fabric | rblg

Note: Paik Replayed: Non-Digital Art Transformed by Hybrid Exhibition Practicies has just been published in the academic and peer-reviewed journal Kunstlicht, a research publication for art, visual culture, and architecture, edited and published by the Arts and Culture department at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Paik Replayed  is a SNSF funded research, led by Patrick Keller, with fabric | ch and the Nam June Paik Art Center (prototype) as field partners, and hosted at ECAL / University of Art and Design, Lausanne (HES-SO).

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By paikreplayed.org (on Instagram)

 

 

 

 

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Note: the new project Atomized/Retroffited Functioning by fabric | ch has been selected for La Biennale di Venezia / 19th International Architecture Exhibition (2025), curated by C. Ratti.

The piece is currently on display in the Corderie (main exhibition space of the Arsenale, Venice) and will stay exhibited until the 23rd of November 2025 (10.05 – 23.11.2025).

The project present a live iteration of the ongoing Atomized (*) series of work, at this occasion within a fictional space that gather dynamic planetary conditions, in the form of environmental data coming from meteo stations across the globe.

This is a series of radical algorithmic experiments that fabric | ch discreetly initiated in 2014 with a publication—Desierto #3, 28°C—, and an experimental project—Reponsive Atmospheric Patios—on “spatial and environmental intelligence”: real-time environmental data feeds into the automated and continuous assembly of previously “atomized” elements of architectural functions (as well as a diverse set of “atoms” of use/misuse/non-use of space). The results help us to study renewed and evolving assemblies for our changing planet.

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The whole project, its genealogy, and the current live feed are presented on https://www.fabric.ch/Atomized/

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By fabric | ch

The "Pulsar Map" (Peirce quincuncial projection), or live environmental data coming from the selected planetary and historical setllements locations: Venice (IT), Athens (GR), Uruk (IR), Tokyo (JP), Vancouver (CA), Chicago (US), Manchester (EN), Brasilia (BR), North Pole (-). These live data help us build a fictional and planetary live space, to be investigated by Atomized/Retrofitted Functioning. 

Atomized/Retrofitted Functioning

Loosely inspired by particle physics experiments, where collisions reveal fundamental forces, the project explores new spatial paradigms by rethinking past functional assemblies. It parallels retrofitting, adapting spatial configurations to evolving climates and digital realities rather than following fixed models.

Drawing at the same time on vernacular architecture, which historically responded to local climates through material intelligence (notably the work of Professors F. Aubry at EPFL, and B. Rodofsky at Cooper Union, as well as Philippe Rahm’s contemporary interpretation), the project extends this logic into computational realms. It examines the patterns and phasing effects of contemporary space between material and non-material milieux.

The project takes form as an abstract and speculative habitable volume, where environmental data from key locations in human habitation evolution generate shifting conditions—day and night, hot and cold, urban and desert—coexisting in one space. This approach enables simulations of future climatic conditions, while using real-time data from 2025 during the Venice Biennale.

Presented as a video screencast of an application running live on a server in fabric | ch's studio, driven by machine learning, the project autonomously generates spatial scenarios that stabilize twice a day. These can be downloaded in parallel as an immersive, walkable AR/VR experience.

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Then, tendencies can be drawn: what is the average presence of a certain type of content (functional, non-functional) over 3 or 6 months (from May to November 2025), for instance, or also only during Venetian nights? During Spring or Summer, etc.? Incoming climate behaviour could also be extrapolated from scientific forecasts: what will the climate be like in 2050? And in 2100? Or conversely, what was it like in 1972, for instance (the year The Limits to Growth was published, which was a clear first warning—even if imperfect—of what was to come if “growth” remained unchecked)?

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And then, from a haze of potential space use, and non-use, opened and closed volumes can be drawn. None of them being entirely suitable, frozen shapes framing freely evolving conditions. 

Images from the project Responsive Atmospheric Patios – extended experiments (fabric | ch, 2016).

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Atomized/Retrofitted Functioning is presented in a standardized way by the curatorial team, with the screencast video of the application running on the servers of fabric | ch. It is installed in the Artificiale section of the Biennale, next to the iconic–and somehow problematic–Seek project (1969–1070), by Nicolas Negroponte and Leon Groisser at the MIT Architecture Machine Group. Next to Architecture as a Living System, by John and Julia Frazer—as part of Cedric Price's Generator project (1976–79), but also of more contemporary (post-)critical takes on "computing" and "cybernetics" through the work of Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (Calculating Empires, 2022), and others.

Atomized/Retrofitted Functioning in the Corderie building, at Biennale Architettura 2025.19th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice 10.05 – 23.11.2025.

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The project can also be "followed" during the Biennale, at this address: https://www.fabric.ch/Atomized/ , in live streaming during Biennale opening hours.

The whole genealogy of the research and its previous iterations are also accessible at the same location.

Note: Patrick Keller was part of the trip to Seoul (for both fabric | ch and ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne) to present the early results of the SNSF funded research Paik Replayed during the international conference ISEA 2025.

This was a week of talks, debates, panels, sounds, exhibitions, Nam June Paik and many more. 

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By paikreplayed.org (on Instagram)

 

 

 

 

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Note: fabric | ch is part of the exhibition Summoning the Ghosts of Modernity at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin (MAMM), in Colombia.

The show constitutes a continuation of Beyond Matter that took place at the ZKM in 2022/23, and is curated by Lívia Nolasco-Rószás and Esteban Guttiérez Jiménez. 

The exhibition will be open between the 13th of March and 15th of June 2025.

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By fabric | ch

Atomized (re-)Staging (2022), by fabric | ch. Exhibited during Summing the Ghosts of Modernity at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin (MAMM). March 13 to June 15 2025.

More pictures of the exhibtion on Pixelfed. 

Note: fabric | ch has been selected to be part of the next Venice Biennial of Architecture 2025, starting in May '25.

While we cannot display much of the project engaged for now, these (below) are preliminary studies for what was planned first as a large media/data arrchitecture installation, inspired by previous works (notably Atomized Functioning). It will likely become a more standard presentation of the project driven by the curator's team, in the "Artificiale Canon" part of the exhibition.

Nonetheless, fabric | ch will take part in the Biennale Architettura 2025, alos known as the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

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By fabric | ch

Atomited/Retrofitted Functiong (early draft as large media/data architecture installation, 2025)

 Atomized Functioning & Atmospheric Patios extended study (2018, 2016)

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 09.2023), via all its tags!

FIND BELOW ALL THE TAGS THAT CAN BE USED TO NAVIGATE IN THE CONTENTS OF | 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've never made any money or advertised 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: 2017 was very busy (the reason why I wasn't able to post much on | rblg...), and the start of 2018 happens to be the same. Fortunately and unfortunatly!

I hope things will calm down a bit next Spring, but in the meantime, we're setting up an exhibition with fabric | ch. A selection of works retracing 20 years of activities, which purpose will be also to serve in the perspective of a photo shooting for a forthcoming book.

The event will take place in a disuse factory (yet a historical monument from the 2nd industrial era), near Lausanne.

If you are around, do not hesitate to knock at the door!

By fabric | ch

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Environmental Devices · Projets & expérimentations (1997-2017)

Image: Daniela & Tonatiuh.

During a few days, in the context of the preparation of a book, a selection of works retracing 20 years of activities of fabric | ch will be on display in a disused factory close to Lausanne.
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Information: http://www.fabric.ch/xx/
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Opening on February 9, 5.00-11.00pm
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Visiting hours:
Saturday - Sunday 10-11.02, 4.00-8.00pm
Wednesday 14.02, 5.00-8.00pm
Friday-Saturday 16-17.02, 5.00-8.00pm.
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Or by appointment: 021.3511021
Guided tours at 6.00pm

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Pendant quelques jours et dans le contexte de la création d'un livre monographique, accrochage d'une sélection de travaux retraçant 20 ans d'activités de fabric | ch.
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Informations: http://www.fabric.ch/xx
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Vernissage le 9 février, 17h-23h
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Heures de visite:
Samedi - dimanche 10-11.02, 16h-20h
Mercredi 14.02, 17h-20h
Vendredi-samedi 16-17.02, 17h-20h00
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Ou sur rendez-vous: 021.3511021
Visites commentées à 18h.

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Event on Facebook.

Note: the following happened to be a quite fascinating and "spontaneous" collaborative experience recently held in 2d, pixel by pixel as the main expression tool, on Reddit.

It has certrainly the formal flavour of the online community (-ies) the project was first dedicated to ("dick" stuff, fantaisy or game characters, ...). But nonetheless, how much (almost spatial/ "places") "stories" can happen inside a blank online shared 2d space, with 16 colors and pixels, during 72 hours, is quite astonishing.

The project was called Place.

Terminologies used in the post below could certainly be refined and we could also wonder why (kind of sad) the process ends up into so many national flags (when it comes to collaborative design, a flag is certainly something so simple to communicate to many and co-create, due to its basic shapes and identifiable design rules, that it might be a reason - if not the reason - for the large amount of them that are present at the end of the experience (beside the copycat effect) - or why are these what we see at first glance? But that's not the main point about the whole experience.

As a matter of fact, it is undoubtedly a reminiscence and a much more interesting version of this "Million Dollar Homepage"  by Alex Tew, on a 1000 x 1000 pixel grid, dating back 2005.

Via & by Sudoscript

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Last weekend, a fascinating act in the history of humanity played out on Reddit.

For April Fool's Day, Reddit launched a little experiment. It gave its users, who are all anonymous, a blank canvas called Place. The rules were simple. Each user could choose one pixel from 16 colors to place anywhere on the canvas. They could place as many pixels of as many colors as they wanted, but they had to wait a few minutes between placing each one. Over the following 72 hours, what emerged was nothing short of miraculous. A collaborative artwork that shocked even its inventors.

From a single blank canvas, a couple simple rules and no plan, came this:

Each pixel you see was placed by hand. Each icon, each flag, each meme created painstakingly by millions of people who had nothing in common except an Internet connection. Somehow, someway, what happened in Reddit over those 72 hours was the birth of Art.

How did this happen?

While I followed Place closely, I cannot do justice to the story behind it in the few words here. There were countless dramas -- countless ideas, and fights, and battles, and wars -- that I don't even know about. They happened in small forums and private Discord chats, with too much happening at once, all the time, to keep track of everything. And, of course, I had to sleep.

But at its core, the story of Place is an eternal story, about the three forces that humanity needs to make art, creation, and technology possible.

The Creators

First came "the Creators". They were the artists to whom the blank canvas was an irresistible opportunity.

When Place was launched, with no warning, the first users started placing pixels willy-nilly, just to see what they could do. Within minutes, the first sketches appeared on Place. Crude and immature, they resembled cavemen paintings, the work of artists just stretching their wings.

Even from that humble beginning, the Creators quickly saw that the pixels held power, and lots of potential. But working alone, they could only place one pixel every 5 or 10 minutes. Making anything more meaningful would take forever -- if someone didn't mess up their work as they were doing it. To make something bigger, they would have to work together.

That's when someone hit on the brilliant notion of a gridmap. They took a simple idea -- a drawing overlaid on a grid, that showed where each of the pixels should go -- and combined it with an image that resonated with the adolescent humor of Redditors. They proposed drawing Dickbutt.

The Placetions (denizens of r/place) quickly got to work. It didn't take long -- Dickbutt materialized within minutes in the lower left part of the canvas. The Place had its first collaborative Art.

But Creators didn't stop there. They added more appendages to the creature, they added colors, and then they attempted to metamorphize their creation into Dickbutterfly. Behind its silliness was the hint of a creative tsunami about to come.

But it didn't happen all at once. Creators started to get a little drunk on their power. Across the canvas from Dickbutt, a small Charmander came to life. But once the Pokemon character was brought to life, it started growing a large male member where once had been a leg. Then came two more.

This was not by design. Some Creators frantically tried to remove the offending additions, putting out calls to "purify" the art, but others kept the additions going.

Suddenly, it looked like Place would be a short-lived experiment that took the path of least surprise. Left to their own devices, Creators threatened to turn the Place into a phallic fantasy. Of course.

The problem was less one of immaturity, and more of the fundamental complexity of the creative process. What the Creators were starting to face was something that would become the defining theme of Place: too much freedom leads to chaos. Creativity needs constraint as much as it needs freedom.

When anyone could put any pixel anywhere, how does it not lead immediately to mayhem?

The Protectors

Another set of users emerged, who would soon address this very problem.

But like the primitive Creators, they weren't yet self-aware of their purpose on the great white canvas. Instead, they began by simplifying the experiment into a single goal: world conquest.

They formed Factions around colors, that they used to take over the Place with. The Blue Corner was among the first, and by far the largest. It began in the bottom right corner and spread like a plague. Its followers self-identified with the color, claiming that its manifest destiny was to take over Place. Pixel by pixel, they started turning it into reality, in a mad land grab over the wide open space.

The Blue Corner wasn't alone. Another group started a Red Corner on the other side of the canvas. Their users claimed a leftist political leaning. Yet another started the Green Lattice, which went for a polka-dot design with interspersing green pixels and white. They championed their superior efficiency, since they only had to color half as many pixels as the other Factions.

It wasn't long before the Factions ran head-on into the Creators. Charmander was among the first battle sites. As the Blue Corner began to overwrite the Pokemon with blue pixels, the Creators turned from their internecine phallic wars to the bigger threat now on their doorstep.

They fought back, replacing each blue pixel with their own. But the numbers were against them. With its single-minded focus on expansion, the Blue Corner commanded a much larger army than the Creators could muster. So they did the only thing they could do. They pled for their lives.

Somehow, it struck a chord. It ignited a debate within the Blue Corner. What was their role in relation to Art? A member asked: "As our tide inevitably covers the world from edge to edge, should we show mercy to other art we come across?"

This was a question each Faction faced in turn. With all the power given to them by their expansionary zeal, what were they to do about the art that stood in their path?

They all decided to save it. One by one, each of the Factions began flowing around the artwork, rather than through them.

Rebel against Bluegoisie all you want, but let's make one thing clear: THESE THREE ARE OFF ABSOLUTELY OFF LIMITS. THEY ARE NOT TO BE HARMED. from place

This was a turning point. The mindless Factions had turned into beneficent Protectors

Still No Happy Ending

Finally at peace with the ravenous color horde, the Creators turned back to their creations. They started making them more complex, adding one element after another.

They started using 3-pixel fonts to write text. A Star Wars prequel meme that had been sputtering along took a more defined shape, becoming one of the most prominent pieces of art in Place.

Others formed Creator collectives around common projects. Organizing in smaller subreddits that they created just for this purpose, they planned strategies and shared templates.

One of the most successful was a group that added a Windows 95-esque taskbar along the bottom, replete with Start button in the corner.

Another were a block of hearts. They started with only a few, mimicking hearts of life in old bitmap video games, like Zelda, before their collective took off with the idea. By the end they stretched across half the canvas, in a dazzling array of flags and designs.

And of course, there was Van Gogh.

But not all was well. The Protectors who they had once welcomed with relief had become tyrants dictating fashion. They decided what could and couldn't be made. It wasn't long before Creators started chafing under their rule.

Meanwhile, with the issue of artwork resolved, the Factions had turned their sights on each other, forcing followers to choose sides in epic battles. They had little time to pay attention to the pathetic pleas of Creators who wanted approval for ideas of new art.

The fights between the Protectors got nasty. A Twitch live-streamer exhorted his followers to attack the Blue Corner with Purple. There were battle plans. There were appeals to emotion. There were even false-flag attacks, where the followers of one color placed pixels of the opposing side inside their own, just so they could cry foul and attack in return.

But the biggest problem of all was one of the only hard rules of Place -- it couldn't grow. With the Factions engaged in a massive battle among themselves, the Creators started realizing there wasn't space to make new Art.

Country flags had started emerging pretty much from the beginning. But as they grew and grew, they started bumping into each other.

Out in the unclaimed territory of the middle of the canvas, with no Protector to mediate between them, Germany and France engaged in an epic battle that sent shockwaves through Place.

Suddenly, a world that had been saved from its primitive beginnings looked like it would succumb to war. There were frantic attempts at diplomacy between all sides. Leaders form the Protectors and the Creators and met each other in chat rooms, but mostly they just pointed fingers at each other.

What Place needed was a villain that everyone could agree upon.

The Destroyers

Enter the Void.

They started on 4chan, Reddit's mangled, red-headed step-brother. It wasn't long before the pranksters on the Internet's most notorious imageboard took notice of what was happening on Reddit. It was too good an opportunity for them to pass up. And so they turned to the color closest to their heart -- black. They became the Void.

Like a tear spreading slowly across the canvas, black pixels started emerging near the center of Place.

At first, other Factions tried to form an alliance with them, foolishly assuming that diplomacy would work. But they failed, because the Void was different.

The Void was no Protector. Unlike the Factions, it professed no loyalty to Art. Followers of the Void championed its destructive egalitarianism, chanting only that "the Void will consume." They took no sides. They only wanted to paint the world black.

This was exactly the kick in the ass that Place needed. While Creators had been busy fighting each other, and Protectors still measured themselves by the extent of canvas they controlled, a new threat -- a real threat -- had emerged under their nose.

Against the face of extinction, they banded together to fight the Void and save their Art.

But the Void was not easy to vanquish, because the Place needed it. It needed destruction so that new Art, better Art, would emerge from the ashes. Without the Void, there was no force to clean up the old Art.

I used to hate the Void but watching the time-lapses I see they're a vital part of the r/place ecosystem. Like a forest fire making way for new life. from place

And yet, this was exactly what Place needed. By destroying art, the Void forced Placetions to come up with something better. They knew they could overcome the sourge. They just needed an idea good enough, with enough momentum and enough followers, to beat the black monster.

That idea was the American flag.

In the last day of Place, a most unlikely coalition came together to beat back the Void, once and for all.

They were people who otherwise tear each other apart every day -- Trump supporters and Trump resisters, Democrats and Republicans, Americans and Europeans. And here they were coming together to build something together, on a little corner of the Internet, proving in an age when such cooperation seems impossible, that they still can.

The Ancients Were Right

Reddit's experiment ended soon after. There are so many more stories hidden deep in the dozens of subreddits and chat rooms that cropped up around Place. For every piece of artwork I mentioned, there are hundreds more on the final canvas. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that on an anonymous, no-holds-barred space on the Internet, there were no hate or racist symbols at all on the final canvas.

It is a beautiful circle of art, life and death. And it isn't the first time in our history that we've seen it.

Many millenia before Place, when humanity itself was still in its infancy (the real one, not the one on Reddit), Hindu philosophers theorized that the Heavens were made of three competing, but necessary, deities that they called the Trimurti. They were Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Protector, and Shiva the Destroyer.

Without any single one of them, the Universe would not work. For there to be light, there needed to be dark. For there to be life, there needed to be death. For there to be creation and art, there needed to be destruction.

Over the last few days, their vision proved prescient. In the most uncanny way, Reddit proved that human creation requires all three.

The Final Canvas

Related Links:

Note: I'll be pleased to be in Paris next Friday and Saturday (02-03.12) at the Centre Culturel Suisse and in the company of an excellent line up (!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Nicolas Nova, Yves Citton, Tobias Revell & Nathalie Kane, Rybn, Joël Vacheron and many others) for the conference and event "Bot Like Me" curated by Sophie Lamparter and Luc Meier.

I'll present with Nicolas Nova the almost final state of our joint research project Inhabiting & Interfacing the Cloud(s).

Via Centre Culturel Suisse

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Du vendredi 2 au samedi 3 décembre 2016

 

Bot Like Me
interventions en anglais

 

A l’occasion de l’exposition de !MedienGruppe Bitnik, et avec la complicité du duo d’artistes zurichois, Sophie Lamparter (directrice associée de swissnex San Francisco) et Luc Meier (directeur des contenus de l’EPFL ArtLab, Lausanne) ont concocté pour le CCS un événement de deux jours composé de conférences, tables rondes et concerts, réunissant scientifiques, artistes, écrivains, journalistes et musiciens pour examiner les dynamiques tourmentées des liens homme-machine. Conçues comme une plateforme d’échange à configuration souple, ces soirées interrogeront nos rapports complexes, à la fois familiers et malaisés, avec les bots qui se multiplient dans nos environnements ultra-connectés.

 

 

Vendredi 2 décembre / dès 19h30

 

conférence, 19h30-21h : Bot Like Me kick-off

avec Rolf Pfeifer (AI Lab de l’Université de Zurich / Osaka University), Carmen Weisskopf et Domagoj Smoljo ( !Mediengruppe Bitnik). Modération : Luc Meier et Sophie Lamparter

 

performance musicale live, 21h30 : Not Waving

 

 

Samedi 3 décembre / dès 14h30

 

tables rondes

 

-14h30-16h : Data Manifestos

avec Hannes Grassegger (auteur de Das Kapital bin ich), Hannes Gassert (Open Knowledge Network) et le collectif RYBN. Modération : Sophie Lamparter et Luc Meier

 

-16h30-18h : Cloud Labor, Petty Bot Jobs

avec Nicolas Nova (HEAD-Genève, Near Future Laboratory), Yves Citton (Université de Grenoble) et Patrick Keller (ECAL, fabric | ch). Modération : Marie Lechner

 

-18h30-20h : Botocene & Algoghosts

avec Tobias Revell et Natalie Kane (Haunted Machines), Gwenola Wagon et Jeff Guess (artistes). Modération : Joël Vacheron et Nicolas Nova

 

concert 21h : performance live de Low Jack et carte blanche au label Antinote

Note: I mentioned last Tuesday an article I wrote last November (2015) on the blog of a research project (Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s)) that develop around the thematic of the "sublime" and its relation to contemporary technology.

In particular, in the frame of this research project, as a source of critical inspiration for a workshop we were preparing to lead with students at that time (critical because "magic" in the context of technology means what it means: tricked and not understanding, therefore believing or "stupefied").

For the matter of documentation, I reblog this post as well on | rblg as it brings different ideas about the "sublime" related to data or data centers,  creation and contemporary technology in general.

It may be a bit hard to follow without the initial context (a brief by the invited guests, Random International and the general objectives of the project), but this context can be accessed from within the post -below-, for the ones interested to digg deeper.

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As a matter of fact, this whole topic make me also think of the film The Prestige by Christopher Nolan. In which the figure of Nikola Tesla (played by "The Man Who Fell to Earth himself, a.k.a. David Bowie) is depicted as a character very close to a magician, his inventions with electricity being understood at the margin between sciences and magic.

Via IIClouds - Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s)

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By Patrick Keller

Following the publication of Dev Joshi‘s brief on I&IC documentary blog yesterday (note: 10.11.2015), I took today the opportunity to briefly introduce it to the interaction design students that will be involved in the workshop next week. Especially, I focused on some points of the brief that were important but possibly quite new concepts for them. I also extended some implicit ideas with images that could obviously bring ideas about devices to build to access some past data, or “shadows” as Dev’s names them.

What comes out in a very interesting way for our research in Dev’s brief is the idea that the data footprints each of us leaves online on a daily basis (while using all type of digital services) could be considered as past entities of ourselves, or trapped, forgotten, hidden, … (online) fragments of our personalities… waiting to be contacted again.

How many different versions of you are there in the cloud? If they could speak, what would they say?

Yet, interestingly, if the term “digital footprint” is generally used in English to depict this situation (the data traces each of us leaves behind), we rather use in French the term “ombre numérique”  (literally “digital shadow”). That’s why we’ve decided with Dev that it was preferable to use this term as the title for the workshop (The Everlasting Shadows): it is somehow a more vivid expression that could bring quite direct ideas when it comes to think about designing “devices” to “contact” these “digital entities” or make them visible again in some ways.

Philippe Ramette, “L’ombre de celui que j’étais / Shadow of my former self “, 2007. Light installation, mixed media.

By extension, we could also start to speak about “digital ghosts” as this expression is also commonly used (not to mention the “corps sans organes” of G. Deleuze/F. Gattari and previously A. Artaud). Many “ghosts”/facets of ourselves? All trapped online in the form of zombie data?

Your digital ghosts are trapped on islands around the cloud – is there a way to rescue them? Maybe they just need a shelter to live in now that you have moved on?

… or a haunted house?

And this again is a revealing parallel, because it opens the whole conceptual idea to beliefs… (about ghosts? about personal traces and shadows? about clouds? and finally, about technology? …)

What about then to work with inspirations that would come from the spiritualism domain, its rich iconography and produce “devices” to communicate with your dead past data entities?

Fritz Lang. “Dr. Mabuse,  the Gambler”, movie, 1922.

Or even start to think about some kind of “wearables”, and then become a new type of fraud technological data psychic?

Fraud medium Colin Evans in levitation, 13 June 1938 (source Wikipedia).

We could even digg deeper into these “beliefs” and start looking at old illustrations and engravings that depicts relations to “things that we don’t understand”, that are “beyond our understanding”… and that possibly show “tools” or strange machinery to observe or communicate with these “unknown things” (while trying to understand them)?

Spiritualism in 1855, author unknown.

J.G. Heck. A plate from “The Iconographic Encyclopedia of Science, Literature and Art” published in 1851. Astronomy tools.

This last illustration could also drive us, by extension and a very straight shortcut , to the idea of the Sublime (in art, but also in philosophy), especially the romantic works of the painters from that period (late 18th and early 19th centuries, among them W. Turner, C. S. Friedrich, E. Delacroix, T. Cole, etc.)

Submerged by the presentiment of a nature that was in all dimensions dominating humans, that remained at that time mostly unexplained and mysterious, if not dangerous and feared, some painters took on this feeling, named “sublime” after Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry (1757), and start painting dramatic scenes of humans facing the forces of nature.

Thomas Cole, “The Voyage of Life: Old Age”, 1842. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

It is not by chance of course that I’ll end my “esoteric comments about the brief” post with this idea of the Sublime. This is because recently, the concept found a new life in regard to technology and its central yet “unexplained, mysterious, if not dangerous and feared” role in our contemporary society. The term got completed at this occasion to become the “Technological Sublime”, thus implicitly comparing the once dominant and “beyond our understanding” Nature to our contemporary technology.

“American Technological Sublime” by D. E. Nye, published in 1994 (MIT Press) was certainly one of the first book to join the two terms. It continues the exploration of the social construction of technology initiated in his previous book, “Electrifying America” (MIT Press, 1990). More recently in 2011, the idea popup again on the blog of Next Nature in an article simply entitled The Technological Sublime.

So, to complete my post with a last question, is the Cloud, that everybody uses but nobody seems to understand, a technologically sublime artifact? Wouldn’ it be ironic that an infrastructure, which aim is to be absolutely rational and functional, ultimately contributes to creates a completely opposite feeling?

Quotes are from Dev Joshi’s brief, “The Everlasting Shadow“.