As a researcher, one of the themes I am particularly interested in is the relationship between text/image and the artworks that are exploring the dialogue between the two. Recently, a piece of digital design titled Bit.code I saw a couple of years ago came back to mind. I encountered this work, by German artist Julius Popp, in 2010, in the context of an exhibition held at the V&A called Decode, Digital Design Sensations in partnership with SAP (a German multinational software corporation). Bit.code was commissioned by the museum on this occasion.
The large-scale installation is made of black and white spinning plastic chains. These plastic chains represent the quantity of data one receives in his/her daily life. SAP provides Popp with softwares allowing him to collect the most used words from news sites and news blogs. The data is then fed into the machine of Bit.code. As the chains spin, they create unreadable images. Yet, at certain points, the plastic chains align and form intelligible words. One of the interesting aspects of the work is not only its capacity to turn words into images, but to do so in real time. Here, the real time factor makes the piece a performative work. As such, Bit.code can be seen as an installation which, alternatively, fabricates and erases itself in a succession of words morphing into images which are then transformed into new words. It also represents, by the fact that it is installed in a gallery space, a threshold between the physical and digital world.
Bit.code by Julius Popp, 2010.
What is fascinating to me is the ability of the work to provide a visual representation of the stage where language is not finalised yet. Popp seems to offer an embodiment of the act of translating perceived information, or more precisely data, into a codified and understandable object. In other words, it is a process of clarification that is shown to the viewer. Here, Bit.code gives a glimpse into how digital information - recording according to a binary structure illustrated here with black and white links - is transformed into another language. As such, the work seems to operate on two levels. On the one hand, it can be read, on a phenomenological point of view, as playing with the idea of processing our perceptions of reality before one is able to verbalise them and communicate them. As such, Bit.code highlights the need for a structure in order to grasp the world. On the other hand, it comments on the impossibility of processing all the information generated online. In both cases it is the necessary processes of mediation required to record, structure and share information that are explored.
Yet, according to the artist, Bit.code is more than an illustration, it provides a guide. In an interview with Wallpaper, the German artist refers to the legend in which Ariadne gave a thread to Theseus in order to help him find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. Popp then describes how for Foucault and Deleuze this thread is broken in the 20th century and how there’s isn’t a single way out today for everything is happening simultaneously. However, with Bit.code, the artist wants to show that an alternative type of orientation is possible in order to navigate the labyrinth of post digital culture. It seems to me that it is precisely in the juxtaposition of technical and epistemological mediations that lies the contribution offered by Popp. Although produced in 2010, to me this contribution still resonate today and is worth considering in order to be able to filter the increasing and overwhelming amount of data available.