SPACE OF FLOWS: FRAMING AN UNSEEN REALITY (Documentation)
August 21, 2018 § Leave a comment
Data & Power (Panel, Krakow, May 2018)
‘Featuring an international slate of artists, the festival focuses on the ceaseless flow of people, information, and substances, through expanding urban areas, the virtual realm of cyberspace, and endangered natural landscapes. In the face of worldwide streams of refugees and migrants, an overload of manipulable digital information, and injurious amounts of harmful particles suspended in the atmosphere and discharged into waterways, those in power look the other way. And all the while they withdraw and intensify control to protect what they have. Short-term success is favoured over having a sustained vision of the future’ Iris Sikking, Curator Krakow Photomonth 2018
Extracts from THE MARKET (2010-) /RYNEK (2010-)(installation at the Szara Kamienica Gallery)
Installation comprised Photographs, Powerpoint Presentation, Transcripts of Verbal Testimony, A4 Colour Photograph/Text Pamphlet, Film & 3D Data Visualisation.Algorithm & Soundscape composition Ken Curran / Data Visualisation Damien Byrne.
The project was installed alongside excellent projects by Susan Schuppli, Axel Braun & Eline Benjaminsen.
As part of the official programme, a panel titled, Data & Power took place on Saturday, May 26th at Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art. Participants were Iris Sikking, Dominik Skokowski, Eline Benjaminsen, Mark Curran, Esther Hovers, Clément Lambelet, Rune Peitersen, Salvatore Vitale and was moderated by Alicja Peszkowska. To a full house the event went overtime due to audience responses and discussion. It was documented and available below.
‘A more perfect reminder of exactly how on-time and urgent these artists and their projects are, considering our connected world, even the very ground we walk upon. These stories remain resident in my consciousness and now alert me at odd moments to pay attention, to observe my own special omens’ From review by Christiane Monarchi on Photomonitor.co.uk available here.
Thank you to Iris Sikking for her generous invitation and to Aga Dwernicka, Joanna Gorlach, Karolina Leśniak, Marcin & Małgo and team in Krakow for all their hard work.
THE MARKET has been curated by Helen Carey (Director, Firestation Artists’ Studios) and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, NEPN (University of Sunderland, UK), Noorderlicht (Netherlands), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Gallery of Photography (Dublin), Belfast Exposed & Culture Ireland.
KRAKOW PHOTOMONTH 2018 – Spaces of Flows
May 22, 2018 § Leave a comment
SPACE OF FLOWS: FRAMING AN UNSEEN REALITY
CURATOR IRIS SIKKING
KRAKOW, POLAND
MAY – JUNE 2018
‘Featuring an international slate of artists, the festival focuses on the ceaseless flow of people, information, and substances, through expanding urban areas, the virtual realm of cyberspace, and endangered natural landscapes. In the face of worldwide streams of refugees and migrants, an overload of manipulable digital information, and injurious amounts of harmful particles suspended in the atmosphere and discharged into waterways, those in power look the other way. And all the while they withdraw and intensify control to protect what they have. Short-term success is favoured over having a sustained vision of the future.
The programme derives its thematic approach from the concept of the “space of flows”, as set forth by the Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells in his seminal 1996 volume The Rise of the Network Society. “The space of flows”, explained Castells, “dissolves time by disordering the sequence of events and making them simultaneous, thus installing society in eternal ephemerality”. Iris Sikking
Main programme features projects by Eva Leitolf, Agata Grzybowska, Edmund Clark / Crofton Black, Jules Spinatsch, Salvatore Vitale, Katja Stuke / Oliver Sieber, Antoinette de Jong / Robert Knoth, Rune Peitersen, Lisa Bernard, Agnieszka Rayss, Sputnik Photos Collective, Mark Curran & Michal Luczak. More information on opening events and ongoing programming here.
Installation includes extracts from THE MARKET (2010-)/RYNEK (2010-) comprising Photographs, Powerpoint Presentation, Transcripts of Verbal Testimony, 3D Data Visualisation & Film Projection. Further information here.
Algorithm & Sound Composition Ken Curran 3D Data Visualisation Damien Byrne
Installation THE MARKET Le Bleu du Ciel, Lyon
October 19, 2017 § Leave a comment
Credit Suisse (Access denied)
Canary Wharf
London England
March 2013 (left)
Anthony, Analyst (negotiation 1.5 years)
The City
London, England
May 2013 (right)
‘In the evolutionary aftermath of the global economic collapse and absence of sustained audio-visual engagement with the central locus of this catastrophic event, the ongoing multi-media transnational project, THE MARKET (2010-), critically addresses the functioning and condition of the global markets and the role of financial capital. It is the continuation of a cycle of long-term projects, beginning in the late 1990s, focused on the predatory context resulting from migrations of global capital.
Bethlehem, Trader (negotiation 1.5 years)
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September 2012
The Viewing Gallery
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September, 2012
(Single channel HD digital video, silent, looped 9’’)
James, Operations Manager (negotiation 1 year)
Irish Stock Exchange (ISE)
Dublin, Ireland
April 2012
Transcripts (Dublin, London, Addis Abeba)
‘Having undertaken an extensive process of negotiation, averaging 1.5-2 years, to access strategic sites/individuals, the ethnographically-informed project incorporates photographs, film, soundscape, artifactual material, 3D data visualisation & transcripts of verbal testimony. Taking the sphere out of abstraction & positioning it as a pervasive force central to our lives, themes include algorithmic machinery of financial markets, central innovator of this technology, absorption of crises as normalisation of deviance & long range mapping & consequences of financial activity distanced from citizens & everyday life. Profiles include traders, bankers & financial analysts & documentation from London, Dublin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam & Addis Abeba’
Transcripts (Detail)(Dublin, London, Addis Abeba)
Algorithmic Surrealism 2015
Landscaped Park (International Investment Bank)
Zuidas Global Financial District
Amsterdam, Netherlands
(Single channel HD digital video, colour, sound/voiceover 11’04’’)
The installation includes the film, Algorithmic Surrealism (follow link for excerpt) made in the new financial district of Zuidas (Amsterdam), global centre for algorithmic trading & shadow banking, while the voiceover of the film is adapted from a text by former trader, Brett Scott. Forecasted that there will be no human traders within a decade, the film suggests the hegemony of High Frequency Trading (HFT) and extinction of human reason – including empathy and ethics – will perpetuate the power relations of minority wealth in globalised capitalist systems.
Financial Surrealism/Systemic Risk
Colour A4 image and text – Shadowbanking
Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 including Letter requesting access to Deutsche Börse AG
from the Irish Ambassador to Germany, Berlin, Germany, November 2011
(accessd denied)
Framed emails/ Vitrine
Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 (accessd denied)
Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 (accessd denied)
(detail)
Deutsche Börse II (Acess denied)
Eschborn (near Frankfurt)
Germany
March 2012
The Television Studio
Selected Reports from German Television (2012 – 2013) from Frankfurt Börse (Stock Exchange)
(described in the vernacular by Deutsche Börse AG (owners) as ‘The Television Studio’)
Frankfurt, Germany
Digital Video, Silent, Looped (28 minutes)
Taika, External Relations Associate (negotiation 1.5 years)
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September 2012
Matthew, Banker (negotiation 2 years)
Canary Wharf
London, England
March 2013
Poster/Text
JP Morgan (formerly Lehman Brothers)(Access denied)
Canary Wharf
London, England
February 2013
‘Titled the Normalisation of Deviance, through the application of an algorithm identifying the words market and/or markets in public speeches by relevant national Ministers of Finance, the data is then transformed to create the installation soundscape. For Le Bleu du Ciel, the algorithmic translation of the former minister, Pierre Moscovici is presented. To date, those of Michael Noonan (Ireland), George Osborne (UK) and Jeroen Dijsselbloem (Netherlands & Eurozone Group President) have also been included in exhibitions in those countries – to represent contemporary financial capital functioning through the conduit of the now financialised nation state”
Financial District, Lyon
(Window, main gallery space)
The installation is part of the year-long programme, Suite-Nouveau Documentaire by Gilles Verneret, Director, Le Bleu du Ciel and part of official programme Resonance de la Biennale de Lyon 2017. Participation has been generously supported by Culture Ireland.
Exhibition from September 28 – November 25, 2017.
The project has been curated by Helen Carey (Director, Firestation Artists’ Studios) and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, NEPN (University of Sunderland, UK), Noorderlicht (Netherlands), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Gallery of Photography, Belfast Exposed & Culture Ireland.
Algorithm & Sound Composition Ken Curran
Full information here.
#DataRush – Commission & Installation NOORDERLICHT/NEPN
August 21, 2015 § Leave a comment
This post is to announce the generous awarding of a commission by NOORDERLICHT in collaboration with the North East Photography Network (NEPN), University of Sunderland (UK) to elaborate on my ongoing project, THE MARKET, on the functioning and condition of the global markets,
The resulting research was undertaken in the Zuidas Financial District on the southern periphery of Amsterdam with emphasis on the central role of the Netherlands in the Global Shadow Banking System and Algorithmic/High Frequency Trading (HFT).
It will be presented as an installation in the main exhibition, #DataRush at NOORDERLICHT 2015 opening Saturday, 22 August at the Old Sugar Factory, Groningen (the Netherlands).
#DataRush continues until 11 October.
On Sunday, 23 August, there will be a public event at the Old Sugar Factory
organised by WAMS titled DEBATE DATA RUSH involving participating artists and scientists. Full details are available here.
The installation will later be presented at Photoville in New York in the Autumn and the UK in 2016.
Acknowledgments
Algorithm Design & Sound Composition Ken Curran, Data Visualisation Damien Byrne, Script adapted from text by Brett Scott Editor Lidia Rossner, Voice Claudia Schäfer, Collaborator Helen Carey
THE MARKET/ Centre Culturel Irlandais/ Paris
January 30, 2014 § Leave a comment
CCI Invitation (cover)
…what people don’t understand… is that what happens in the market is pivotal to their lives… not on the periphery, but slap, bang, in the middle…
(from telephone conversation with Trader (name withheld), Dealing Room, Investment Bank, London, February 2013)
Mark Curran’s challenging new project THE MARKET sets out to make visible – literally and metaphorically – the sphere where our futures are speculated upon. His multi-media installation includes photographs, films, transcripts of interviews and a soundscape that investigate the functioning of the global stock and commodity markets. From Dublin to London, Frankfurt and Addis Abeba, the artist concentrates on the experience of individuals working within a supremely complex system. In the installation at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, the relationship between the individual and the abstract algorithmic systems of the market is heightened through a sound piece designed by Ken Curran that permeates the gallery space, which is generated from algorithms identifying the words market or markets from public speeches given by the French Minister of Finance, Pierre Moscovici.
Nora Hickey M’Sichili, Director of Centre Culturel Irlandais
5, rue des Irlandais
75005 – Paris
January 30 – March 2
Opening times of the exhibitions:
2pm – 6pm Tuesday to Saturday
(Late opening Wednesday until 8pm)
12.30pm – 2.30pm Sunday
Full programme contextualising the exhibition on the opening weekend includes panel discussion with David McWilliams (Writer & Economist), Alfred M’Sichili (Philosopher & Political Economist), Helen Carey, Mark Uzan (Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee) and Mark Curran, an evening with the organisers of ‘Kilkenomics’.
The installation and events in Paris are supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Culture Ireland.
Installation: THE MARKET
September 8, 2013 § Leave a comment
Gallery of Photography, Dublin 24 August – 1 october 2013
(installation photograph by Jamin Keogh)
(installation photograph by Jamin Keogh)
(installation photograph by Jamin Keogh)
The image above of part of the installation titled The Normalisation of Deviance shows Spectrograms, a moving visual representation of the soundscape of the installation. The soundscape has been generated through the data generated through the use of an algorithm to identify how often the Irish Minister for Finance has used the word Market or Markets in his public speeches since taking office.
(installation photograph by Jamin Keogh)
(installation photograph by Jamin Keogh)
(installation photograph by Jamin Keogh)
Belfast Exposed 29 August – 11 October
The installation is similarly framed by the soundscape generated through the data generated by an algorithm identifying the application of the words Market or Markets by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in his public speeches since taking office.
The installation image below shows the 6 feet high stack of A4 paper also titled The Normalisation of Deviance as part of the installation. This equates to the findings by a Chicago-based researcher of the number of global positions taken through the use of algorithms on one stock in one nanosecond. The total was 14,000 and equates to this amount of paper if this data was printed out. On the pages facing up is the quote:
…what people don’t understand… is that what happens in the market is pivotal to their lives… not on the periphery…but slap, bang, in the middle…
(From telephone conversation with trader, name withheld, Dealing Room, Investment Bank, London, February 2013
THE MARKET @ Gallery of Photography, Dublin
August 22, 2013 § Leave a comment
The installation of THE MARKET by Mark Curran, curated by Helen Carey, on the function and condition of the global stock and commodity markets will be opened this Friday, August 23rd at 6.30pm by Orlaith McBride, Director of the Arts Council of Ireland at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin.
The show continues until October 1st. (Algorithm and sound design by Ken Curran). Further information here.
