»The Wishful Matrix«

Interactive installation

450 letters made of acrylic glass and aluminium, two video projectors, 2 computers, 2 monitors, keyboard, webcam

Width 8 meters, depth 5 meters, hight 2 meters

Mapping Festival, Geneva, Switzerland

http://mappingfestival.ch

Bâtiment d’art contemporain (BAC)

28 rue des Bains, 1205 Geneva

19th until 29th of May 2011

Programming and graphic design: Georg Nagel and Nina Martens (a.k.a. stereomorph.net)

Die Installation war verlinkt und verschaltet mit den Installationen »You&Me-isms / Part I« im ZKM Karlsruhe und mit »The Nixie Mixie Matrix« in der Ausstellung Paranoïa in Lille, Frankreich zwischen dem 19.5. und 29.5.2011. Botschaften der User, die per SMS oder twitter an das System sendeten, wurden zwischen den drei künstlerischen Matrix-Systemen ausgetauscht.

The Installation was linked to and interconnected with the installations »You&Me-isms / Part I« at the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (ZKM), Germany and the »The Nixie Mixie Matrix« at Paranoïa in Lille, France from the 19th of May until the 29th of May 2011.
User messages were exchanged, processed and displayed between the three artistic matrix systems via sms and twitter.

A cluster accumulation of typefaces from fragmented advertizings becomes raw material for new information and communication: It turns into a character set for messages that visitors as users can enter via SMS.

Up to 160 characters can be displayed in the installation character by character. For a moment the messages of users are incorporating the "bodies" of the corporate typefaces. Or are the brandings actually incorporating the user messages, because they are finally "providing" the character set? Is it a subversiv moment of "resistance" in the semantic heart of capitalism or a showdown to the advantage of the brandings? Is it the aporia of "resistance"? Do we even consum our own resistance that turns into a fashionable gesture in a cool "set design"? Anyway, the user-messages »reshape« the character set into a moving and context shifting information sculpture for a moment and virtually and literally the character-signs as brandings become a projection of themselves back on themselves. And there are strange and unpredictable things going on in »The Wishful Matrix«. The messages and processes are documented on the project's website (click on Mapping Festival Geneva) and will be observable via webcam. If one clicks on a message, a simulation of the writing process in the matrix is been played.

Morpheus: "What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this". Neo: "No, I don't believe it. It's not possible." (...) The Oracle: "Oh, don't worry about it. As soon as you step outside that door, you'll start feeling better. You'll remember you don't believe in any of this fate crap. You're in control of your own life, remember?" »The Wishful Matrix« appears at the scene inside the users brain and asks: "Can you really be shure about that?"