| P.U.N.K / Banff 2011 |
P.U.N.K
P.U.N.K is an informal ad-hoc artist collective formed during the R.I.P Workshop including
Niklas Roy, Todd Holoubek and myself.
The "bouncer piece", "Trash with Attitude", is well placed. The user has very limited options, reminding us of the dominance of closed systems that seem to offer bundles creativity yet are extremely hardwired on the layers of hardware, software, applications and services. It is this perceived freedom yet slavery to the machine that this piece sets forth as its redeeming presence. It is a big up yours middle finger, the return of the repressed as the old discarded pieces of technology that are quite readable in themselves, but that you did not care for, looked after, or made any attempt to understand now come back to you with a very clear message. Ah, why not invest some time, however little in trying to understand what you work with? Oh, you don't want to? You want to throw away what you can actually use for your purpose? Well, don't be surprised to end up in a seamless prison of closed ip connectivity that will f... you over every time.
"ʇnduı oǝpıʌ ou" and "100% Trash" (Hard Disk, Microwave, Texas Instruments Pocket Computer, Copper Wire, Microchips) are works in the best tradition of Julien Maire as they juxtaposes transparency of the material with the illegibility of the message. Once the material in "ʇnduı oǝpıʌ ou" produced clear output and helped to make transparent anything it was fed, now in a beautiful gesture of slow becoming it aims to once again help to produce meaning. The only meaning however it can produce lies in its material assemblage , testifying to its impotence as a transformer, yet in the very movement that shows this, we feel touched by the fact that it is keeps trying, keeps trying, keeps trying as if it says: "My friend, I will always do my best for you." "100% Trash" is making readable output as it painstakingly moves its wires across, yet it will never get a message out (although somehow it could conjure up some spirits of old connectivities, one never knows!). The Indians of the mountains will be proud as they see that there are white men who see dignity in dead moving parts and utility and value in what has been discarded and thrown away. I may be 100 trash but I can still rock you baby!
Text by Rob Van Kranenburg
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