Art Becomes Technology


'Gerhard Blechinger Gerhard Blechinger

Today, we no longer refer to computer equipment as “new media.” Nor does media art have an aura of the New any more; after all, for someone born at the time of the first Ars Electronica, the computer is as old as the pencil. It’s as if both have always just sort of been there. Be that as it may—the technical complexity of media art “back in the old days” revolutionized the production of artworks. Artists collaborated with specialists in a wide range of fields because it took teamwork to execute the projects they had in mind. Hardware wasn’t developed out of technology in linear fashion; rather, the equipment was endowed with a theme. Technology was taken to the limits, even provoked now and then. Media art was not infrequently a prognosis of hardware and software to come and thus became a model for technical innovation. Today, at the GHK—School of Art and Design Zurich’s Department of Technology, what we’re doing amounts to working with this strategy in reverse. The production strategy of media art is not used to nurture art but rather for the advancement of technical innovation.

The sector of the consumer electronics industry that produces mobile devices is currently going through a process of development that has already taken place in the computer industry. The trend towards miniaturization is making devices available to us that, on one hand, don't even cause a slight bulge in the pocket of our sport coat and, on the other hand, deliver reception quality that keeps improving. The most important trend, though, is the integration of more and more features, something we're familiar with from our experience with the PC. What was originally a calculating machine has turned into an image processor, a communications device and a piece of gaming equipment. The mobile telecommunications industry is driven by a similar strategy today. Our project Song fuer C by artist duo M+M (Marc Weis and Martin De Mattia) might be said to constitute an early and highly advanced example of this.

Proceeding parallel to the concentration on packing devices full of features is the emergence of systems that are custom-tailored to a single task and possess features optimized to carry it out. We call them dedicated devices. Our Video-based Personal Security (VPS) system was originally created as an idea for a multi-user game. Reverse engineering morphed this gaming scenario into a security application. The way it works is by installing a hidden camera on the lapel of our overcoat. When crime strikes, it transmits a photo of the perpetrator directly to the cell phone of the law enforcement officer patrolling nearest to the scene. Thanks to the system’s GPS capabilities, the police immediately know where the incident occurred. Even if the perpetrator succeeds in disabling the device itself, it’s too late—the image has already been sent. The dedicated device in our example has several features of an advanced cell phone, but is specialized to do a single job: protect the user.

Needless to say, no one today wants his fate to depend on whether and when a data packet makes its way through the telecommunications infrastructure of current providers. With this emergency cell phone, we’ve stretched the equipment available today to the limits, but we’ve also given it a theme. VPS calls into question mobile telecommunications’ quality of service and makes the question of “Always on?” into a matter of life or death.

Translated from German by Mel Greenwald