Tench Cholnoky
Projects
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06.02.23
Concept
The power dynamics between user and machine have become unclear - constantly reversing roles between servant and master. What happens when we let go of our own knowledge and Follow the Machine? The machines are often functioning at a different level from our own understanding, being both literal and proverbial black boxes whose inner workings are too complex to understand. From our perspective, the output of the machine is seemingly random, and why it chooses what it does is almost divine. In order to Follow the Machine, we must fuel the machine. The machine cannot exist without our data, our inputs, and so we offer it every thought we think.
During the bufferings between performances we would collect information via audience questionnaires to feed the machine. Questions included
“What is your favorite color?”
“What’s your relationship with your mother like?”
“What is your favorite tree?”
“Do you dream?”
My Focus
Follow the Machine was all about the ambiguous relationship between leading the technology in our lives and letting it lead us. How often the power dynamics between user and machine flip as computerized decisionmaking becomes the norm. In that cat and mouse chase, the cursor became a clear visual interest for the show. A cursor represented exactly that relationship, the mediary between the digital and user. A cursor is in theory controlled exclusively by the user, but the reality of which choices the user is even presented with represent the power of the Machine.
The cursor and where it points became a driving force for my role in this show, and was the cornerstone of the visuals. In the buffering performances the cursor would slowly grow, shift and duplicate as we fed the machine more answers to more questions.
Regarding curation, I was looking for pieces that blurred the line of animacy in machines. I was looking for machines that could dance, could bleed, could sing and scream. This show in particular had a large emphasis on physical computation projects. Almost every installation was also interactive, asking the audience to participate in making the machines move, engage, and live. Having the audience actively control and influence the installations added another layer of engagement with the concept itself. The audience could pilot these living machines, but only in the ways the machines and artists themselves wished.
Documentation
2. Buffering performance by A. Kaz accompanied by my visuals
4. Installation by Gabriel Lee
6. Installation by Gabriel Lee
8. Installation by Mahima Jain
10. Installation by Terry Kahn
3. Performance by Magali, A Cult accompanied by my visuals
5. Buffering performance by A. Kaz accompanied by my visuals
7. Installation by Jill Shah
9. Installation by Ahona Paul