lookingoutwards-04-sectionA

Ralf Baecker’s “Floating Codes” is an immersive and abstract piece of sound and light installation art. It’s made up of many different hexagonal shapes that are constructed by flat metal sticks laid on the ground with sticks of different heights jutting upwards at the vertices of the hexagons. The jutting sticks of lights and speakers on them that flash and make noise through a process that’s a neural network using fundamentals of machine learning and artificial intelligence. “Depending on the topology of the neurons in the grid different networks constitute interlocking circles, feedback loops, memory-like elements, random pattern generators, and other significant behavioral elements.” Thus, completely different manifestations of noises and lights flash according to each other’s behavior to create a chaotic environment for each neuron/perceptron making each other react. “The open and unsupervised system has no objective, its only goal is to maintain and conserve the propagating information in the network.” I love this installation because it utilizes machine learning to create this emulation of propagation and quasi-symbiosis that almost makes it feel like each neuron is part of a greater whole–like a community or colony of organisms. It’s robotic (both the noises and lights) yet lively (in like a cricket way), riding the fine line/liminal space between artificial and natural.