Transmediale 2014: Exhibitions, performance and much more

written by Mattia Bernini on February 7, 2014

Alongside the extensive number of talks, panels, discussions and keynotes Transmediale 2014 included a comprehensive exhibition program in response to the Afterglow.

Critical Infrastructure by Jamie Allen and David Gauthier, is a media-tech landscape sculpture spread across the Haus der Kulturen.

This, practically translates in a lot of high definition sensor and tracker located everywhere in the venue. The extensive and pervasive gathering of piles of data about Transmediale, practically demonstrate the volume of biometric information available at any given moment. The data are then projected in different key spots. Connections and nightmares about NSA and GCHQ naturally spring up.

Art Hack Day Berlin: Afterglow, is the result of 48 hours hackathon that saw 100 artists and hackers creating installations about the Afterglow.

At the entry of the exhibition visitors were immediately presented with the poignant contrast represented by organic waste and e-waste. The timelessness of the latter becomes apparent even during the few days of the exhibition when compared to organic waste.

In the geopolitical landscape of mass surveillance there is no secure communication anymore. By secure in this instance I mean not interceptable. Hacker Dennis de Bel proposes the Smoke Messaging System as an alternative, secure and encrypted communication system

In the installation named mining the arbitrary by Jorgensen the attention is drawn on the inherent presence of data in any given matter

Dani Ploeger instead decided to sew a tiny circuit in his body creating a small magnetic field shown by the red light in the picture. This, he told me, is a critic and speculation how far man could go.

Last hack that I’ll mention is by Julian Oliver that left a nice little present to the phone of every passer by

The festival hosted a number of fascinating and insightful performances to embody the Afterglow. Artists responded using different medium and context. Afamako was the most direct, emotional and  painful that made use of electronic waste from Nigeria to enact the socio-economic condition of Nigeria.

The festival also presented a series of music performance. Luftbobler by Dino Chapman have been presented as the result of post-digital creative insomnia. The perfect human translation of the Afterglow. Shame that the show was just average, accompanied by poor visuals. A good night out in Berlin will definitely provide you with a better mix of music and visuals without the pretentiousness of an entire auditorium.

In strong contrast, is the excellent performance of Lucky Dragon titled Actual Reality. In the performance the duo skillfully combined clarinet, flaute, sax, experimentation and a strong, consistent underline theme. The show explained through projections the nature of light in relation to photography meanwhile the duo was experimenting live on the stage with creating music from light. Very fascinating even for someone that knows already about light and photography.