Technium 16CH-V2 by Jochem Esser
During This Art Fair 2018 (December 27-30) in the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam Jochem Esser presented his work Technium 16CH-V2. Technium is a site-specific art installation. Within the installation Esser created plant-like structures, moving on electronic impulses. The installation combines references to our natural environment with an electronic system.
Esser's work arises from the urge of understanding thinks by taking them apart and reconstructing them. Because modern technology has a tendency towards ubiquity, it becomes harder to tell what is technological and what is not. What is an interface and what is the real world? In his work, he deconstructs and reconstructs devices, releasing them from their functional purpose and letting them just be what they are: arranged materials conducting a dynamic process. "What I aim for is to create an alienation from common devices and make their appearance visible in another context." These alterations are made by adding and erasing materials. until they find a new natural form.
Within this project Esser questions the behavior of objects and materials through manipulation with electronic systems. With Technium, Esser uses audio equipment to animate lifeless materials.Digital audio processing uses memory to set an arrangement of electric charges which go to a speaker. The speaker membrane functions like an artificial muscle which create movement by the every electronic charge. Although the materials move by an artificial process, does this make it less natural than a biological plant?
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