The project ,separated values explores the simulative potential of data processes, a key element of contemporary cultural and technological formations. As part of the project, the artist developed a device that enables different interface strategies for data processing. Through a series of transmissions between data and signal (digital and analogue), the device has been used to materialise various natural and social phenomena as data models.
The installation consists of phosphorescent 3D-printed data models which, receiving and emitting light, oscillate in their appearance between the virtual and the physical, as well as an analogue projection of an electron beam from an oscilloscope screen, based on which the 3D models were created in an AI-supported videogrammetry environment.
Rather than the semantic or functional value of data models, ,separated values foreground their plasticity and formative power while also modelling the potentialities of analogue-digital entanglements.
Production: Ljudmila Art and Science Laboratory
Curator and text: Maja Burja
Device development: Staš Vrenko (concept and programming), Gregor Krpič (circuit board development)
Technical assistance with device development: Luka Frelih
Technical support: RogLab, osmo/za
Acknowledgement: Tomo Per
CV
Staš Vrenko is a media artist, musician and designer of electronic instruments. He holds a master’s degree from the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. For his master’s thesis, he received the UL ALUO Prešeren Award for Students. His artistic practice combines different fields of art, with an emphasis on research into sound, electronic media and technologies, kineticism and performativity. In recent years, he has presented his work in several solo projects: Fabrications, P74 Gallery, Ljubljana (2020); Record, Kino Šiška, Ljubljana (2019); Loops in Transmission, osmo/za, Ljubljana (2018); Adoption Techniques, P74 Gallery, Ljubljana (2017); and Connective, MoTA, Ljubljana (2016). He has also exhibited in several group exhibitions, for example, at the International Festival Agora Creative, Grenoble (2019); MFRU_25 (2019); Kiblix (2017); International Lighting Guerrilla Festival (2016), as part of the Liminale Project at U3 | 7th Triennial of Contemporary Arts in Slovenia (SCCA Ljubljana, 2013), Match Gallery (2012), Škuc Gallery (2012), and others.