Staš Vrenko | Tresholds Breached
Opening:
- Wednesday, 11 December 2024 | 19.00
Guided tour with artist:
- Friday, 13 December 2024 | 17.00
- Tuesday, 17 December 2024 | 17.00
In the Thresholds Breached installation, electronic-sculptural units try to establish a cybernetic loop as environment-responsive agents exhibiting "intelligent" behaviour through mutual perception and responsiveness. The units that form the performative energy-communication entanglement are inspired by the robust and energy-efficient experiments of BEAM robotics and early analogue neural networks.
Each unit consists of several layers of electronic biomimetic neurons, light sensors, solar cells and motors and is trained directly on environmental signals. In the dim installation environment, their primary information about the world outside is the light emitted by the other units. At the same time, they are powered by solar energy and respond through light pulses and movements themselves. While exploring their environment and adapting their behaviour to access sufficient energy supply, the units operate in conjunction with each other – at the level of energy, signals as well as the timing of transmissions.
The loop which develops during the duration of the exhibition may perhaps lead to a certain degree of energetic altruism at the level of behaviour, which would allow the constant circulation of resources to maintain the balance upon which the individual functioning of each of them ultimately depends. As exhibition visitors, we encounter a system that simultaneously functions as a simplified model of exchanges in enclosed ecosystems while at the same time, in the context of cultural production, the network might seem unproductive, alien and even redundant, as it adapts only to maintain its own requirements and operation. As we are observing the situation, we introduce new signals and energy and, while deciphering the surroundings and orientating ourselves in the space, disrupt the equilibrium, which needs to be established anew once we depart.
Technical support: Gregor Krpič, Tomo Per, Matic Potočnik
Advising: Maja Burja, Benjamin Fele
Staš Vrenko
Staš Vrenko is an artist, musician and designer of electronic instruments. He holds a master’s degree from the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. For his master’s thesis, he received the UL ALUO Prešeren Award for Students. His artistic practice traverses different fields of art, with an emphasis on research into sound, electronic media and technologies, kineticism, advanced fabrication technologies and performativity. In recent years, he has presented several solo projects, participated in festivals and exhibitions like U3, BIO, Pixxelpoint, IFCA, Kiblix and Lighting Guerrilla, and exhibited at many group exhibitions at home and abroad.
