Symbolic Grounding
“An artistic exploration into the world of analog computation and analog pattern generation, a world that is governed by self-organization, emergence, chaos and pattern formation. Randomness comes for free in this world and is integrated into any process. The artists use the unpredictable as raw material framed into stable emergent patterns. These patterns are oscillations that are made audible and visualized by tracing temporal activations. In this laboratory, the artists not only work with strange attractors but also with strange sounds and visuals that are highly autonomous and out of control, but open to modulation. Analog computation is characterized by an openness towards subtle changes. For example, historical analog computers might compute different results at different temperatures. While in technological applications this was seen as a drawback, from an artistic point of view this renders analog computation extremely interesting, because it exactly allows autonomous processes to be modulated and played with. These are modulatory networks of analog circuits that will produce an ever-changing ensemble of oscillations.”
Christian Faubel
In his work, he is interested in what enables autonomous behavior and how complex autonomous behavior may result from the interaction of very simple units and from the dynamics of interaction between such units. In his artworks and performances, he tries to convey insights about theoretical concepts such as emergency or embodiment along an aesthetic dimension. He considers his artworks, workshops and performances to be in the tradition of philosophical toys as they combine the mediation of scientific concepts with pleasure and amusement.
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 analog and digital media and focusses on both their contradiction and their correlation. Thus he is also specialized in re-appropriated and re-purposed electronic technologies. He teaches at the Professional Association of Visual Artists in Berlin (BBK-Berlin) and is associated lecturer at the University of Paderborn, Department of media studies as well as at the University of Oldenburg, Department of art and visual culture.