Anyone working on a computer will remember the moments when the machine seems to slip out from under you and leave you in terror. Before you know it you're computing away amidst total chaos. Either because kitty has decided to lie down on your keyboard, because you yourself have touched a wrong key or simply because the system is running along it's own course.
Chaos and despair behind the computer is not everybody's cup of tea, but JODI have become specialists in creating those kinds of moments. Not like hackers who aim to have Internetsystems crash by way of viruses but as artists by coaxing a higher form of art from it. Their ability especially, to raise those moments of playful chaos to the level of the sublime commands admiration all over the world.
JODI show moments of modern technology dysfunctioning, especially those on the home computer and they leave nothing to chance doing it. Or actually maybe just everything. And give indications on how to sublimate the chaos at the same time. Chaos rules or so it seems, at Mediamatic Supermarkt, redecorated into a a totally selfcontained office space.
Four computer screen desktops are being projected, two Windows and two Apples, while invisible users keep succeeding in disorganizing the menus again and again. But everything is different than it looks: this complete chaos of sound and images is also an artistic experience not to be missed.
Opening hours and further info:
www.electrohype.org/rom/jodi/backtobasic.html
The exhibition was financially supported by the Ministry of OCW.
