talks & installations @ 38C3

Installation “Find my” by Kjell Wistoff

Talk “arafed futures – An Artist Dialogue on Chip Storage and AI Accelerationism” by Ting-Chun Liu & Leon-Etienne Kühr

Installation “Turing Test” by Conrad Weise

The 38th Chaos Communication Congress (38C3) takes place in Hamburg on 27–30 Dec 2024, and is the 2024 edition of the annual four-day conference on technology, society and utopia organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and volunteers. Congress offers lectures and workshops and various events on a multitude of topics including (but not limited to) information technology and generally a critical-creative attitude towards technology and the discussion about the effects of technological advances on society.

arafed futures – An Artist Dialogue on Chip Storage and AI Accelerationism

Talk by Ting-Chun Liu & Leon-Etienne Kühr, 28.12.2024 17:15–18:15, Saal ZIGZAG, more info see »here«

The global chip shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic brought semiconductor production into focus, sparking accelerated efforts to meet the surging demand for digital infrastructure. This phenomenon not only expanded AI capabilities but also introduced unexpected computational artifacts.
One such artifact is the word “arafed”, a term absent from any dictionary yet mysteriously appears across contexts from image prompts to Amazon product descriptions. Such unintended linguistic artifacts, born from transformer-based AI models, exemplify how digital artifacts emerge into realities with which we cohabitate.
The talk investigates how supply-chains break and AI-words spread from an artistic research perspective. Mapping both the abstract landscapes of embedding spaces, that are filled with emergent words and images, and the tangible, geopolitical realities of global semiconductor supply chains.

Find my

Installation by Kjell Wistoff, 27.-30.12.2024 Halle H, more info see »here«

the term offline devices is used to describe a category of technology that employs a novel network topology operating below the layers of the internet. while offline devices are not directly connected to the internet, they can still make requests through nearby connected devices. in the setup of the artwork find my (2024) three parasitic offline devices have been placed in remote locations, broadcasting satellite images of these areas through other people‘s devices. while the parasites subsequently use their host‘s data and energy to send the images bit by bit, the viewer is able to perceive this process in the exhibition. as parasites and their hosts interact, the artwork develops over time. the temporal and spatial factors serve to illustrate that the seemingly intangible networked realm is rooted in concrete materialised conditions that shape the flow of information, sometimes unknowingly.

Turing Test

Installation by Conrad Weise, 27.-30.12.2024 Halle H, more info see »here«

the interactive installation turing test is a materialist interpretation of the current state of computation. it posits that artificial intelligence is the hidden labour — hence the exploited worker hidden behind every so engaging interaction within its shiny interfaces.