Power Plants – Hito Steyerl
Added to the Museum of Data by Fay Baro on Monday, October 19, 2020. Museum of Data Collection ID: 601.
Public description: 'Power Plants' are a series of video sculptures that present plants are generated by AI neural network programs. The videos display botanical organisms which due to the predictive nature of the AI program, they are existing precisely 0.04 seconds in the future. The 'plants' are digitalised semi-fictitious representations of the botanical gardens that surround the serpentine gallery in which they were displayed. The plants do not simply act as a visual and predictive representation of the botanical life of Hyde Park, but they also incorporate the social dynamics of power. Specifically addressing the social inequality that is so eminent in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea. These objects in situ are not viewed alone, they are accompanied by an augmented reality app ActualRealityOS, where testimonials from Hito's research partners (Architects for Social Housing, Disabled People Against Cuts, The Voice of Domestic Workers and artist Constantine Gras) are mapped in real-time on top of the physical visual/virtual reality of the park accessed through the viewers smart phone.
Materials used: Testimonial, Digital screens (neon, xenon and argon gases, plastics, copper, tin, zinc, silicon, gold and chromium), Hyde Park, smart phones, code, plants
Credit: Hito Steyerl, Architects for Social Housing, Disabled People Against Cuts, The Voice of Domestic Workers and artist Constantine Gras.
Copyright: Hito Steyerl Power Plants Installation view, 11 April – 6 May 2019, Serpentine Galleries AR Application Design by Ayham Ghraowi, Developed by Ivaylo Getov, Luxloop, 3D data visualisation by United Futures Courtesy of the Artist, Andrew Kreps Gallery (New York) and Esther Schipper Gallery (Berlin) Photograph © 2019 readsreads.info
Language: Visual/pictorial, Spoken word, AI, Apps (smart phones)
Size: 'Power Plant' is expressed in many different sizes. The size of this object can be expressed best by both its limitations and its extensions. The visual representations are limited by both the dimensions of the digital screen, and the parameters of the viewers smartphone or public use iPad. The spacial and informatic extensions of these objects are vast due to the multiple protagonists and cover much of the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, they also extend to alternative versions of the park where instead of its well maintained appearance it exists as a 'ruderal garden' where botanical power is produced from waste. Another extension of the size of this project is the temporal extension - the plants exist 0.04 seconds in a predicted future. The outcome of the limitations and extensions of these digital objects, allows information to be gained through non-linear experience of multiple planes of representation of Hyde park, its botanical population and local residence.
External link: https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/hito-steyerl-power-plants/
Tags: 8, 9, 17