Temperaton

Spatial multimedia installation (virtual reality, 3D print installation), 2022

When perceiving the environment, humans depend on various stimuli and situations that directly and indirectly influence their thinking and feeling. This is conditioned by a myriad of calculations and logic loops and interactions that are constantly being built and broken down. Everything that is known or understood comes through the natural senses. Patterns are built up through accumulated experience, which, combined with current sensations, make understanding possible.

The Temperaton project explores the perception of the environment; i.e. the perception of space and time through the perception of light, its color tones and shadows. This is similar to how a person is able to determine the time of year, the hour of the day and the temperature of the environment using only their own senses and accumulated patterns. Temperaton attempts to make sense of the perception of the environment by using human experience and established patterns to deliberately play out sensations. The analogy with reality is thus broken down on purpose. It works as a multisensory device that, by using VR technology in combination with reality, allows entering into unexplored fields of environmental perception processes in a completely new way.

Temperaton is conceived as a spatial multimedia installation that aims to understand visual change in ways we are not used to. In this context, it critically addresses concepts that are measurable but not in the domain of the human senses and therefore not yet conscious. For example, concepts such as global warming, water scarcity, natural disasters and everything related to the effects of climate change. It is an entry into a kind of surreal abstract space where virtual and real perceptions intertwine, which for a moment reminds us of the futuristic meta-urban images of Giorgio De Chirico, where the functions and dimensions of objects are subject to irrational parameters.

The slowness of humanity's response to the consequences of global warming may also be a consequence of sensory numbness. Temperaton is an experiment that uses art to shift the perception of the environment into sensorially unexplored areas, allowing a completely new insight into the field of the temperature spectrum.

Temperaton

Production: KID KIBLA

Modux UNDERGROUND

The project focuses on the societal and social issues in the town of Labin, which are based on the town community’s relationship with industrial and technologic development. The project examines how the town developed around the coal mine and explores what connections between mining towns were once like. The project actively encourages the local community’s involvement in the creative process by gathering historical facts and statistical data about the town and its mine, it asks the townspeople to describe how they view the now-abandoned mining tunnels and how the revitalization of the underground system is envisioned, how the local mining industry shaped the social dynamic through history, and how the environment and cultural heritage were affected.

MODUX UNDERGROUND is conceived as a site-specific multimedia project, based on an analytical breakdown of the visual artwork, allowing the audience to become actively involved in the creation of the visual composition. The picture, or the canvas, becomes an open, living system, which has passed beyond being merely in the artist’s domain. Statistical data becomes art, which Labin’s inhabitants themselves translate into an artist’s tale, manifested as a living, dynamic mosaic of personal visual and sonic interpretations. The underlying data and measurements are specific to the town of Labin, they express both the town’s geographic and social dimensions. The project paints an unconventional picture of statistical information and draws a comparison with the precision of the measurements and the abstract nature of the artwork.

Text:BridA
Production supported by Ministry of Culture of Republic Slovenia

Plantportation / Q-modul

The Plantportation research project has been conceived as a multi-layer venture into the dimension of quantum entanglement and thereby its possible theoretical consequences and interactions, which also include quantum teleportation. In science, the idea is presented with various theories that never give us a clear notion of the quantum dimension. Numerous scientific experiments such as the Loophole-free Bell inequality (John Stewart Bell, 1964), Ground-to-satellite quantum teleportation (Anton Zeilinger, Jian-Wei Pan, 2017) and Google’s quantum supremacy (Alphabet Inc., 2019) have confirmed and proven that there is quantum entanglement and thereby the possibility of quantum teleportation. What is intriguing and interesting in all of this is that this phenomenon still cannot be explained. Science admits that the existing theories do not suffice for the understanding of the entire quantum field and that the current phenomena have much greater potentials than we can imagine, but people need more tangible and intelligible results. From these phenomena, science fiction builds a fruitful literary and film production that interprets scientific results as magic or special effects, which pushes quantum nature even further into the background.

The goal of the BridA art collective is to build an inter-space that is difficult to imagine with our existing mental patterns. Such space takes form of a research module that enables us to bring together artistic ideas and scientific approaches. The Plantportation research project focuses on quantum entanglement and quantum superposition, which are at the core of the current scientific research into quantum computers or extremely rapid data transfer. Space and time become variables, while the observer becomes a medium through which quantum theory is actualised.

Plantportation / Q-modul foto credits: Maid Hadžihasanović

Made possible and supported by: KonS and LokalPatriot

The False Mirror

The project deconstructs the established models of our image. Models that attempt to show us who we really are or what we really need. It reveals the gaps that have been intentionally left out in the development of mobile applications, be it to serve the commercial interests of technology providers or the insatiable need for a more beautiful and lasting image of ourselves. The development and supply of visual communication interfaces does not enable active participation, transforming us into idle spectators of our everchanging reflection. In a concrete example, the user is faced with different possibilities and trends of developing apps and media like selfie applications, Google Street interactive navigation and social media, going beyond commercial logic in search of artistic potential.

The False Mirror

Made possible and supported by: RUK and Kibla

Plantportation

The concept of the project is to create an "inter-space" where visitors can temporarily assimilate the identity of the plant. The installation consists of a projection on the wall, adjacent to local plants, and creates the feeling of a mirror, displaying it virtually. The image changes, responding to the presence of the viewer and creates that particular opportunity of "identification" with the plants from different geographic location.

Plantportation

Vodoskop v2.0

The Vodoskop installation consists of two floating modules, equipped with a wireless transmitter. The modules collect data on the speed of water and the water flow, and send it to the computer, installed on the nearby bridge. Passers-by can interact with the water-flow visualization: while on the bridge, they can watch the visualization on the floor and interact with it by stepping in the virtual river. Vodoskop mirrors the nature and creates a multi-layered image in the interspace of our perception. Vodoskop problematizes our relationship with water in natural and urban environments.

Vodoskop v2.0

City without an identity

The project is questioning the meaning of the public space seen through the lens of a camera, capturing what the laws permit and the technology allows. Images of individuals in the public space must be anonymised and technology enables us to remove all personal information and conceal sensitive data in real time. We are thus left with empty urban spaces and we are left to wonder what happened to individual identities, which had to be processed and analyzed to be finally removed. The process of separation gives us two sets of values: a city with no identity and a digital database of people, containing parts of their identities. What is the relation between the two sets? What do they mean and how they can be used or abused?

City without an identity

In-sight

In-sight project examines models – models for collecting, storing and sitributing data subject to privacy laws. It questions the point of systematic collection of huge amounts of databases without a single or clear purpose, exploring the significance of decision-making algorhythms and the power associated with manipulating databases. It is intended to provoke thinking about our presence in real and virtual space and the current relation between safety and privacy.

In-sight

Interspace Module

The Interspace Module intermedia project is based on exploring the unoccupied abstract space – the vacuum in the perception of the message of art. By using controlled and automated systems, connected into a schematic grid of pre-emptively placed units, viewers find themselves in indefinite situations, where they are able to compose their own image or message and thus, focusing their attention to an area with, as yet, no clear image or association. When we talk about unoccupied space, we reflect on the fact that understanding the message of art depends on the acquired mental schemes, the patterns imposed by society upon individuals to shape their cognition, as well as about space offering opportunities for artistic value beyond reference models.

Interspace Module

SpreadKOM

SpreadKOM does not need a conventional central unit in order to function, it generates all the useful information by itself. It does not require any inbound sources or other global data providers. Instead, it generates a sustainable and autonomous form of communication comprised of units that can be added individually, having the potential to grow into a more complex and more sophisticated network. To establish communication, these devices use only sound impulses, which they exchange with a microphone and a sound generator tuned to specific frequencies.

SpreadKOM

Sound-around

The Sound-Around art project is based on constructing a work of art with the audience participating actively. Various mechanical devices and sound units enable direct impact on the construction of the artwork. Mechanic modules, microphones and security cameras are tracing the topography of the space in which pople hang around. These people are be integrated into an interactive system, enabling them to participate actively in the creative process. The audio-visual setting enables the audience to perceive and comprehend the topography of specific location quite differently than usual.

Sound-around

Vodoskop 1.0 Ptuj

The project consists of two independent floating modules equipped with wireless transmitter. They are collecting data about the speed of the flow of the river Drava and sending them in real time to the remote computer located on the bridge. The installation on the bridge is an interactive platform based on the visualisation of the processed data of the river. the projection on the bridge gives to the public the sensation of stepping into the river therefore changing the meaning of crossing the river by using the bridge.

Vodoskop 1.0 Ptuj

DefragNews

The web-based project DefragNews is an exploration of an unsustainable information scenario, in which a definable amount of not-always-compatible pieces of information is used to maintain an uninterrupted and unrepeatable flow of information. The project is an attempt at creating a kind of distilled flow of information, offering a the viewer/user the chance of getting a new perspective on the relevance of information. Although having a similar structure to conventional media portals, such as CNN's or BBC's, it offers an seemingly orderly blend of real-time news, gathered from various types of sources. Our brains tend to acquire patterns of behaviour over time and we have learned to put things in order, so we can perceive information even when it is being broadcast in a chaotic way. Our information culture has got to point of creating new content from perused and outdated information or even data structures. The media channels are wrapping old material in new patterns. The purpose of such overwhelming abundance of information structures is to maintain a steady flow of information. When there is an error in print, news or on television, we—the users—no longer question the reliability of the information, but prefer composing a new image from all the senses affected and—relying on nothing more than the probability that the information is true—we accept any piece of information as reliable or even truthful.

DefragNews

Giustizia Remota

Nano Plotter

In this project, an obsolete machine normally used for technical drawings, has been adapted for an unusual purpose. The device is programmed and adapted to draw on cornflower, the table is equipped by vibrating system that cancel the drawing when is finished. The robotic hand of the plotter and the noise it makes while working create a strange atmosphere. At the same time the plotter becomes a performer, telling a story and giving it its own peculiar rhythm. In this fictional world, two characters talk about nano particles as their living space. They dont understand the situation; apparently they have been created by chance and for a very short time. The performance created by the device can be also perceived like a video project, it has all the properties such as precise time line, the content and the sound. Through an unusual narrative, Nanoplot is an attempt to explore a still unknown space-time dimension: the nano world. A world made of particles that can be manipulated only using special microscopes (such as the Scanning Tunnelling Microscope STM, or the Atomic Force Microscope AFM) with a needle as big as a carbon molecule and able to move nano particles.

Nano Plotter

Assembler

Assembler is a multimedia project which doesn't use technology for scientific purposes, but as a possibility for entering into the process of creating a work of art. Various computer and mechanical parts of this robotic system form an automated environment that allows the construction of visual content in real time. In constant interaction with the audience and by using mathematical functions and algorithms, the device automatically generates content and ensures its constant change.

Assembler

Trackeds

Trackeds is the research of different dynamics of movement and topographical structures in the town. The framework is composed by the records of different locations and points of hyper-dynamic situations. The result is an explaining of a nonlinear equation that represents a chaotic movement of modules and self-organizing structures in certain situations. Artists are analyzing the process of how to construct a visual work, in particular bidimensional space with different layers.. Instead of a personal or subjective interpretation of a certain phase in their process, they prefer to automate some activities with different commands and mathematical equations. For this project BridA wrote a special software application to trace people and objects in the streets. The visual composition is a still image combined with the software graphic application representing traced object and subjects, all graphic applications and images are controlled by the software running on open-source operating system.

Budapest, Szent Gellért tér

Chemnitz, Karl Marx

Trackeds

Trackeds Parliament

The project is based on the creation of autonomous systems or environments which make it possible to automatically produce visual content. In conceptual terms it is essential that the project preserves a dynamic structure which allows the communication of information in real time from off-site venues and triggers a dynamic change in content. The system itself is not dependent on visual meaning alone, it is put into a conceptual dialogue with the precise selection of location – in this case the Slovenian parliament with all of its social and symbolic significance. The selected surveillance systems and procedures (change in temperature, micro movements, sound analysis, quantification, etc.) are collected in folders which map changes that are usually imperceptible but are significant. Trackeds 2.0 is a project which turns the logic of panopticon on its head and puts it to public use with selected analytical procedures and artistic processes.

Trackeds Parliament

Trackeds Houston

The subjective interpretation of data culled from the trace of movement through the built environment is given way to automation by using different commands and mathematical equations. The result is a visualization of a nonlinear equation that represents the chaotic movement of modules and self-organizing structures. Using the tracked motion of subjects and objects through public space BridA creates a moving net, a scribble in the shadow of structures which govern and control movement in the city.

Trackeds Houston (U3)

Present at: 8th Triennial of Contemporary Art – U3 / Beyond the Globe, curated by Boris Groys

projection, computer animation on digital photograph, 2014

The view from the tallest building in the city, the JPMorgan Chase Tower

On the left is the Bank of America financial center, by architect Philip Johnson. Next comes The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, and down below in the center, beside the arts center, stands the hanging tree. Next to it a signboard reads: “Many stories attached to the 400-year old history of this live oak. Some say that during the days of the Republic of Texas (1836-1845), at least 11 criminals were hanged from its graceful boughs.” Although others dispute such tales, the legend lives on. The center of the city, or downtown Houston, is separated from the suburbs by the wide expanse of the Gulf Freeway or Interstate 45, the main traffic artery between the Gulf of Mexico and the major cities of the state of Texas.

The Trackeds project was created in 2008, the result of a residency organized by the Ratti Foundation, Como (I) and headed by architect Yona Friedman. The project is built on researching dynamic structures in urban spaces and analyzing super-automated systems that collect and process captured data, with a special emphasis on building data-based or visual content with the use of cybernetic applications. Sophisticated surveillance systems can also be understood as a giant network of contemporary vistas of landscapes and cityscapes. The views are not, however, captured with the purpose of creating beautiful and charming panoramas; their primary aim is to collect data on people and their activities and provide “security.” Interestingly, these systems are so highly automated and autonomous that they are becoming the sole end users and, paradoxically, the sole “admirers” of the captured images. While preserving the original format of surveillance systems, the Trackeds project does not assume the function of surveillance. It creates an image that is then offered up to be admired. Although the data is captured from the microcosm of specific locations, the project has a global orientation. The focus of interest is not personal data or the static properties of an object, but on a body of reduced dynamic properties from which global patterns can be derived, patterns that could present space and time differently, in the form of an artwork. Traces recorded by motion tracking software are drawn on top of a projection of a static reference picture of the place the data was captured, creating a dynamic drawing. The automated image is produced by a software application that combines the diverse body of information into a multilayered composition. Functioning as a hybrid form, the visual representation opens up different views of the chosen location, in layers from the substratum of the unconscious, through historical elements to the science-based and empirically measured environment. Each layer of information presents another situation, adding to and at the same time erasing the perceptible image. The abstract algorithm and digital recording both contrast and fuse with the urban structural makeup of the environment. Sound is generated in relation to the position and density of the detected objects and builds a data-based synthesis of space and time. Historical elements intertwining with dynamic fragments of the present allow space and time to manifest non-linearly. The collected data is saved as a finite set of numbers representing a correlation between space and time. Any given time flow can be observed as multilayered directions, velocities, accelerations and densities, together with their sums and differences that speak about the dynamics of a specific urban space. At the same time, the captured data also reflects the rules in place there, and traces the history that has established the order of the dynamics.

Trackeds Houston was made in collaboration with the Center for Contemporary Art Research ALABAMA SONG, Houston, TX, and with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia.

Les Mouches

When Zeuxis unveiled his painting of grapes, they appeared so luscious and inviting that birds flew down from the sky to peck at them.” BridA proves that the Greek mythos is alive - even in the digital realm. Text: Hans Diebner

Information accelerator

Information Accelerator; it unites and combines the processes of transmitting and receiving information, of directing and channeling it in an extensive system of tubes or pipes. This module spans the entire gallery as some kind of conduit, making the flow and processing of all kinds of information possible. In BridA's words “such a structure can be compared to a traditional drawing resembling a network of wires and channels. In such case, the drawing would be understood as a topographical grid for combining information in diverse ways, multiplying it, dividing it, adding it up and subtracting it, drawing the path to the final message in some sort of system of coordinates.” Information Accelerator is a system of pipes, a duct, or an installation consisting of all the necessary equipment for such a device to work. It contains elements for observing the exterior world and for contacts with it (e.g. control monitors, interactive switches, sound units, microcontrollers for monitoring and guiding various operations).

Printed circuit boards

Topographic structure of a drawing enables some kind of orientate entrance into a painting work. In its geometrical structure it is possible to unveil different applications of various possibilities of information directing. Following the conducts we can explore different artistic elements that are conceptually or objectively related to the transfer and manipulation of various information contents.. Whereas the physical property of the copper lines permits the information flow. A rather complex system of circuit boards are canalizing the energy transfer and with it the actually possibility of information transfer. Symbols and content are at the same time channels in which the information travels, data, commands, electric power..Shortly, all conditions for physical transfer of information are enabled.

Modux Datascape

Modux is a project of sampling ideas, matter and sorroundings using scientific sistems to form autonomous modular cells – moduls and reinterpretated visual composition with the acquired moduls or modular composition.In this experiment BridA gather the informations that belong to a moment or space and can be stored in a permanent form. These can be in the form of a sketch, fotograph, sound, temperature, air pressure or infact a combination of given data we perceive. They codify the gathered information or samples into a senseful cell, to which the neccessary catalyst for further elaboration and enable cell linking is added. Elaborated cell becomes a modul ready for use. The sense of trasforming of gathered information into codified notes or moduls is the research of new idiomatic expressions. The sources, that would generaly be used to form an artwork,are mathematicaly converted into scetches which are not dependant of our temporary perception and instead are a standardized copy of a chosen source.

Modux 1.0

In the stage of the project Modux 1.0, BridA made a step forward as regards the conceptual development of the project: modern digital photography was deconstructed to its basic form -- a square, which again became only a shape, to which content is added. The group again collected data on a chosen location, this time it was statistical data on the city population. The observers were again involved into the project: random by-passers on the street had to choose from available data, read it and select coloured squares of different dimensions according to their own interpretation. The shots were subsequently mounted into a dynamic composition that looked like a digital record - coloured squares caught into a net. The installation was accompanied by sound recordings of the read statistical data.

Modux 1.2012

The project Modux 1.2012 questions both authorship and subjective interpretation, which are crucial for the artist and for the viewer. It provides an insight into the multi- dimensionality of a visual artwork by including passers-by from the town of Maribor into the process of its construction. They participated by selecting a coloured square based on a piece of statistical data, thus contributing their own personal interpretation of a piece of information to determine the structure and composition of the picture. The colour-coded interpretation of a measurement, paired with precise mechanical movement of the device, make for an unusual dynamic composition opening up an entirely new level of perception of visual information.

Modux 3.0

With the Modux 3.0 project Brida created a sort of in-between or half-product which only serves to manipulate information, as opposed to a product which delivers information. In order to avoid Their subjective interference, they have used mathematical systems to manipulate data and information. The product therefore evolves without the direct control of the artist, enabling the observer to arrive at a personal interpretation. They have managed to make their project some kind of living system that develops on its own.

Modux 3.4

The Modux 3.4 project might be defined as a dynamic formula in which the relation among unknowns is determined by the pattern of dynamic schemes of various complex movement systems of organisms and relational elements – the characteristic movement dynamics brings forth comparable forms and shapes. Thus we might compare the movement pattern of microorganisms (paramecia or bacteria) and that of people in certain urban environment. The project is not only a cybernetic experiment but also addresses the question of hermetical artistic interpretation detached from the perception of the observer. This project is an attempt at integrating the observer into the very core of the composition making him an upgrade and an essential component of a work of art.

Modux 3.5

MODUX / Storieincorso

video installazione, GALLERIA TINA MODOTTI, Udine, 2015

BridA/Tom Kerševan, Sendi Mango, Jurij Pavlica con sede a Šempas (Slovenia) è l’autore di un originale progetto per riportare ai cittadini di oggi la memoria della Grande Guerra. Utilizzando una piattaforma multimediale che raccoglie i dati e le esperienze di alcuni workshop realizzati in città, BridA mette in relazione i nomi dei soldati di ieri con i cittadini di oggi. Dopo Karlsruhe (ZKM, 2006), Kassel (2008) e Linz (Ars Electronica, 2009), la galleria Tate St Ives nel 2013 e Kalmar Konstmuseum (2015), quello di Udine è il loro primo esperimento di arte contemporanea legato alla Grande Guerra. Una video installazione e una mostra diffusa sulla cartellonistica stradale della città, restituiscono gli interventi e le azioni dei cittadini a confronto con i soldati di cento anni fa.

DoItYourself

To be able to breakthrough the hermetics of a creative process and relation of values in the way the artwork is realized, it is necessary to consciously change the tradition, leading to a conscious experiment, which, through scientific precision of dosage and calibration of effect, dictates the possibility of formatting new artwork. The experiment is formed reversibly in relation to the questions that arise concerning the process of realization of traditional artwork. Questions » Is the immediate transfer of art onto the surroundings and society possible ? Can the artwork be independent from the artist? How to define the critical distance between artist and artwork within the realization process ? How to change the sequence of events of realization of artwork ? « lead to the reevaluation of already familiar and consolidated process. Demanding its dismantlement and new synthesis with different approach.

Borderpass

The necessity to move within time and space is paramount. The freedom of movement in space is equally proportional in all directions, except in the case of an obstacle. Motion alongside an obstacle, in the case of a straight line, is severed. Movement to the other side is possible only through a gap, paradoxically obstructing the congruity of movement on the necessary course. Life in a time of abstract borders affects our every day movement; even though borders today are both so apparent and almost virtual, our borderpass is everpresent deep within and becomes a metaphor for all the borderpasses we have and still will experience. This notion refers to another basic passage which will, in one way or another, influence the rest of our life: joining the EU.

This video was originally filmed with a hidden camera while crossing the borderpasses surrounding the area of Nova Gorica, on the border with Italy.

On our last crossing, the equipment was discovered by the Slovene Border Police, in a remote village and all our equipment was confiscated.

The artists decided to do the tour again, this time using mobile phone cameras. This video was recorded in 2004, the last day before the police left and border control ceased. The borders, along with the artists equipment, have gone.

Lunch Break

Is the research of time and space in multiple layers of sound, image and apparently boring everyday situations. Layers that are usually completely mixed in videos can be red in this case individually. A new story is being built. Authors of the video are same time main characters of the video and doing so we have put ourselves in the same unstable and chaotic situation.

Viktor

Video Viktor is yet another gathering of contrasts that are very typical for this land on Baltic coast. In the background there is a heavy industry, oil terminals, etc.. in the front there is a wish for creativity and freedom , both merged with a memories of younger history that people remember with mixed emotions. Karosta, a former soviet, secret military town, a place that we visited as resident artists in July 2007 is full of creative energy.

Ca' nun ce sta' nisciuno

The video is a result of a collaboration wit Oppy De Bernardo. The story was conceived thru the dialogue and confrontation in the time of Oppy's staying at our residency program in Šempas. The main idea was to discuss about migration situations that concern his family history and also the intense migration of Slovenians and other Slavic people in Switzerland, mainly for work and also for political reasons. The simplicity of the rural life and the strong connection of people in Šempas to the agriculture was also the main inspiration for Oppy, he told us that he always had a intense desire to drive a tractor.

Temperaton

Modux UNDERGROUND

Plantportation / Q-modul

The False Mirror

Plantportation

Vodoskop v2.0

City without an identity

In-sight

Interspace Module

SpreadKOM

Sound-around

Vodoskop 1.0 Ptuj

DefragNews

Giustizia Remota

Nano Plotter

Assembler

Trackeds

Trackeds Parliament

Trackeds Houston

Trackeds Houston (U3)

Les Mouches

Information accelerator

Printed circuit boards

Modux Datascape

Modux 1.0

Modux 1.2012

Modux 3.0

Modux 3.4

Modux 3.5

MODUX / Storieincorso

DoItYourself

Borderpass

Lunch Break

Viktor

Ca' nun ce sta' nisciuno

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