Traces of Reality - Remembering the Future \\ Michael Walliger Event

finished and ongoing processes by Michael Wallinger
Opening: 13/02 19:00

Struggling in the swamp of noise we call reality is something we have in common with algorithmic enhanced pattern recognition systems. A swamp of unfiltered bits, that machines are processing as dirty data, we as life. (Steyerl, 2019)
As an illusionary corporate synthesis of interconnectivity, the conception of a shared reality relies on certain self-generated perceptual architectures. These architectures entangle landmarks that have been aligned by “technologies of power” and capitalist distress. By forming a tightly knitted mesh, they filter realities.
While Kluge calls it “antirealism”, Steyerl writes about a trend of apophenia. Mis- and overinterpretations of patterns, triggered less by our (in)abilities than by the comforting (self-)confirmation of existing iterations. Like uncanny echoes that haunt our perceptual architectures and make us feel a little less insane when we sing along.

• Naturalizing our struggle through its ongoing repetition.
  Not by default, but by their design we‘re maneuvered to reproduce these architectures into material, into code. Drying a swamp for aristocratic architectures once was accepted as a symbol of wealth, power and privilege. Metaphorically it mirrors today’s manifestation of power structures within the filtration of dirty and significant data. The overspilling volume of constantly drained and syphoned data makes this process dependent on interpretation, probability and interpolation. Interpretations and assumptions, which are inherently political, but performed under corporate secrecy and state security. As a distinction between noise and information, these filtration processes define the relevance of lives. By assuming similarities as synthesis, they discriminate (against) realities.

• Dirty by definition, not necessarily by verification.
  Hidden patterns, allegedly discovered in the swamp of noise, reinforcing the foundations of privelege by fullfilling prophecies, based on recursive assumptions of the past. “Algorithmic conservatism” (Lopez, 2020) muddied by an (algoritmic enhanced) illusion of neutrality and objectivity.

supported by:
Format (*.strk)
Stadt Wien | Kultur
Bundeskanzleramt:Österreich | Kunst