Robert Saucier & KIT
June 3 – July 15, 2005
Reception and artist talk: June 3, 8:00pm
Infrasense is the first project and collaboration between KIT and Robert Saucier. Both artists have long histories of producing robotic sound installations and Web-based installations and have a history of presenting complex technologically based works that have strong social political narratives.
Infrasense will travel to a number of galleries in Canada, England, Germany, USA and Northern Ireland. As each project is realized in a new gallery and location, it will be produced as a site-specific work that changes according to spatial, political and social parameters unique to each situation.
The work deals with the electronic virus cultures including worms, back doors, Trojan horses and bugs each of which are some of the more well known terms and metaphors for viral activities on the Internet, on desktops, laptops and in research and development labs around the world.
Infrasense uses the ideas of the Trojan horse and the bug as two elements which are subsequently produced as physical sculptural entities in turn then controlled from the Internet. The idea then is to take concepts from the digital world, render them as physical objects and then return the control of the physical back to the digital landscape of the World Wide Web.
The artists will construct 5 stations for the Soil project at Neutral Ground forming a series of Trojan horses. In literal fact, a Trojan horse is a type of virus that is deceptive in its intent which is why it carries the same name as the historical horse that was given as a gift only to surprise the recipients with hidden agents of warfare. They shall move very slowly however so that there movement is barely perceptible to the human eye. (The Trojan horses will be pre-programmed to move backwards and forwards across the gallery. They will not be controlled by the audience in any way). On the side of each horse there will be a speaker (acting as the metaphor for the door of the historical horse) which will utter sound and voices at a low level that are audible but not discernable as to what the voices are saying or what the sounds are.
