//////////fur////

*OIS*

2013

Werk - *OIS*
Artist / Artist group
//////////fur////
Title
*OIS*
Year
2013
Category
computer-based, installation
Material / Technique
website, computer-based installation; Raspberry Pi, languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript; other technical components: lamp, manual switches, servo motors
Collection
Produced in the framework of project »Art on Your Screen«
Description

The artist duo //////////fur//// was started by Volker Morawe and Tilman Reiff in 2001. In their works they thematize ironically our relationship to the increasing digitization of everyday life, particularly with regard to gaming culture.

In 2013 the artist duo conceived »*OIS* One-way Interaction Sculpture«. The »*OIS*« in the title refers to Apple’s iOS mobile operating system and the sculpture consists of a 60 watt light bulb, a light switch, and its virtual light switch on a website. The website shows the current state of the light bulb and enables the user to operate it.

Whether or not electric current flows through the light bulb is decided by the real and the virtual switch. The »One-way Interaction Sculpture« only functions in one direction: although the light can only be switched on at the website, it can only be switched off on site at the ZKM.

The work is based on Claude E. Shannon’s »Ultimate Machine«, a small box with a switch on it: when the switch is turned on, a hand appears out of the box and turns the switch off. Whereas in Shannon’s object the machine is a single self-willed, intractable actor to deal with, »*OIS*« has a third set of actors — the users on the Net who have to turn the light on before the exhibition visitors can turn it off. The relationship between Net users in cyberspace and visitors physically present at the exhibition can be applied symbolically to the utopias of freely circulating information and many-sided exchanges and communication. »*OIS*« enables its users to experience that a connection between those who turn the light on and those who turn it off never comes about.

Author: Matthias Kampmann

About the artist/s