Plex Noir

Venue: Joanneum District, 8010 Graz

Duration: 21 April – 21 May 2017

As soon as we move in society, we leave traces. No matter whether we buy a tram ticket, use a bonus card in a shopping centre, pay by credit card, communicate online with our bank, etc. – the data we disclose create our digital double.

Almost every single person carries a smartphone around with them, an extension of our bodies that, according to Reinhard Kreissl’s definition, has contributed to making us techno-social hybrids.

This is precisely the starting point for the Plex Noir artist group. Their audiovisual installation consists of complementary moving image and laser projections. The classical full-format projection is resolved so as to appear in a dynamically segmented format. The projection expands the façade on new levels.

We can influence this projection using our mobile phones. The phones’ radio waves are caught by sensitive aerials, an indirectly modulated factor contributing to the composition on the façade. A simple interface on the mobile phone allows the user to influence the installation. (Instructions for use are available on site.) Individually or in groups, visitors can draw, play, perform, dance and compose on a dynamic basis.

The acoustic and visual realisation obeys physical and biological phenomena that are constantly being generated and combined by a computer.

Reflection on the intrinsically invisible mobile phone technology that constantly surrounds us and its use for aesthetic purposes harnesses resources of positive, playful potentials that can be used and transformed.

Let us define the many different possibilities of open access ourselves, venture actively into the virtual realm that surrounds us, and create new moments of concerted energies.

Elisabeth Fiedler