Going Dark

LEAP, Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance Berlin 26.09.2013-28.09.2013

Work exhibited: Dark Leaks (2013). Computer, web camera, kinetic sculpture, cyntetic voice

An interactive artwork which invites the visitors of the exhibition to anonymously confess their dark matter directly at the venue. All darkness is spread out loud by a kinetic sculpture to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do. Going Dark is the first part of a two part project by Art Hack Day and Berlins Lab for Electronic Arts and Performance (LEAP) in cooperation with the 2014 transmediale festival. Art Hack Day is an event dedicated to cracking open the process of art making. Between September 26-28, sixty artists and hackers inhabited LEAP Berlin to create a flash exhibit on the theme of Going Dark.
Art Hack Day is an event dedicated to cracking open the process of art making. "Going Dark" is a collaboration between Art Hack Day, LEAP Berlin and transmediale.

Art work produced together with Andrey Zhukov and Bengt Sjölén

Our actions are increasingly mediated by data. Previously we formed our artifacts, now they form us. They quantify our lives and thinking in all walks of life, woven into a seamless mesh, a digital trace of each individual. As such, the urge to go dark has never been greater. Arguably it has also never been harder. Data takes on a life of its own as it's replicated on servers across the globe. It can't be deleted, it piles up like trash. In fact, polluting your path with fake data may offer better protection than cloaking or jamming. So while digital detritus fills the open web, darknets (corporate, military, governmental and civilian) loom large, inaccessible to the public, bigger than the internet itself. Similarly, part of our inner being is not yet accessible or recordable, and we yearn for what is out of reach: our own dark matter. Who lurks in these unexplored spaces? Can you engage authentically and not reveal yourself? Can you go dark?

Partcipating artists: Jamie Allen, Anthony Antonellis, Kim Asendorf, James Auger, Ralf Baecker, Jeremy Bailey, Katharina Birkenbach, Robert Böhnke, Katrin Caspar, Paul Christophe, Alessandro Contini, Alberto De Campo, Lindsay Eyink, Andreas Nicolas Fischer, Daniel Franke, Annie Goh, Darsha Hewitt, Hannes Hoelzl, Akitoshi Honda, Brendan Howell, David Huerta, Dean Hunt, Petja Ivanova, Quin Kennedy, Tove Kjellmark, Mey Lean Kronemann, Rosemary Lee, Alessandra Leone, Jana Linke, Daniel Massey, Olof Mathé, Daria Merkoulova, Nora O Murchu, Dennis Paul, Jacob Penca, Christopher Pietsch, Sascha Pohflepp, Niko Princen, Sebastian Sadowski, Sebastian Schmieg, Marcel Schwittlick, Jacob Sikker Remin, Bengt Sjölén, Wolfgang Spahn, Adriaan Stellingwerff, Claire Tolan, Tina Tonagel, Johan Uhle, Harm van den Dorpel, Marija Vlajic, Paul Vollmer, Johannes Wagener, Addie Wagenknecht, Nils Westerlund, Karl Westin, Andrey Zhukov