Livecam installation
commissioned by Pax Art Awards 2020
for the exhibition "Swiss Media Art - Pax Art Awards", 2021, at HEK House of Electronic Arts, Basel (ch)
11 upright set elements, 40cm to 270cm (h) x 100 cm (w) x 40cm (d), aluminum, inkjet print on paper, MDF stands
ramp 500cm x 100cm (w/d) and stool 50cm x 50cm x 50cm, MDF, sheepskin
backdrop wall painted as greenscreen
crate with 27" LCD screen, 41cm x 79cm x 61cm (h/w/d), wood (ammunition box), paper label
Laptop PC and HD webcam, custom button interface
live broadcast software, custom programmed software interface
The installation Palace for an Entity of Unknown Status is a fictional reconstruction of an archaic shrine for an AI, which is a central part of the Wolfskind Project. It is asserted that the box contains a computer with an unfinished, slightly autistic AI core that was lost from the FOWDIB Putumayo Center in Amazonia in 1974. (For more information, see the Wolfskind Project page.)
Visitors sit on the stool and look at the screen in the crate. They see themselves transposed in the computer generated rainforest scenery.
By pressing the button the program issues a seemingly meaningless instruction on the screen – virtually a communication offer from the AI. The sentences are random generated by the program for each visitor individually from a minimal language database; they work like oracle sayings that can be read by the involved visitor as meaningful instructions for a better life.