fabric | rblg

By fabric | ch

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As we continue to lack a decent search engine on this blog and as we don't use a "tag cloud" ... This post could help navigate through the updated content on | rblg (as of 08.2021), via all its tags!

HERE ARE ALL THE TAGS TO NAVIGATE THE CONTENT ON | RBLG BLOG:

(to be seen just below if you're navigating on the blog's html pages or here for rss readers)

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Note that we had to hit the "pause" button on our reblogging activities a while ago (mainly because we ran out of time, but also because we received complaints from a major image stock company about some images that were displayed on | rblg, an activity that we felt was still "fair use" - we never made any money or advertise on this site).

Nevertheless, we continue to publish from time to time information on the activities of fabric | ch, or content directly related to its work (documentation).

Note: this publication was released at the occasion of the exhibition Entangled Realities - Living with Artificial Intelligence, curated by Sabine Himmelsbach & Boris Magrini at Haus der elektronischen Künste, in Basel.

The project Atomized (curatorial) Functioning (pdf), part of the Atomized (*) Functioning serie, was presented, used  and debatedi n this context.

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By Patrick Keller

Note: still catching up on past publications, these ones (Cloud of Cards and related) are "pre-covid times", in Print-on-Demand and related to a the design research on data and the cloud led jointly between ECAL / University of Art & Design, Lausanne and HEAD - Genève (with Prof. Nicolas Nova). It concerns mainly new propositions for hosting infrastructure of data, envisioned as "personal", domestic (decentralized) and small scale alternatives. Many "recipes" were published to describe how to creatively hold you data yourself.

It can also be accessed through my academia account, along with it's accompanying publication by NIcolas Nova: Cloud of Practices.

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By Patrick Keller

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The same research was shortly presented in the Swiss journal Hemispheres, as well as in the international magazine Frame:

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Note: to catch up on time and work with the documentation of our past publications, this one was published already some time ago by ECAL / University of Art and Design, Lausanne (HES-SO), but still a topical issue (> how to redesign/codesign datacenters and the access to personal data in both a sustainable and "fair" way for the end user?)

We're currently working on an evolution of this project that involves the recent decentralized technologies that emerged in the meantime (a.k.a "blockchains", "NFT", etc.). In the meantime, we are preparing academic talks on the subject with the media sociologist Joël Vacheron, who will be invoved in the next phases of the research -- would they happen... --

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By Patrick Keller

(sorry for the strange colors on these 3 img. below ;))

Note: As part of my teaching at ECAL / University of Art and Design Lausanne (HES-SO), I've had the opportunity to dig into the history of the relationship between art and science (ongoing process, especially regarding a material history of the same period). Or rather the links between creative processes (in art, architecture and design) and the information sciences (the computer especially, or the "Universal Machine" as formulated by A.Turing, as a more evocative name, hence the title of the graphs below and of this post).

I also had the occasion, through my practice at fabric | ch, and before that as an assistant at EPFL and then as a professor at ECAL, to experience first hand some of these massive transformations in society and culture.

Thus, for my theory courses, I've sought to assemble "maps" of sorts that help me understand, visualize and explain the fluxes and timelines of interactions between people, artifacts and disciplines. These maps are by no means perfect... nor do they pretend to be. They remain a bit hazy (by intention, as well as constraints of sizes) and could be indefinitely "unfolded" and completed, according to various interests and points of view, beyond mine. I edit them regularly as a matter of fact.

However, in the absence of a good written, visual and/or sensitive history of these techno-cultural phenomena taken as a whole, these maps remain a good approximation tool to apprehend the flows and exchanges that unite or divide them, to start build a personal knowledge about them and eventually dig deeper...

This is the main reason why, despite their obvious fuzziness - or perhaps because of it - I share them on this blog (fabric | rblg), in an informal way. It's so that other artists/designers/researchers/teachers/students/... can start building on them, show different fluxes, develop before and after or, more interestingly, branching out from them (if so, I'd be interested in sharing new developments on this site. Feel free to contact me to do so, for suggestions or comments as well btw).

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Its also worth noting that the maps are structured horizontally on a linear timeline (late 18th century towards mid 21st, mainly the industrial period), and vertically approximately around disciplines (bottom would be related to engineering, middle to art and design, and top towards humanities, social events or movements).

This linear timeline could certainly be questioned, to paraphrase writer B. Latour, what about a spiral timeline for instance? One that would still show a past and a future, but also historical proximities of topics between them, connecting in its circular developments past centuries and topics with our contemporaneity? But for now and while aknowledging it is limitations, I stick to the linear simplicity...

Countless narratives can then be built as emergent proprieties of the graphs (and I emphasize, not as their origin).

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The choice of topics (code, scores-instructions, countercultural, network related, interaction) are for now related to the matters of my teaching but are likely to expand. Possibly toward an underlying layer that would show the material conditions that supported the whole process and also made it possible.

In any case, this could be a good starting point for some summer readings (or a new "Where's Wallie" kind of game...)! 

Via fabric | ch

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By Patrick Keller

Rem.: By clicking on the thumbnails below you'll get access to HD versions.

"Universal Machine", main map (late 18th to mid 21st centuries):

Flows in the map > "Code":

Flows in the map > "Scores, Partitions, ...":

 Flows in the map > "Countercultural, Subcultural, ...":

Flows in the map >  "Network Related":

Flows in the map > "Interaction":

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To be continued (& completed) ...

Note: Patrick Keller (fabric | ch) was in discussion with curator Sabine Himmelsbach, from Haus der elektronischen Künste in Basel (CH), about their new acquisition for the collection of the Museum: Satellite Daylight 47°33'N.

The piece will be displayed permanently in the public space of the HeK. At least until breakdown... But interestingly, it is also part of a whole program of digital conservation at HeK that should prevent its technological collapse, for which we had to follow a tight protocol of documentation and provide the source code pf the work.

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fabric | ch, Satellite Daylight, 47°33‘N, 2020, Vue de l'installation durant «Shaping the Invisible World», 2021, HeK. Photo.: P. Keller.

Shooting set in preparation ...

Followed by our discussion with Sabine Himmelsbach ... (with a lot of reverb in the staircase!)

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Via Haus der elektronischen Künste (blog)

Patrick Keller of fabric | ch, a studio for architecture, interaction and research in Lausanne, provides thrilling insight about the new work installed in the staircase of HeK.

Patrick Keller of fabric | ch, a studio for architecture, interaction and research in Lausanne, provides information about the new work in an interview. The installation  Satellite Daylight, 47°33’N, commissioned for the HeK collection, simulates the light registered by an imaginary meteorological satellite orbiting the earth at the latitude of Basel at a speed of 7541m/s.

Note: fabric | ch was part of the exhibition Shaping the Invisible World, in the middle of the world pandemic (03.03 - 23.05.21).

A new creation, Satellite Daylight 47°33'N was exhibited at this occasion (img. below), which was also acquiredby HeK and enters it's collection at the same time.

Among others, the exhibition displays works by Tega Brain, Bengt Sjölén & Julian Oliver, Bureau d'études, James Bridle, Trevor Paglen, Quadrature, etc. and was curated by Boris Magrini and Christine Schranz.

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Via Haus der eletronischen Künste

The exhibition «Shaping the Invisible World – Digital Cartography as an Instrument of Knowledge» examines, through cartography, the representational forms of the map as a tool between knowledge and technology. The works of the artists on view negotiate the meaning of the map as a gauge of our digital, technological and global society.

(Photo.: fabric | ch)

(Photo.: T. Marti)

fabric | ch, Satellite Daylight 47°33'N (2021) at the Haus der elektronischen Künste (photo.: fabric | ch).

Cartography – the science of surveying and representing the world – developed in antiquity and provided the springboard for communication and economic exchange between people and cultures around the globe. At the same time, maps are undeniably never neutral, since their creation inherently involves interpretation and imagination. Today, it is IT companies that drive progress in the field and drastically influence our views of the world and how we communicate, navigate and consume globally. While map production has become more democratic, digital maps are nevertheless increasingly used for political and economic manipulation. Questions of privacy, authorship, economic interests and big data management are more poignant than ever before and closely intertwined with contemporary cartographic practices.
Today’s maps not only depict, but also document, negotiate and visualize subjective views of the world. But are these maps more democratic? Who benefits from self-determined productions and what consequences do they lead to?

The strategies in digital mapping and cartography employed by the artists presented in Shaping the Invisible World  – Digital Cartography as an Instrument of Knowledge are subversive. Their spectacular panoramas and virtual scenarios reveal how the digital technologies culturally affect our understanding of the world.

Navigating between subversive cartography and digital mapping, the exhibition puts the spotlight on the fascination of maps in relation to the democratization of knowledge and appropriation. By uncovering hidden realities, scarcely visible developments and possible new social relationships within a territory, the artists delineate the evolution of invisible worlds.

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Artists: Studio Above&Below, Tega Brain & Julian Oliver & Bengt Sjölén, James Bridle, Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács, Bureau d'études/ Collectif Planète Laboratoire, fabric | ch, Fei Jun, Total Refusal (Robin Klengel & Leonhard Müllner), Trevor Paglen, Esther Polak & Ivar Van Bekkum, Quadrature, Jakob Kudsk Steensen

Curators: Boris Magrini and Christine Schranz

     (View the pictures of the exhibition directly on HeK's website).

Note: A new work by fabric | ch has been commissionned and aquired by the Haus der elektronischen Künste (HeK) in Basel for the museum's collection, part of the Satellite Daylight serie of "environmental devices".

It is the second work of fabric | ch that enters the collection, after a serie of four videos related to Satellite Daylight and entitled Satellite Daylight Pavilion. We are glad to join artists in the collection like Jodi, mediengruppe!Bitnick, Etoy, ... and also former students or colleagues at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne (Juerg Lehni, Gisin & Vanetti, FragmentIn)!

This new artwork is entitled Satellite Daylight 47°33'N, and circles in fictious and continous way around the 47°33'N latitude -- while acquiring live environmental data about daylight, light intensity, nebulosity and cloud cover that drive the luminous display. --

This continuous circonvolution, at the speed of a real Earth Satellite and that triggers 16 nights and days per regular day on Earth, produces a new combined daylight at the point of installation, both local and internationally mediated.

Satellite Daylight's is an open serie of unique artworks, each located on a different latitude.

Via fabric | ch

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 (Photo.: P. Keller)

Note: during the long shutdown of the museums in Switzerland last Spring, fabric | ch has nevertheless the chance to see Public Platform of Future Past (pdf), one of its latest architectural investigations, integrated into the permanent collection of the Haus der elektronischen Künste (HeK), in Basel.

We are pleased that our work is recognized by innovative and risk taking curators (Sabine Himmelsbach, Boris Magrini), and become part of the museum's collection, along several others works (by Jodi, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Olia Lialina, Christina Kubisch, Zimoun, etc.)

It is also the first of our work whose certificate of authenticity has been issued by a blockchain! (datadroppers)

A second work - currently in production - will enter the collection in the spring of 2021, which will be documented at that time.

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Via Haus der elektronischen Künste 

By Sabine Himmelsbach

HeK Sammlung - Sabine Himmelsbach über fabric | ch from HeK on Vimeo.

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The video work is composed of four distinct videos, each showing a distinct but static view into a timelapse of the pavilion and its evolving light.

All four video must be displayed simultaneously by following minimal instructions.

Note:  the discussion about "Data Materialization" between Nathalie Kane (V&A Museum, London) and Patrick Keller (fabric | ch, ECAL / University of Art and Design Lausanne (HES-SO)), on the occasion of the ECAL Research Day, has been published on the dedicated website, along with other interesting talks.

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Via ECAL

Research Day 2019 Natalie D. Kane from ECAL on Vimeo.