Not for Human Consumption
Not for Human Consumption
An online exhibition curated by Julian Weaver for CRISAP
This exhibition showcases a collection of sonic phenomena, tests, by-products and compositions, from the inaudible to the barely registered, the overheard to the impossibly loud, that challenge our, self-given, position at the centre of sonic events.
Not for Human Consumption draws together scientific projects and artistic works – including mosquitoes, brain stems, train motors, black holes, hard drives, voibots and electron microphones - that point to sound worlds where objects other than ourselves may be the recipients.
Contributors: Chandra Observatory, A.C. Fabian et al - Perseus Cluster, Martin V. Gustafsson - Acoustic Probe, Richard Mankin - Insect Geophone, Alexander Kosovichev - Solar Oscillation, Nina Kraus - Auditory Brainstem Response, NASA/Team Corp - Acoustic Vibration Testing, Eduardo Reck Miranda - Voibot Choir, Eduardo Reck Miranda - Uh Ha, R. Michael Winters - 1/F Noise And Auditory Aesthetics, Christian Dayé and Alberto De Campo - Friendy Rest Room, Richard Airlie and Ian Morrison - Spamradio, Valentina Vuksic - Tripping through Runtime, Semiconductor - Smell my Hum, Internet Spoof - Voices from Hell, Stephen Hammer - Highmast, Julian Weaver - Field Samples; Line Test Signal, CRT Flyback Transformer and Virm-1.
After an 11 year run, the exhibition was finally taken offline in April 2023. An archive record of the exhibition is being created and will be shared online later in 2023.
Exhibition Launch
The exhibition was launched at Cafe Oto with commissioned live performances by Semiconductor (UK) , Valentina Vuksic (CH/NL) and a new text by Graham Harman (US)
Semiconductor premiered Subterranean; a new sound work aggregating seismic data on a global scale and composing data from the Columbia Glacier experiment.
Valentina Vuksic performed a new version of 'Tripping through Runtime'; a real time exploration of acoustic spaces between computer hardware and software.
Graham Harman's 'Real Qualities', in which he critiques Meillasoux's ill-defined association of primary qualities with only those that can be mathematised, was specially commissioned for the event. Read the paper.
Links
Semiconductor is artist duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. Through moving image works they explore the material nature of our world and how we experience it, questioning our place in the physical universe. Their unique approach has won them many awards and prestigious fellowships such as the Gulbenkian Galapagos, Smithsonian Artists Research and the NASA Space Sciences. Their work is part of several international public collections and has been exhibited globally including Venice Biennale, The Royal Academy, Hirshhorn Museum, BBC, ICA and the Exploratorium.
https://semiconductorfilms.com
Valentina Vuksic is a computer artist and programmer based in Zürich. Her work is a personal exploration of the possibilities afforded by articulated hard- and software mediation. She approaches computer systems via inductive microphones for magnetic fields, so-called “telephone adapters." With choreographies for software and computer elements, she utilizes these as actors in software/noise pieces for, and in, computers.
Graham Harman is Associate Provost for Research Administration and Professor of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo. He is the author of eleven books, most recently Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (2012) and Bells and Whistles: More Speculative Realism (2013). He is the editor of the Speculative Realism book series at Edinburgh University Press, and (with Bruno Latour) co-editor of the New Metaphysics book series at Open Humanities Press.
