Press
Porous / 2020 – 2022
The work “Porous” blends parts of the city with organic matter and remnants of technology. This fusion overgrows architecture and familiar urban elements. Like today’s garbage, which all too often comes into contact with nature to decompose, the world is taken over by the “Porous” – the unhealthy hybrid of nature and waste. Astonishment and irritation: inappropriate and inexplicable.
“Porous” / Exhibition view / NON Berlin – Meinblau / Berlin 2022
“Porous” / Exhibition view / NON Berlin – Meinblau / Berlin 2022
Street object 01 / plants and electronic / 40 x 100 x 30 / 2022
Street object 01 / plants and electronic / 40 x 100 x 30 / 2022
Street object 02 / plants and electronic / 40 x 30 x 30 / 2022
“Porous” / Exhibition view / NON Berlin – Meinblau / Berlin 2022
“Porous” / Exhibition view / NON Berlin / c/o Meinblau / Berlin 2022
Scanned_Image / 2014
The visual message (painting) has electronic devices in the background: a scanner scanning the light of a desk lamp or itself – with the help of a mirror. The images were created in a process of trial scanning with an open scanner and moving the light or mirror during the scanning process. The accidental glitch formed the basis of the final result – oil paintings. The process of painting computer-generated images reverses the image back to a real object and requires physical effort. The human factor returns and is responsible for variability and subjectivity. The processing of “reuse” is a strategy of cultural garbology based on the content of digital waste. As a result of the use of redundant data, both digital images and traditional paintings are remediated and shifted into a new aesthetic dimension.
“The randomness of the image as a key quality results from a kind of ‘reverse engineering’ tactic that Marcelina Wellmer applies in her works. Using everyday devices, the artist reaches for the ready-made aesthetic formula, but also engages these devices in a form of transmedial dialog”. E. Wojtowicz PhD, Academy of Fine Arts Poznan, Poland
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_Image / exhibition view / Rainbow Unicorn / Berlin 2017
Error 404 502 410 / 2019 – 2012
The project “Error 502 404 410” is a generative sound installation based on the phenomenon of server errors. Rarely noticed when they occur, these technical failures are accompanied by sounds. The discrete work of hard disk appliances becomes both an example of “reverse engineering” and an attempt at translation between media. The obscure realm of data noise is revealed and given an aesthetic frame by the artist’s scientific approach. As the disks rotate in an endless loop of self-reference, the recursion is not always regular because it is disturbed by the randomness factor.
ERROR 404 502 410 / burned tree / 3 hard discs, acrylic glass, Arduino, DIY electronics, piezzos, speakers.
ERROR 404 502 410
ERROR 404 502 410 / close up
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.
Poetry Machine / 2013
Poetry Machine randomly mixes two poems by William Blake: “Little Girl Lost” and “Little Boy Lost”. The poems are read aloud by the machine. Each time the reading is started, it may be different due to an algorithm that determines the use of a particular verse from the database. The artificial voices are synthesized by computer software. The human body influences and interacts with the machine. Depending on the listener’s distance from the object, the voices change: their volume shifts, phrases mix, and the sound becomes distorted. The work plays with the sensitivity of the machine, the fragility of digital memory, and the interaction between the human body and the artificial object.
Poetry Machine / Music stand, speakers, distance sensor, DIY mp3
Poetry Machine / Music stand, speakers, distance sensor, DIY mp3 / Berlin Institut for Culture Inquiry / 2013
Poetry Machine / audio&video documentation / Berlin Institut for Culture Inquiry / 2013