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Quadrature

Positions of the Unknown
At the very beginning of space exploration the infrastructure to monitor the whole sky was not yet developed. So in order to find out whether foreign countries launched objects, the US government started to train citizens to observe and detect possible artificial satellites. Scattered over the allied world, these amateur scientists played a crucial part in keeping track of all men-made technology orbiting earth, until “Operation Moonwatch” was discontinued in 1975 […] “Positions of the Unknown” locates the current whereabouts of these mysterious objects by simply pointing at them as they revolve around Earth. Missing the legal proof, those unidentified artefacts remain entities of pure speculation, secret companions of us and our planet. Even so they have been sighted several times and their ubiquitous presence is therefore somehow validated, they linger in a state between existence and non-existence. Quadrature’s 52 small machines constantly follow their paths and serve as silent witnesses of the unknown.

Adam Ferriss

Glitch art
Finding his own niche between new media arts and conceptualism, Adam Ferriss creates unique digital coding that manipulates, distorts, and engineers images into psychedelic terrains. At times, his technicolor abstractions feel organic despite their technological roots – an ambiguous craft born of the RGB Tricolor separation process and pixel sorting algorithms he so carefully employs. Using these “procedural mechanisms,” Ferriss initiates iterative changes in light and pixel structure of his given source material – creating a literally infinite array of compositional possibilities that grapple with human perception during an era of ubiquitous manufacture.

URS FISCHER

Урс Фишер
nomadic art tent
The nomadic sculpture that Urs Fischer created for Station to Station is something of a steamy interior dreamscape, a glittery, shimmering vision that hypnotizes with lights and textures that both welcome and disorient. In the center of the piece is a plush Hasten’s bed on which viewers lie surrounded on all sides by mirrors and cloud-like smoke. A disco ball rotates above. Is this a place for disco naps? Or is it a glamorous fantasy of decadence and visual riches? Spend some time, look at yourself in the many reflective surfaces, and feel the bedding against your skin and decide for yourself. Dreamy as it is, this space is grounded in the real world and governed by the laws of physics. This place seems like a fantasy, but it is entirely real. As one critic noted of an earlier Fischer work:In a world increasingly defined by virtual realities and digital imaging, is the creative mastery of hand manufacture merely a quaint artistic throwback — nostalgia for a lost cultural past? Is this sculpture a memorial? Given today’s ubiquitous special effects wizardry, shouldn’t art clasp technology to its bosom? There’s nothing virtual about the softness of the bed, nothing digital about the gleam of those lights or the mist surrounding you. Take off your shoes. Climb inside. This is real life.