Since 2012 Matt Gingold has been creating a series of ‘Orkestras’ that explore the relationship between technology, science and consumer culture. Filament Orkestra is the second of these works, and focuses on the ‘performance of knowledge’ in an age of complex, networked societies.
Where once there were official, or singular points of information – newspapers, encyclopaedias, libraries – we now proliferate data across many channels of communication – leading to both an increase in access, but also vastly varying degrees of certainty regarding the ‘fact’ or ‘fiction’ of any ‘one’ piece of information.
Along with the rise of machine learning, cybernetics and surveillance cultures, this has led to a situation in which individual and collective memory has arguably become a continuous performance of pattern recognition and distribution.
Where once we stored and retrieved a specific piece of knowledge, we – both humans and machines – now perform searches for activities, and identify patterns of information.
Filament Orkestra addresses this contemporary ‘performance of knowledge’ by constructing a machine that is interacting with itself – constantly viewing and re-performing it’s own data patterns.
Audiences are literally positioned in the shadows of the interconnected information exchange flickering before them – drawing awareness to ‘agency’ in the face of a system that possibly no longer needs them.
The use of familiar, semi-obsolete, raw and exposed electronics – kilometres of wire, magnetic relays, speakers and light globes – demonstrates the ease with which a simple system can quickly evolve into an enigma too complex for humans to understand or control.
Created by: Matthew Gingold gingold.com.au
Additional code/consultation: Josh Gardiner (physical computing).
Documentation by Matthew Gingold except interview material curtesy of PICA and Fionn Mulholland of Daxen Photography: vimeo.com/user14750255
The Filament Orkestra was commissioned by the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts for the Exhibition 'What I see When I Look at Sound' (2014).