Unnatural Language
osmo/za, Ljubljana & PIFcamp
15 July – 10 August 2019
Artist talk: 17 July 2019 at 8pm @ osmo/za, Slovenska 54, Ljubljana
Scott Kildall will be presenting his project, which he will develop during his residency in Ljubljana and at PIFcamp this summer. Beginning with his art expressing data into physical material to his more recent electronic interventions into nature that he has been conducting over the last couple of years, he will discuss the impact of citizen science, DIY methodologies and experimental workshops to foster collaborative learning spaces. With his work that ranges from digital fabrication to VR and electronics, the talk will emphasize conception/material interplay as it relates to tension between territory and technology. During the talk he will share his desire to repurpose technology for liberation, rather than replication and augmentation of power structures, as often happens without artistic intervention.
Unnatural Language creates auditory improvisations in the natural environment through geographically decentralised sculptures that act as autonomous “creatures”. The installation consists of a series of 10-12 independent synthetic creatures, located in trees, hidden in shrubbery and perched in crevices, spread out through nature so that they surround viewers and listeners. Each creature has its own personality with specific sensors that pick up data from the environment such as the electrical activity of plants, the force of wind through trees and the presence of animals.
Unnatural Language makes a dynamically-synthesized soundscape, changing in responsive patterns as the sculptures listen to one another and respond via their own invisible network of communication. They sense their environment and then chatter, sleep, emit mating calls and sometimes illuminate, reacting with a hive-like intelligence that conducts unplanned possibilities at different sites.
The relationship between the synthetic creatures and their host ecosystem is commensal, where one benefits and the other derives neither benefit nor harm. Deriving data from other organisms, the artwork poses questions of how we can integrate the digital with specific ecosystems such as the forest, jungle and beaches. This heightened experience resemble animal behaviour with the recombinatory possibilities of electronic devices.
Unnatural Language project is a collaboration between Scott Kildall and Michael Ang.
Colophon
Scott Kildall & Michael Ang: Unnatural Language, 2019
installation
Production: Projekt Atol Institute
With financial support from the Slovene Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Public Administration and the City of Ljubljana, Department for Culture. It was part of the Feral Labs Network, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
Bio
Scott Kildall has been working with art + technology + education for over 15 years. In 2017, he worked as an American Arts Incubator Artist, where he led a 1-month workshop in Bangkok to teach data-visualization and sculptural techniques to local Thai educators and students involving water quality in that city. Additionally, he has worked as a New Media Exhibit Developer (2012-13) at The Exploratorium in the Life Sciences Gallery. He has also taught coursework involving data-visualization and digital mapping at the University of San Francisco.
He has received fellowships, awards and residencies from organizations including the SETI Institute, ZERO1, Santa Fe Art Institute, Impakt Works, Autodesk, Recology San Francisco, Turbulence.org, Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, The Kala Art Institute and The Banff Centre for the Arts.
His work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the New York Hall of Science, Transmediale, the Venice Biennale, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the San Jose Museum of Art. He currently resides in San Francisco.