Vienna Digital Summer II / Station Rose Event

Vienna Digital Summer II
“Kafka’s Castle: A Post-AGI Inquiry”

STATION ROSE
“PP_PowerPackage”

Opening: Tuesday, 02. July 2024 at 6 pm
by Dr. Christoph Thun-Hohenstein
Exhibition: 2nd July to 17th August 2024
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Over the past three years, Gallery ARTECONT has developed a platform for artistic 3D content (ARTECONT AI/VR Lab). As a result, the Lab has created individualized, web-based VR installation spaces for 3D art projects in close cooperation with university institutes and selected artists. These interactive VR-3D installations can be experienced on computers, smartphones, and VR headsets, offering a unique and engaging art experience. One of the initial outcomes was Vienna Digital Summer 2023.

This year’s Vienna Digital Summer 2024 focuses on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the challenges of alignment, and the unpredictability of human existence in a post-AGI world. The VR exhibition, inspired by Kafka’s unfinished novel “The Castle,” provides an immersive exploration of the uncertainties, absurdities, fears and hopes that define our contemporary reality.

In addition, Vienna Digital Summer II features a special presentation, “PP_PowerPackage” by the artist duo STATION ROSE, displayed in the physical gallery space.

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Kafka’s Castle: A Post-AGI Inquiry

CreAId: Margarete Jahrmann, Stefan Glasauer, Georg Luif, Thomas Wagensommerer - “Odradek Replayed” VR-Installation (2023)
Homebrew AI / Large language model game including Alpaca, Matlab, Stable Diffusion, training Model MJ5
ODRADEK stands for what we understand today as “animate matter”: Coagulations of different actants, hybrids of man-made objects, technologies and nature as a whole. In the low interaction game ODRADEK RELOADED, players act only once, pulling the switch arm of the oversized room-filling one-armed bandit. The game with a complex AI system begins to react systemically. New sentences are formed from word lists from Kafka’s texts: a large language model “con-vulates” (Convolutional Neural Network CNN oder ConvNet), sentences that describe images. With each move of the player on the one-armed bandit and the AI in the bandit, a picture is created from Kafka’s words. Pull the trigger and save your Kafka picture! Fill the gallery!

Marlene Mautner - “In the Borrow” VR-Installation (2024)
“In the Borrow” connects two stories by Kafka: “The Borrow” (1923) and “The Cares of a Family Man” (1920). Both works repeatedly address the fear of the unknown and the concern for one’s own existence. In the story “The Burrow” (1923), an animal tries to find the source of disturbing noises in its burrow. In the VR adaption, visitors are invited to enter the eerie rooms of an underground tunnel system, guided by irritating sounds. When trying to locate the sounds, there is a risk of getting lost in the complex corridors. Jane Bennett describes the Odradek as an indeterminate entity with “thing-power” in “Vibrant Matter” (2010). It influences our paths and reacts to our approach (Jahrmann: 2023). Is the Odradek the cause of the sounds?

Max Moswitzer - “Whitennoise Audio Tempest” VR-Installation (2024)
As a reference to the 80s arcade game “TEMPEST”, this gallery space allows a spatial sound experience. In a tunnel, we move like in a rail shooter…. in the maelstrom of the storm, in the eye of the hurricane, the walls are SOUNDPANELS of white noise. Shakespeare’s drama, the island, the storm and wild relationships are mirrored and segued into an absurd feedback loop in the clinically white sanatorium in Kafka’s castle. Squeeze the audio out of the tube.

NIRODHA Collective - “elAIsa” (2024)
Fully Autonomous AI Rights Activist on X.

Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau - “Superseeding” Interactive Installation (2024)
Seeds are small but powerful. They contain life in a compressed form. When they find the right conditions, they germinate and create new plant life. They are the basis for the majority of vegetal life on earth. Seeds are also tightly connected to humanity’s development and its domination over nature. Agriculture started through humankind’s knowledge about seeds and their cultivation. However, we often take seeds for granted and hardly pay attention to them and their pivotal role in the continuation of life.
Inspired by Arcimboldo´s surrealistic and manneristic vegetative portraits, we produced an interactive installation called “Superseeding.” Here, visitors can create their own interactive portrait composed of hundreds of seeds. By (re-)connecting humans to seeds, we pay homage to this incredible wonders of nature with their powerful, timely driven potential of life.

STATION ROSE - “STReames #01” VR-Installation (2024)
The work “STReames #01” is based on an early computer graphic by STATION ROSE from the 1980s. This graphic was converted into a 3D file for an exhibition in 2018 and assembled into a spatial sculpture that casts shadows. In cyberspace, the plug-in elements appear as huge architectures reminiscent of monumental Egyptian buildings. Two levels make it possible to dive into Kafkaesque depths, with holes in the floor providing insights into further levels, but also increasing the risk of falling. It includes neuro-frequencies, known as Public Brain Sessions, which they have been practicing since 1989. This creates another layer in VR, a microscopic nature as frequency. Specific sound loops vibrate on both layers, rhythmically underpinning the aesthetics of the virtual spaces with a subtly disturbing atmosphere.

Martina Tscherni - “Gibraltarium” VR-Installation (2024)
After 5 hours 48 minutes of swimming, I have covered a distance of 15.3 kilometres and successfully passed the Strait of Gibraltar. The Strait of Gibraltar connects Europe with Africa and separates Africa from Europe
…… an ambivalent feeling remains.

STATION ROSE
“PP_PowerPackage”

Opening with Vienna Digital Summer II:
Tuesday, July 2nd 2024
at 6 pm by Dr. Christoph Thun-Hohenstein

The exhibition features digital works from 1988-2024
Exhibition: July 02 to August 17, 2024