[spectre] Graz: openings of 'Algorithmic Segments' 23+31 July

[Hanns Holger Rutz]

In summer and autumn 2020, /Algorithmic Segments/ presents various
positions in sound art and digital art, spread across gallery and museum
spaces in the inner city of Graz (AT). The project initiated by Hanns
Holger Rutz and David Pirrò is supported by the framework of Graz
Cultural Year 2020 and organised at the Institute of Electronic Music
and Acoustics (IEM) of University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.

After a delay caused by the pandemic, and after moving the partner event
'xCoAx - Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X' into
the virtual domain (https://2020.xcoax.org), we are happy to announce
that the first two exhibitions are now starting in physical space:

- on 23 July at 19:30h opens the audio-visual installation 'Wordless: A
Conversation with Samuel Beckett and Morton Feldman at the End of
History' by Netherlands-based sound artist Jonathan Reus. Using machine
learning algorithms, he invokes an absurd conversation between the late
writer and the late composer. This dialogue can be witnessed daily
between 11–19h at the entrance of Forum Stadtpark Graz (Stadtpark 1),
visible on two tube monitors and audible through outside speakers. The
sparseness of the sound recordings lead the algorithm to create abstract
sounds that capture the cadence and timbre of the voices, but it fails
to produce comprehensible speech. The exhibition runs until 06 September.

- on 31 July at 19:00h opens the space and sound installation
'in|filtration' at esc medien kunst labor Graz (Bürgergasse 5). It deals
with persistent and inconspicuous processes of exchange, in which
surfaces and membranes between adjacent actors and systems are not only
regarded as forms of dissociation, but as partially permeable layers,
thus allowing imaginings, signals, materials, light and sound to
propagate and melt the identities of the separate. A translucent and
sensorial space/body acts as a vessel for sound structures that migrate
between two seemingly opaque computer systems. The physical space is
interwoven with an algorithmic space, sounding and sensing its
environment. Algorithmic space is understood as intrinsic speculative
movement and the interaction with humans who write code and experiment
with it. Making visible and audible the exchange processes between
humans and machines becomes a means of critically articulating this
space. The exhibition is open Tue–Fri 15–18h and runs until 28 August.

Further information and dates can be found at
https://algorithmische-segmente.mur.at

About the project: Segmentation is a core principle of analysis in many
different disciplines, such as biology (literally to disassemble
organisms, but also the sequencing of DNA), in music and phonology (to
structure the stream of sound), or in informatics (to formulate and
implement an algorithm). It is also an artistic operation, ranging from
film cut to the sampling of sounds and other existing materials. What we
are interested in this project is to understand the segmentary, not as
an expression of isolation or fragmentation, but on the contrary, as a
decentralised surface of "fitting pieces" whose meaning emerges through
assembly by the audience.

Algorithmic Segments is built as an interaction between various
stakeholders, institutions and events, which contribute to, carry and
shape the project in different ways: Algorithms that Matter (ALMAT),
Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X (xCoAx), Master
Module in Art, Science and Technology (MAST) at the Institute of Spatial
Design of TU Graz, esc media art lab, Kunsthaus Graz, Forum Stadtpark,
Reagenz – Space for Artistic Experiments, Grazer Kunstverein.