Conversations on a Crosstown Algorithm
Conversations on a Crosstown Algorithm
Doireann O’Malley, Conversations on a Crosstown Algorithm, 2022, 3D installation (Co-written by Jeremy Wade, Juan Carlos Cuadrado & Mathea Hoffmann; 3D Design: Bertrand Flanet & Simon(e) Miné; Sound design: Caroline McCarthy; Space design: Celeste Burlina). Artistic research commissioned by Berliner Förderprogramm Künstlerische Forschung; co-commissioned by National Sculpture Factory Ireland; supported by Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin; The Arts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Bursary Award & Facebook and FSAS New Technology Award.
‘So, two people are in transit, they are on a long journey, they fall into this healing reciprocation with each other. Waves of back and forth. It is flirtatious, caring, caddy and cathartic. And there was gossip and there was advice and there was crying and there was laughing but somehow that bus was the portal into the other dimension of where they were going to, which was reality, of their work and being of service you know, so like, conversation crosshair circuit dimension virtual something algorithm, conversation on a crosstown algorithm, conversations on a worldly spherical you know, this vagina monologues system’ Juan Carlos Cuadrado.
Berliner Förderprogramm Künstlerische Forschung and BPA// Raum are pleased to co-present two upcoming, concurrent exhibitions by multidisciplinary artist Doireann O’Malley. Both presentations bring together new and existing works, creating a thorough impression of the artist’s practice over the past few years. O’Malley was a participant in BPA// Berlin program for artists 2019/20 and a fellow of Berliner Förderprogramm Künstlerische Forschung 2020/21. In different ways, both programs are dedicated to supporting emerging Berlin-based artistic practice and research. The exhibitions are accompanied by a newly commissioned text by Stanton Taylor.
Doireann O’Malley, Conversations on a Crosstown Algorithm
9.6.–20.8.2022
Opening 9.6.2022, 5–8pm
Berliner Förderprogramm Künstlerische Forschung
Schönleinstr. 5, 10967 Berlin
Opening hours: Friday – Saturday, 2–7pm
Access: Free entry. Our space is accessible by wheelchair.
Doireann O’Malley, Prototype II & III
11.6.–20.8.2022
Opening 11.6.2022, 6–9pm
BPA// Raum
Sophie-Gips-Höfe, Sophienstr. 21, 10178 Berlin
Opening hours: Friday – Saturday, 3–6pm
Prototype II: Institute for the Enrichment of Computer Aided Post Gendered Prototypes, Two screen video installation, 67 minutes with 5.1 Surround sound.
The film was made with a live action role playing improvisational technique where the protagonists used their own material for the dialogues and monologues co-authored by Nika Fontaine, Matejá Hoffmann, Pol Merchan, Nika Pecarina, Elena Schmidt & Rhyannon Styles.
Director of the Institute Co-writer of the games: Jamie Mc Donald, Psycho-analyst: Michaela Wunsch, Assistant: Elliott Cennetoglu. Extras: Lou Drago, Ray Kovalevsky, Pedro Marun, Kristian Vistrup Madsen, Zander Porter, Brody Polinsky, Adel Onodi, Henri Steeg, Leni Wronkowitz
Assistant Director: Divina Kuan, Director of Photography: Albrecht von Grünhagen, Sound Composition by Armin Lorenz Gerold. Production co-ordinator: Jake Flowers, Art Director & Costume Design: Ran Chai Barzvi, Camera Operator: Matan Radin, Sound recording: Manuela Schininà & Manja Ebert, Editing: Gines Olivaros, Sound Editing: Doireann O’Malley, 3D Animation: Brody Condon, 3D Scanning: Olaf Blecker, Sound Mix: Jochen Jezussek, Colour Grading: Delfina Mayer
Prototype III: New Maps of Hyperspace, Virtual Reality work, 10 mins.
New Maps of Hyperspace_Test_01, Virtual Reality, 8-10 minutes, 2020.
NMHS explores a post-human environment where several abandoned experiments to sustain life, beehives in incubators, 3D models of bodies, plant and insect colonies lie empty. The work is set in a liminal time when humans have vacated the world. All that remains are remnants of corporate research/manufacturing plants, data centers and machines which still contain some consciousness of humans which were uploaded before climate disaster destroyed life. The work dwells on sys- tems theory, climate care, AI consciousness, data mining and the memory of plant consciousness and the knowledges which has been destroyed by Neo-liberal extraction.
Hyperspace is a notion from science fiction of a superluminal method of travel. It is typically described as an alternative “sub-region” of space co-existing with our own universe which may be entered using an energy field or other device. In most fiction, hyperspace is described as a physical place that can be entered and exited. Whereas in the VR work the viewer is essentially trapped in blue screen of death, unable to escape.
The work is a parable on Alan Turing’s technological disembodiment, drawing on concepts from Terrence McKenna’s Hyperspace, an undoing of the matter of consciousness and technologies empty promises of liberation and progress.
For McKenna the dream is “zero time” and “outside of history.” It is analogous to the speculative experience of hy-perspace, a sci-fi term given to the space-time continuum in which it is possible to travel faster than light. In both states, time appears to stand still (Einstein’s theory of relativity tells us that the closer an object travels to the speed of light the slower time becomes). Dreaming can quickly turn to nightmare however, and the episodic repetition of history-as-nightmare can, at times, feel like farcical simulation. Finally this work touches on the yawning gaps between our wish for escape, human connection and approval — and our seemingly Sisyphean task of achieving any of it.
Commissioned by Light Work/Urban Video Project Syracuse, US, National Sculpture Factory Cork, IE.
Berlin Program for Artists, DE.
Kindly supported by Arts Council of Ireland & Berlin Senat Stipend 2019
3D Scanning: Benjamin Busch, Data Conversion: Elinor Hasselberg
3D Artist: Bertrand Flanet, Programers: Felix Kraus & Vladimir Storm.
Sound Design: Caroline McCarthy Voiceover: Amy (Text to Speech)
Special thanks to Steph Holl Trieu, The BeeCoin Project, Haus der Statistik & Floating University.
