Press
Woodpecker / 2014
Woodpecker / wooden board / solenoid, LED / 2014-2015
Woodpecker / wooden board / solenoid, LED / 2014-2015
Woodpecker / wooden board / solenoid, LED / 2014-2015
During my winter walks in the woods around Berlin I could often observe woodpeckers. Their knocking sounds were clean and loud to hear in the winter landscape. I started to record them. When I got the opportunity for a summer residency in Maajaam/Estonia I decided to bring the Berlin woodpecker sounds with me to built an object based on their abstract rhythms. I took a plank of Maajaam wood and istalled a solenoid on it. The motor knocks in the rhythm of the Berlin bird, in parallel an LED is flashing through one of 30 drilled holes in the plank. LED and knock are always in sync, the hole is chosen by random.
Technical aspects: The recording was cleaned up and equalized so that the knocks could be written into a file of 1s and 0s. This notation is used to trigger the solenoid and LEDs.
Woodpecker / backside – circuit, LED boards, Arduino / 2014 – 2015
The first version of the project I realised at Maajaam, a residency place in Estonia.(2014) I installed the solenoid in a old house on the yard. The woodpecker sound is greeting the visitors of Maajaam. For the first moment it is not obvious for the guests, that they hear to a mechanical bird. It is one of the recorded bird sounds in Berlin.
Woodpecker / version 1 / Maajaam / video documentation 2014
Scanned_Image / 2014
Scanned_Image01 / oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image02/ oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image03 / oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image04/ oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image05 / oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image06 / oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
The visual message (painting) have in backround electronic devices: a scanner, scanning the light of a desk lamp or them self – with a help of a mirror. The images emerged in a process of trial scanning with open scanner and moving the light or mirror during the process of scanning. The accidental incurred glitch was the base of the finish result – oil paintings. The process of painting computer generated pictures reverse the image back to a real object and it needs a physical effort. The human factor is back and responsible for variability and subjectivity.
The processing of “re-using” is a strategy of cultural garbology, based on the content of the digital rubbish. As a result of using the redundant data, both – digital images and regular paintings are remediated and shifted into a new aesthetical dimension.
“The randomness of the picture as a key quality, results from a kind of “reverse engineering” tactics that Marcelina Wellmer applies in her works. Using everyday devices, the artist reaches for the ready-made aesthetical formula but also engages them in a form of a transmedial dialogue. “E. Wojtowich/ PhD, Fine Arts Academy Poznan / Poland
Keywords: remediation, feedback, transmedia, scanning, systems aesthetics, randomness, reverse engineering.
ERROR 404 502 410 / 2018 – 2012
ERROR 404 502 410 / 3 hard discs, acrylic glass, PC Housing, Arduino, Piezos, Speakers / 2012 – 2019
ERROR 404 502 410
ERROR 404 502 410
What do computer errors sound like? In our everyday use of computers error messages are communicated without sound. Most likely you are presented with matter-of-fact information like, “Server Error. The server has encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request”, or “Oops…This link appears to be broken HTTP 404 File not found.” These silent messages are software interfaces designed to prevent you from having to worry about or engage with what is taking place at the deeper level of the computer‚s processor.
I created a group of hardware interfaces to three common errors that – beyond principles of usability – challenge the visitor to relate to the materiality of errors through the abstract qualities of sound.
Onto the disks of the drives I laser etched the 404 502 410 status codes in big Latin letters. Because of the lasered letters the disk routine stops and the write/read head goes back into its rest position, the disk powers down. A contact microphone is attached to the hard disk drive, recording the mechanical sounds of the moving disk and the write/read head. The sound gets amplified by an equalizer, pronouncing the rhythmical pattern of read action and the disk spinning. The boot routine creates a composition of random length and rhythm, that is always slightly different, depending on how and where on the spinning disk the read / write head gets distracted by the laser etched letters. While the disk is powered down and isn‚t spinning, the text becomes readable by the audience.
E.Wojtowicz, PhD, University of Arts, Poznan / Poland
Poetry Machine / 2013
Poetry Machine / music stand, speakers, distance sensor, DIY mp3 platin / 2013
Poetry Machine / Music stand, speakers, distance sensor, DIY mp3 
Poetry Machine / Music stand, speakers, distance sensor, DIY mp3 / ICI Berlin exhibition view / 2013
Poetry Machine / audio&video documentation / ICI Berlin / 2013
Poetry Machine is mixing randomly two poems by William Blake: Little Girl Lost and Little Boy Lost. The poems are read out loud by the machine – every time the reading is launched, it may be different due to an algorithm responsible for using the particular verse from the database.The artificial voices are synthesized by computer software. The human body influences and interacts with the machine – based on the distance of the listener to the object, the voices are changing, changing in volume, mixing the sentences, getting destroyed. The work plays with the sensibility of machines, the fragility of digital memory and the interaction between human body and artificial object.