Interactive Art +
Honorary Mention

G80

Fragmentin (CH)

G80 is an interactive installation that proposes a contemporary interpretation of Richard Buckminster Fuller's "World Game": a strategy simulation tool inspired by War Games, which aimed at "an equitable distribution of resources" on a planetary scale. Created in the cybernetic era in the early 1960s, it embodies the promise of computation and mathematical models for solving socio-political and ecological problems. 

Today with the arrival of supercomputers, the multiplication of data, and the advent of artificial intelligence, the realization of such a total regulation project might be achievable. 

In opposition to this technocratic hypothesis, G80 questions the absurdity of the idea itself, which is rooted in an exhausted techno-capitalist system that refuses to look beyond mathematical models. How far are we willing to go with these new computations to optimize global governance? 

The artwork features a console with a matrix of 80 motorized sliders reminiscent of a control room. Each slider corresponds to a variable, with its name engraved on a plate. At the ends of the sliders, the "+" and "-" signs indicate the stakes or values. 

While some variables are directly inspired by those developed by Buckminster, others, new ones, shed light on the major issues of our time, such as ecology, migration, gender equality, or the development of technological innovations. 

In this device, the sliders act as both inputs and outputs. Visitors are invited to interact with the work and playfully stabilize the world by changing the value of each variable. While making an initial change they soon realize that all the sliders correlate with each other and that the variables are forming changing patterns without their intervention, suggesting interference from other agencies. 

When no visitors interfere with the matrix, it activates and alters the position of the 80 sliders to form geometric patterns, seemingly taunting the visitors who momentarily engaged with the game.

G80 is an interactive installation that proposes a contemporary interpretation of Richard Buckminster Fuller's "World Game": a strategy simulation tool inspired by War Games, which aimed at "an equitable distribution of resources" on a planetary scale. Created in the cybernetic era in the early 1960s, it embodies the promise of computation and mathematical models for solving socio-political and ecological problems. 

Today with the arrival of supercomputers, the multiplication of data, and the advent of artificial intelligence, the realization of such a total regulation project might be achievable. 

In opposition to this technocratic hypothesis, G80 questions the absurdity of the idea itself, which is rooted in an exhausted techno-capitalist system that refuses to look beyond mathematical models. How far are we willing to go with these new computations to optimize global governance? 

The artwork features a console with a matrix of 80 motorized sliders reminiscent of a control room. Each slider corresponds to a variable, with its name engraved on a plate. At the ends of the sliders, the "+" and "-" signs indicate the stakes or values. 

While some variables are directly inspired by those developed by Buckminster, others, new ones, shed light on the major issues of our time, such as ecology, migration, gender equality, or the development of technological innovations. 

In this device, the sliders act as both inputs and outputs. Visitors are invited to interact with the work and playfully stabilize the world by changing the value of each variable. While making an initial change they soon realize that all the sliders correlate with each other and that the variables are forming changing patterns without their intervention, suggesting interference from other agencies. 

When no visitors interfere with the matrix, it activates and alters the position of the 80 sliders to form geometric patterns, seemingly taunting the visitors who momentarily engaged with the game.

www.fragment.in/artworks/g80/

Fragmentin: Laura Nieder, David Colombini, Marc Dubois 


G80 has been commissioned by Mudac – Cantonal Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts in Lausanne) and is now part of their permanent collection.

Fragmentin (CH) is an artist collective based in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 2014 and made up of three ECAL (Lausanne University of Art and Design) alumni: Laura Nieder (*1991, Lausanne), David Colombini (*1989, Lausanne) and Marc Dubois (*1985, Basel). At the crossroads of art and engineering, Fragmentin's work questions the impact of the digital on everyday life. Fragmentin's works are often conceived as spaces for discussion on crucial contemporary themes and issues such as climate change. Through sculpture, installation, video, interaction and performance, the studio's artworks demystify complex systems and reveal the tension between emergent technologies and society. 

Fragmentin (CH) is an artist collective based in Lausanne, Switzerland, founded in 2014 and made up of three ECAL (Lausanne University of Art and Design) alumni: Laura Nieder (*1991, Lausanne), David Colombini (*1989, Lausanne) and Marc Dubois (*1985, Basel). At the crossroads of art and engineering, Fragmentin's work questions the impact of the digital on everyday life. Fragmentin's works are often conceived as spaces for discussion on crucial contemporary themes and issues such as climate change. Through sculpture, installation, video, interaction and performance, the studio's artworks demystify complex systems and reveal the tension between emergent technologies and society. 

Questioning the technocratic absurdity of historic cybernetic projects, G80 invites the spectator to interact with computational models for solving socio-political and ecological issues. Based on Buckminster Fuller's World Game, which was created in the 1960s, the installation establishes a connection to current ideas of a perfectly controllable environment. In a playful manner G80 subverts those ideas and illustrates the problem of a pre-categorized world. It thereby reminds us that the idea of a world controlled by computers is far older than current debates on AI and machine learning, and that the problem lies not so much in a data-driven world but in the pre-existing categories used to make sense of that data. This is precisely where a political response to technological solutionism is needed so that social inequalities—expressed in these categories—are not simply automated.

Questioning the technocratic absurdity of historic cybernetic projects, G80 invites the spectator to interact with computational models for solving socio-political and ecological issues. Based on Buckminster Fuller's World Game, which was created in the 1960s, the installation establishes a connection to current ideas of a perfectly controllable environment. In a playful manner G80 subverts those ideas and illustrates the problem of a pre-categorized world. It thereby reminds us that the idea of a world controlled by computers is far older than current debates on AI and machine learning, and that the problem lies not so much in a data-driven world but in the pre-existing categories used to make sense of that data. This is precisely where a political response to technological solutionism is needed so that social inequalities—expressed in these categories—are not simply automated.