Art

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.