Having trouble connecting to your Wi-Fi lately? Ctrl + Alt + Esc won’t do the trick anymore? Blue Screen of Death by Kara Chin presents a mystifying oracle where the material and immaterial meet, opening a real-time communication channel between you and your software. No need of consulting Google to ask those important questions or to contact corporations to solve your hardware problems.
Let the mystic online ouija board casted by Kara Chin reveal to you past secrets of your browsing history - or stretch forward into the unknown algorithms! You can now make it perform from the intimacy of your browser. Make it calculate your biggest problems - answer vital questions - disclose technological enigmas you long to know. It will startle you too with the truth of its prophecies.
Within her new body of work, Chin unravels the physical aspects of the multiple “invisible” threads that control our intimate relationship with technological tools, through which we are increasingly reliant on algorithms to navigate everyday life. Centering her narrative experience on the ouija board, Chin reflects on the common difficulties to accurately understanding the technologies that surround us and to control the hardware that cohabitates our domestic and work spaces. In the exhibition, Chin presents a medium to communicate with our devices, not through software and data exchange, but interacting with the mystic aspects of technology. Appealing to the human characteristics of our devices, showcased in their design, and the spiritual aura that we allocate to them.
Through her films, Chin characterizes everyday life scenes from the perspective of the machines that look at us from the “world beyond”. In this series of works, her 360º film, K means clustering, unravels the physical architecture of the digital materialities that govern our networked society.
Blue Screen of Death opens on Wednesday 2nd (6:00 pm BST) at the beginning of the Celtic´s Year 10th Moon and the Vine Month, a period associated with inspiration, imagination, poetry and imagery. Don’t forget to visit the exhibition in preparation for the upcoming Autumn Equinox!
Visit the exhibition here.
Kara Chin is a British-Singaporean artist working across animation, ceramics and installation. With a sense of wit and humour, Chin’s work characterises our often precarious and dependent relationship with fast evolving technologies, exploring the ethical conundrums and potential consequences of a gradual symbiosis with machine intelligence and streamlined user interface design. She holds a BA Fine Arts Sculpture degree from Slade School of Art. Past solo exhibitions include Subsequent Hotchpotch, DKUK, London; Sentient Mecha Furniture, BALTIC39, Newcastle (2020); and Sentient Home Devices, Gallery North, Newcastle (2019). She has been featured in group exhibitions such as Re-enchanted Matter, APT Gallery; Springseason, Fieldworks Gallery; The Potion Room, Subsidiary Projects, London; This is a Not Me, IMT Gallery, online; Sounding Off 2.0, Vitrine Gallery, online (2020); Five Pound Poster Party, CBS Gallery, Liverpool; Up is a Relative Concept, Fold(Lab); Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London (2019); Chop Leisure, IMT Gallery, London (2018); and Carnival of the Animals and Danse Macabre, San Mei Gallery, London (2017); amongst others. Previously she has been recipient of The Duveen Travel Scholarship, UCL; The Woon Prize, The Woon Foundation; and The Alfred W Rich Prize, Slade. Professionally, she has run workshops with The Newbridge Project, Gateshead; South London Gallery, London; and Northumbria University, Newcastle.