Brigitte Kowanz, World Wide Web 12.03.1989 06.08.1991, 2017

2017

Medium

Neon and mirror

Dimensions

80 × 190 cm

Edition

Ex. 1/3

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-156264

Brigitte Kowanz’ World Wide Web 12.03.1989 06.08.1991 (2017) encodes the two historical dates, on which the Internet was presented to the world and made publicly accessible, into Morse code. In a mirrored glass showcase, the data is transformed into the form of a luminous, buoyant cable – symbolic for the transmission of information. The work was created in preparation for the Austrian pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, in which Brigitte Kowanz presented several works from the Codes and Cables series, explicitly dedicated to digitization. Data, codes and light as information are at the center of this examination: “Until then, I had been working on the origins of information transmission with light – in Morse code - but my interest was now directed towards the present, digitization, and the Internet: the digital society. Light is not only the basis of all life, it is also the basis of post-analog communication.” She utilizes a combination of light and mirrors to “transform real space into a series of virtual spaces. With this superposition of light, mirrors and virtual spaces, my aim was to put two different types of today's spatial experience at the center of perception. While viewers are in the real space, they encounter their own reflection within the expanded virtual spaces of the mirror work between a multitude of data and information."