerdorf Schöppingen