#ralf baecker

[beautifultimes-beautifulplaces]

Ralf Baecker - A Natural History of Networks / SoftMachine (Video stills); 2021

[freiheitindererscheinung]

Inspriert von den Interviews und den vielen KünsterInnen-Namen, welche währenddessen gefallen sind, haben wir Referate über die genannten KünsterInnen gehalten. Nicht unter den Aufzeichnungen sind der japanische Architekt Tadao Ando und Max Bill (leider war ich da krank). Ich habe natürlich ein Referat über Bruce Nauman gehalten...

Besonders beeindruckt haben mich die Lichtarchitektur von James Turrell und das Mahnmal für die österreichischen jüdischen Opfer der Schoah von Rachel Whiteread.

[crowma]

Ralf Baecker, "The Conversation," 99 solenoids mounted in a circle with rubber bands. The installation is immersed in a polyphonic buzz generated by the constant shifting of the solenoid array.

[leah-jkkim]

Mirage from Ralf Baecker on Vimeo.

"When one understands the causes, all vanished images can easily be found again in the brain through the impression of the cause. This is the true art of memory"— Cogitationes privatae, Rene Descartes

Mirage is a projection apparatus that makes uses of principles from optics and artificial neural network research. Mirage generates a synthesised landscape based on its perception through a fluxgate magnetometer (Förster Sonde). It registers the magnetic field of the earth, which is dependent on the earth geodynamo and its interactions with the activity of the sun, and feeds it into a unsupervised learning algorithm for analyzation. At the same time the algorithm, that is inspired by the principle of a Helmholz Machine, "dreams" variations of the previously analyzed signal.

This variations are translated into a two dimensional matrix that physically transforms a thin mirror sheet by 48 muscle wire actors. The surface of the mirror sheet changes analog to the systems state. A thin laser line is directed on the mirror surface in a acute angle to generate a depth landscape like projection on the wall. Through the constant shifting signals the projection resembles a subliminal wandering through a landscape.

In 2013 Geoff Hinton, one of the leading researchers in the area of artificial neural networks and deep learning, joined Google to support them on various products that use AI and learning algorithms. He introduced back-propagation algorithms for training multi-layerd neural networks. One of his contributions to the field of unsupervised learning algorithms is the so called "Helmholtz Machine", a machine that uses the principle of a wake-sleep-algorithm to consolidate its neural network. The alogrithm is trained during the wake phase by its sensory input. In the sleep-phase it cuts-off its sensory input and feeds the network backwards with random patterns. On its input layer (retina) it generates versions of is previously perceived images of the world.

I am speculating that the computers in the enormous Google data-centers cut off their perception (search queries, user behaviour, speech regognition, image data) once a day and start to "sleep". What do their “dreams” look like?

Article about Mirage by Mitchell Withelaw (Postmatter)

Produced with support of LEAP Gallery, Berlin

[dnvdk]

Irrational Computing is a  project by Ralf Baecker in which he breaks down a computer to it's bare components.

"The installation is based on semiconductor crystals – the basic commodity of information technology. It consists of five interlinked modules that use the varied electrical and mechanical particularities and characteristics of crystals and minerals and, through their networking, form a kind of primitive macroscopic signal processor."

[kaanayce]

WOW! Got to see it live

[artpitstream]

The Conversation is an autonomous apparatus that incorporates an analogous and a digital part. These almost inseparable elements try to adapt to each other. As the process does not have a linear program it is not obvious which part controls whom.

The machine consists of 99 solenoids mounted in a circle. Together they carry three rubber bands (attractors) in the center of the circle. Each magnet works autonomously and tries to adapt to the forces in the network. The aim of the system is to keep a balance of forces. By turning the machine on, a process is activated that tries to conserve its initial state by contraction and relaxation. The rubber band acts as mediator between the single solenoids. Different initial rubber-band configurations (tensions) generate different patterns in time. Constellations appear and stay until disturbances make them decay. The whole installation is immersed in a polyphonic buzz generated by the constant shifting forces of the solenoid array. The Conversation is part of a series of installations and sculptures that deconstruct the fundamentals of symbolic processes.

Break the pattern which connects the items of learning and you necessarily destroy all quality. // Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature

More: http://www.rlfbckr.org/work/the_conversation

[threeifbyrobot]

Irrational computing, by Ralf Baecker. Pretty, if not rational.