БОРИС ПЕТРОВСКИЙ

Das Vergerät

source: petrovskyde

»Das Vergerät« addresses the relationship between humans and machines, technology as social construction and its visual, metaphorical and verbal language. Visitors can initiate communication via software; the message is translated by the interconnected blenders, coffee grinders, espresso machines, vaccuum cleaners, microwaves, drilling machines, electric toothbrushes, shaving machines, hair dryers, drying hoods, vacuum devices, knives, shavers, epilators, knife sharpeners, massage machines, ventilators, fan heaters, high pressure cleaners, floor and car polishers, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, chain saws etcetera and repeated in machine idiom. The strong physical presence of the appliances and their processes triggered by the software lead to the hidden or non-addressed aspects of technology in daily life, which are usually covered up by the fancy, colorful product design of their interface. They transform surroundings and realm domesticities into technotopical spaces. And they become body and speech organ extensions of the ‘users’.
»Das Vergerät« (neologism, German) means something like »dis-appliance«. 100 used electric household appliances are interconnected and spatially configurated as a Meta-Machine or Meta-Appliance or as a model of smart homes.
100 is an average number of appliances one can find in a middleclass houshold.

If ‘users’ put in a spoken message up to 10 seconds into a microphone, the appliances repeat it with their noises, respectively they try to do so. What kind is the understanding between men and machine? Is an understanding possible? The phrases of the ‘users’ become commands that let the appliances run, controled by the timbre of their voice and the speech melodie of a spoken message and selected by the phonemes. The words of a message and the content become a ‘significant’ control without a controlable meaning. At the same time the messages will be repeated by a speech synthesis based on the appliances’s noises. When they start to run and repeat the users message, it is like that they confirm a command in repeating it. Then the air gets mechanically mixed, cut, grinded, sucked, compressed, blowed, drilled, rolled, stired up, vibrated, heated up and cooled by the appliances while consuming electric power. The human voice is translated in machine’s idiom and at the same moment ‘incarnated’ by the appliances.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: sciencefriday

Das Vergerät consists of 104 household appliances, including hairdryers, blenders, and lawnmowers. Photo by Annie Minoff
German artist Boris Petrovsky traces the inspiration for his interactive artwork Das Vergerät back to the whirring appliances in his mother’s kitchen. (“Das Vergerät” translates roughly to “This Appliance.”) The installation consists 104 household machines—everything from hair dryers and shavers to lawnmowers, epilators, and blenders. The goal is to make them speak our language.

Here’s how it works: A visitor pushes a button and speaks into a mic. A few seconds later, while donning a pair of headphones, she hears the appliances “speak” her sentence back to her using the sounds of their own internal motors and mechanisms.

Visitors to Linz’s OK Offenes Kulturhaus used this mic to speak to a collection of household appliances. Through the headphones at the left, they could hear the machines’ response.
Visitors to Linz’s OK Offenes Kulturhaus used this mic to speak to a collection of household appliances. Through the headphones at the left, they could hear the machines’ response.
Speech, Petrovsky explains, is really just an assemblage of phonemes: the sounds like “p,” “b,” “sh,” and “r” that help us to distinguish one word from another. To create Das Vergerät, he first had to determine what phonemes each of his appliances could produce, and at what pitch. (An adult’s voice, for example, will be pitched lower than a child’s. Petrovsky wanted to account for those speech differences too.) Then Petrovsky and his collaborator, programmer Georg Nagel, hacked the machine’s on/off buttons to run on software that enabled them to collectively “listen” to a human participant speaking through the mic, then parrot her phrase back to her. The “speech” a participant hears through her headphones is actually a time-cut collage of individual machines’ “phonemes.”

The appliances’ “speech” isn’t perfect. If a passerby doesn’t hear what a participant initially speaks into the mic, she’s unlikely to understand what the machines are saying. But Petrovsky insists that ambiguity is also part of the artwork. “Is there really an understanding between man and machine, or is it a big misunderstanding?” he asks. Das Vergerät might be humorous and absurd by design, he says, but such questions will be increasingly relevant as the “Internet of things” develops.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: maccreteil

Boris Petrovsky est un artiste numérique et visuel. Dans ses oeuvres, il se focalise sur les inter-relations entre esprit et matière aussi bien qu’entre signes et langage dans un monde médiatisé. La confrontation avec et l’enquête sur la construction de la réalité caractérisent ses projets. Son travail numérique couvre une grande variété de disciplines, installations performatives, sculptures interactives, art cinétique et sonore.

Machines parlantes – Installation interactive avec 120 appareils ménagers

Des sculptures composées de 120 robots électro-ménagers sont orchestrées par une machine automatique de parole responsable. Les messages que les visiteurs inscrivent sur un terminal sont reproduits comme une synthèse de la parole par le son des équipements après analyse syllabe par syllabe. Les réponses sont prononcées par le son des machines esclaves. Peu à peu, le dispositif gagne sa propre vie : des messages apparaissent de nulle part, des participants à la communication invisibles commencent un dialogue avec l’autre.

« ( … ) Ce dispositif va bientôt devenir indispensable. Comme il vous rendra de nombreux services , veuillez s’il vous plaît prendre un moment pour lire attentivement ces instructions, dont dépend votre satisfaction ( Moulinex – Guide de l’utilisateur, 1973 ).
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: maccreteil

Boris Petrovsky is a media and visual artist. In his works, he focuses on the interrelations between mind and matter as well as signs and language UK in a mediatized world. A confrontation with and inquiry into the construction of reality characterize his installation projects. His work in new media arts spans a variety of disciplines, performative installation, interactive sculpture, sound and kinetic art.

Talking machines – Interactive Installation with 120 appliances

Sculptures made of 120 electric household appliances are orchestrated by human voice. Posts that visitors inscribed on a terminal are reproduced as a speech synthesis by the sound equipment syllable after syllable analysis. The answers are spoken by the slave machines. Gradually, the device gets its own life: messages appear out of nowhere, participants in the invisible communication begin a dialogue with each other.

«(…) This device will be them soon become indispensable. Since it will give you many services, please take a moment to carefully read these instructions, one of which depends on your satisfaction.” (Instructions, in the UK “Moulinex-quote, to 1973).
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: creativeartetv

“Das Vergerät” von Boris Petrovsky

Ein monströses Wirrwarr, gleißend im Neonlicht. Eine Ansammlung plastischer Körper, von denen Kabel in alle Richtungen abstehen. Und doch… bei näherem Hinsehen entdecken wir einen Föhn, eine Bohrmaschine, eine Mikrowelle und einen Haarschneider. Vertraute und oft tröstliche Objekte, wenn sie in der häuslichen Stille vor sich hin summen. Gefährten unseres bürgerlichen Habitus, Aushängeschilder des perfekten, modernen, überausgestatteten Haushalts. Diese Küchengeräte, die man Hausfrauen lange Zeit als unverzichtbare Haushaltshelfer anpries, sind für Boris Petrovsky die konkrete Verlängerung menschlicher Intelligenz. Wie einst Dr. Frankenstein fügt der Künstler sie spielerisch zusammen. Das Ergebnis? It’s alive! Die Höllenmaschine erwacht dank eines Spracherkennungssystems zum Leben. Der Herr spricht über ein Megafon zu seinem neugeborenen Sklaven. Sein Text wird von einem Prozessor verarbeitet, der bestimmt, welches Objekt am ehesten in der Lage ist, die ausgesprochenen Silben umzusetzen. Plötzlich mixt der Mixer, wirbelt der Ventilator, saugt der Staubsauger – jedes Gerät mit seinem bekannten und gleichsam beängstigenden Summen. Unter der Kontrolle seines Schöpfers erwacht das Monster zum Leben. Aber kann der Herr tatsächlich alles steuern? Was antwortet ihm das gezähmte Monster wirklich?