Forecast x C/O Berlin

Join the Artist Talk on December 11

Downloading Vernacular Images—A conversation between Ruth Patir and Diane Cescutti

To conclude their work-stay at C/O Berlin, the two artists will discuss their affinity for breathing a life of zeros and ones into ancient and mythological deities.

Patir will moderate and introduce Diane Cescutti’s in-progress work Gods of Calculation, a research project and installation focusing on the world’s top supercomputers—absent from Africa despite the continent’s crucial role in providing raw materials for parts. Weaving a speculative narrative, Cescutti imagines that each supercomputer offers calculation power to an African nation via a so-called twin stationed locally. Each supercomputer’s operating system takes on the form of an avatar that resembles a deity, and facilitates communication between machines and people. The locals thus refer to them as the “Gods of Calculation.”

The artists will discuss the moral dilemmas and implications of working with these materials on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution. They ask whether one can escape the Western technological gaze embedded in the machines, and whether spirituality and technology actually live as cross pollinators.

Ruth Patir and Diane Cescutti. 

Downloading Vernacular Images
A conversation between Ruth Patir and Diane Cescutti on Gods of Calculation

C/O Berlin
December 11, from 6:30pm – 9pm
Free admission