|
Susie Thomas’s installation unit 1Ubacterium is part of the collaborative project Island with Sweden based Roman Mitch. Island takes place simultaneously in Auckland and Malmo, Sweden, and deals with mediated relationships between people, spaces, objects and ideas.
Thomas’ installation unit 1Ubacterium uses conventional and somewhat museological methods of display; a light box, a projection, and framing of documents to conjure up a performance that takes place prior to the exhibition. So did we miss the show? Rolling code projected on the wall, like end credits, might suggest that we have. In fact what we are witnessing is a transcription of a conversation between two groups of Mycoplasma bacteria, generated by a program Thomas has created.
As specialised as this program’s output, the light box in the corner of the room displays the Java, or language of the program. To the right framed licenses of it’s algorithm are for sale. But is it the general ability to interpret the bacteria’s communication or Thomas’s interpretation that is for sale? Is meaning the commodity?
In the next room we find Thomas’ response to a set of ink-jet printed drawings sent from Sweden. Like Mitch, Thomas’ word works printed on A4 sheets of paper have been created from another work in the show. Extracted from the ‘rolling text’, they seem to be the bacteria’s equivalent to sentences.
In the same way that language is manipulated to alter function, these single lines of code have been re-contextualized here to re-invent the bacteria’s dialogue. Fragmented in this fashion, they may seem to communicate little or nothing at all.
Or is this an attempt to speak ‘bacteria’?
Lastly we see a print out of a file sent to Thomas by Mitch. While downloading the file, the intended message and drawings became corrupt. This translation of Mitch’s work, now undecipherable as his drawings, is an intervention of the digital kind. While this clearly demonstrates the accidental at play, pined to the wall it is also a testimony to the mediated exchanges of the first installment of the overall Island project.
(Roman Mitch's drawings) Corrupted file from Sweden.jpg |
close up corrupted fil |
code output sample |
Inter-bacterial communication algorithm license |
licenses for sale |
lightbox |
program output |
ubactterium java |
|
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)