2014.01.25

 

A / V performance by

HELENA Lingor & JENNY Graf Sheppard

 

LingorGräf is a brand new collaboration between Helena Lingor and Jenny Gräf Sheppard that aims at the sonification of unheard phenomena in the realms of the postdigital.

QUESTIONS we aim to explore within LingorGräf: How can abstract information be folded back into the physical, analogue sensorial realm we also inhabit? How can we make visible which is available as information, but not yet perceived in a somatic sense. How can various data sets be used as poetry to enliven or animate sound sources? Data sets of different kinds, such as word bases or geodata, are used to model sonic events. These data sets, normally stale, statistical will come to life via spatial and sonic translation with this series of pieces by LingorGräf emphasizing the presence of the human body within the realms of the digital virtual.

 

LINGORGRÄF #000 COMPUTER-MEDIATED OCCULTATION starts in the black void.

Will it be possible to catch the numbers’ anima and unleash the ghost in the machine?

 

The “Corpus of Contemporary American English” from Brigham University, a database of around 450 million words was used for this performance to extract a list of superspecialized words and sonify their attributes (their frequency of appearance in categorized media, its spread and dispersion across different scientific fields etc.).

#000 – the hexadecimal code of the color black – also ponders the implications of hermetic expertise (the “self- generated darkness of the sciences” as sociologist Niklas Luhmann put it), just as a religious belief in the power of numerical truth and statistics. The composite word “computer-mediated occultation” is a true foundry – resulting from a certain way to sort the word list.

 

This piece is neither an installation nor a performance. It is a score for sound and action for all those present. Your participation animates the piece, imbuing it with meaning and content. By entering this space you become part of the piece, and a component of the dynamic of sonic, motion and psychic elements. You are the consciousness of the piece. The creators of this score, Lingor and Gräf acknowledge and appreciate your presence and participation. We also welcome your feedback as this is an ongoing collaboration that will contain several iterations.

 

Helena Lingor is an artist and coder. She also conceived and built www.tbaberlin.de – a platform for technology based art in Berlin. Jenny Gräf Sheppard is a multimedia artist, musician, film-maker with a background in anthropology and related social sciences. She was an artist in residence at Liebig12 in August 2013. More under: www.jennygrafsheppard.com