ReFunct Media #4
ReFunct Media is a multimedia installation that (re)uses numerous “obsolete” electronic devices (digital and analogue media players and receivers). These devices are hacked, misused and combined into a large and complex chain of elements. To use an ecological analogy they “interact” in different symbiotic relationships such as mutualism, parasitism and commensalism.
Voluntarily complex and unstable, “ReFunct Media” isn’t proposing answers to the questions raised by e-waste, planned obsolescence and sustainable design strategies. Rather, as an installation it experiments and explores unchallenged possibilities of ‘obsolete’ electronic and digital media technologies and our relationship with technologies and consumption.
Opening: Friday, 13.04.2012, 20:00
with Performances by TokTek (NL), Gijs Gieskes (NL)
Free Entry (or donate what you like)
Exhibition: 14.04.2012 - 4.05.2012
With works by
Benjamin Gaulon (IE/FR), Niklas Roy (DE), Karl Klomp (NL), Tom Verbruggen (NL), Gijs Gieskes (NL)
Monday-Saturday 12.00-1800
Location:
LEAP
– Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance
(Berlin Carré 1st floor)
Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13 10178 Berlin
ReFunct Media Facebook Event
Benjamin Gaulon is a researcher, artist and has a broad experience of acting as art consultant, public and conference speaker and art college lecturer. His work focuses on planned obsolescence, consumerism and disposable society. He has previously released work under the name “recyclism”. He is currently leading Data 2.0 (Dublin Art and Technology Association), he co-founded the IMOCA (Irish Museum of Contemporary Art) in 2007 and is lecturer at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.Since 2005 he has been leading workshops and giving lectures in Europe and US about e-waste and hardware Hacking / Recycling. Workshop participants explore the potential of obsolete technologies in a creative way and find new strategies for e-waste recycling. His research seeks to establish an inter-disciplinary practice and collaborations by creating bridges between art, science and activism, and by doing so, shifting the boundaries between art, engineering and sustainable strategy.
Niklas Roy, born 1974 in Nurnberg, lives in Berlin since 1999 where he initially
served as visual effects supervisor in the film industry and later studies
Visual Communication at the University of the arts. Since then he has worked
successfully as a freelance artist.The core of his work ranges from complex
mechanics refined over electronics to purely virtual computer code that manifest
themselves in objects, installations and performances.
Karl Klomp (aka MNK) (’79, NL) is a media artist, vj and theater technician. His
research focuses on live audiovisual expressions and interfacing with
a fascination for glitch-art, hyper kinetic audio visuals and glitch grabbing.
He deals with video circuit bending and hardware interfacing out of obsolete
video devices. Together with Tom Verbruggen they play live audio-
visual performances (TokTek vs mnk).
Tom Verbruggen (aka TokTek) is a Dutch artist who designs and deconstructs
his own electronic instruments, giving his music a unique character and
allowing him to improvise live on stage with the help of a joystick - the
central piece in his live equipment. Behind TokTek stands musician and
visual artist Tom Verbruggen, who aside from building his own instruments is
an improviser: synths, toys and computer become instruments.
His eclectic electronic style has been described as illogical hardware bending,
where the outcome creates dramatic live compositions, which break down into
delicate and tender sound momenhast dts.In one of his incarnations, he performs with
VJ MNK (Karl Klomp) - a video artist that hacks/bends video equipment like videomixers
Gijs Gieskes, an educated industrial designer, he now most enjoys re-appropriating
tools for new purposes, making inventive hardware projects; such as his Feedback
video log, Strobo VJ machine or PCB hand-painted circuit board. His work and
live performances are a fantastic example of where hardware hacking can take you.
More about the project (PDF)
