Kamila B. Richter
* 1976 in Olomouc (CZ), lives and works in Karlsruhe and Düsseldorf (DE)

The Garden of Error and Decay, 2010/2011

In their works Michael Bielicky and Kamila B. Richter examine the relationship between reality and simulation, perception and experience, and experiment with data visualization technologies in the spirit of “Infoart.” In their installations they reduce the content of the news industry to recurrent headlines and tags, which they translate into a dynamic pictogram language in order to identify the patterns of information that today seemingly connect us with reality.
The network installation The Garden of Error and Decay narrates the ongoing story of today’s global disasters. In keeping with our contemporary experience of digitally networked media, Twitter users and financial news feed the stories. Each time a topic relating to disasters is sent and discussed on Twitter, the installation translates it in real time into an animated pictogram. Using a gun as an interface, the users have the option to either eliminate or reinforce the disaster. But it is not within the users’ power to change things. As in real life, it is the dynamics of the stock market and the headlines that dictate events. The moving-image format here acts as a data-fed narrative in real time, and is neither film, game, nor a non-linear interactive story. In the installation and on their own computers via the Internet (www.gardenoferroranddecay.net), users are apparently able to interact with the story. The Garden of Error and Decay reflects the networked media reality of the twenty-first century, which is increasingly affecting our perception of the world. (AB)