Residencies

• 18.04 > 29.04.2022
• 20.09 > 01.10.2021

An omnis­cient Spider and an emer­ging Artificial Intelligence are tied together in a dia­lo­gue sur­roun­ding the human his­to­ry of wea­ving and infor­ma­ti­on tech­no­lo­gy. As they spin their twis­ting tales they reve­al a web of con­nec­ti­ons and perspectives.

More and more we pro­ject our hopes, fears, desi­res and trust in the futu­re on to the digi­tal sphe­re. Each aspect of our lives is being trans­fer­red into data. But what does this ocean of infor­ma­ti­on mean to us when the tech­no­lo­gy that gene­ra­tes it beco­mes ever more incom­pre­hen­si­ble and com­plex — or when it is in hands of a few so-cal­l­ed tech-geniuses?

With Spindle Oona Libens calls for a new nar­ra­ti­ve about our digi­tal (futu­re) — one that is in sym­bio­sis with natu­re and humanity.

The star­ting point for Spindle is the link bet­ween two see­min­gly dis­pa­ra­te domains: digi­tal tech­no­lo­gy and wea­ving. This link is found in the pun­ched card, an inven­ti­on that made indu­stri­al wea­ving in the 1800s more effi­cient and com­plex. The pun­ched card later for­med the inspi­ra­ti­on for the first pro­gram­ma­ble com­pu­ter — desig­ned part­ly by the mathe­ma­ti­ci­an Ada Lovelace, being the first fema­le com­pu­ter pro­gram­mer. So wea­ving can be con­si­de­red the ear­liest bina­ry tech­no­lo­gy. As a thread goes either up or down, it car­ries zero’s and one’s just as the digi­tal language.

In Spindle the arche­ty­pal wea­ver — a Spider — con­ver­ses with an Artificial Intelligence. They speak about the his­to­ry and futu­re of tech­no­lo­gy, about the impor­tan­ce of mys­tery ver­sus infor­ma­ti­on, about the lost tra­ces of tex­ti­le his­to­ry — and with it of women’s work… And all the whi­le the Spider wea­ves her web and the AI tries to imi­ta­te and to inti­mi­da­te her.

All this is visu­a­li­sed in an intri­ca­te uni­ver­se made up of a giant loom — or is it a pri­mi­ti­ve com­pu­ter? — threads, knots, spools and other con­trap­ti­ons remi­nis­cent of the tex­ti­le field.

As in ear­lier work Oona Libens uses seve­r­al kinds of pro­jec­ti­on tech­ni­ques, sha­dows and light effects to cre­a­te an ephe­me­ral yet tac­ti­le, audio­vi­su­al expe­rien­ce — as fleeting as the data flows around us.