Order+Noise (Interface I) negotiates the boundary between two interacting systems. Motors, strings and elastic bands are set in motion by the random signals of Geiger-Müller tubes which pick up the natural ambient radiation of the earth. The installation explores the interface at which these elements influence one another, to reproduce space and time in constantly shifting configurations.

Baecker has often emphasized the material substrate of computing machines and media technologies. Here, what underlines the aesthetic experience is the materiality by which action produces knowledge, transforming data space into real space. As observers take in the rules, operations and parameters of the work, they gain insight into their perception. The installation’s mechanical workings and network of strings allow us to explore the poetic potential of technology via its materiality, so that Interface I sits on the boundary between an imaginary field and an epistemological condition.

Research and experiments essential to the realization of this exhibition were carried out within the framework of Baecker’s research project Time of Non-Reality.
Ralf Baecker is an artist with a background in computer science. His focus is on the fundamental structures and conditions of our digital world. In his works he addresses the material scope of technology and its cultural construction. His systems seek to expose the relation between thinking and the world, thus turning his machines into epistemological objects rather than just tools.

Ralf Baecker’s work has received several awards including an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica, Linz, second prize at the VIDA 14.0 Art & Artificial Life Award, Madrid, and a stipend from the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art Oldenburg in 2012. His work has been exhibited at the International Triennial of New Media Art in Beijing (China), Malmö Konsthall (Sweden), Künstlerhaus Wien (Austria), Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin (Germany), Center for Contemporary Art WINZAVOD Moscow (Russia), and Laboral Centro de Arte Gijon (Spain). Ralf Baecker is currently a fellow at the Graduate School at the University of the Arts Berlin.

Opening: 22 April 2016, 6pm

Installation shots gallery