Corrosion

Beschreibung
"corrosion is a process of transformation. it is what happens to material that is exposed to other material and thus reacts to form something new (on the surface). taken for granted that interface correlates to surface and media always has an interface, corrosion is what transforms cultural material to something new (on the surface), when exposed to new cultural influences.

The structure implies that the narrative/frame hierarchies must be this complex to control the proliferating narratives. At the same time, the greater complexity leads to the possibility of multiple interactions between levels, so that the space is opened to narrative proliferation again. As chaos leads to order, and order back to chaos, the narrative comes to resemble an organism that grows by periodically dissolving and reassembling, each time at a higher level of complexity. In this sense the narrative is a cybernetic organism, manifesting within itself the same self-organizing processes that the stories take as their subject.
Hayles, N. Katherine. “Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science”. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990.

the installation corrosion acts on base of footage taken from peer to peer networks. it is therefor a (incredibly incomplete) mirror of a cultural group. the mundane activities of peer to peer networking get externalized in the piece, as well as the quality of the traded materials. the installation therefor reflects the state of the involved people on sharing networks. content shaped by communities and anonymous as the underlying principle: a panoptikon.
filesharing eludes control through technical organization. repetition of files itselft is the equivalent of the repetition of the control units of filesharing. in modern peer to peer networks, there are no servers involved. thus, the network is but a technical manifestation of the underlying principles and goals. control and responsibility are shared just as Madonna‹s mp3.

the video and audio data that is transformed, triggered, altered and spit out by corrosion comes entirely from peer to peer networks. it is thus more a conceptual than a technical solution to visualization: the social dynamic is described in metaphorical and not technical ways, yet technology plays the role of the director and narrator (in sense of structuring the narrative). a subcultural narrative. responsibility is transferred to machines, mirroring the process that takes place in peer to peer networking. and the machine is connected to the pool / is part of it."
Martin Pichlmair, Thomas Grill, Werkbeschreibung, Homepage des Komponisten (Thomas Grill), abgerufen am 5.12.2023 [https://grrrr.org/arts/projects/corrosion/]

Weitere Informationen: zusammen mit Martin Pichlmair

Uraufführung
2. - 17. Juni 2004 - Wien
Veranstlater: free bitflows