0.1 TURICUM

Date
APRIL 2023 – JULY 2023

CollaborationLewis Beauchamp
Carolin Bodensteiner

Format
Interactive Audiovisual Installation
Cybernetic Cartography

Exhibition
RA(RAUM)UM
DYNAMO ZURICH
08.07.2023 – 29.07.2023

Project GrantSPARX SPACE
Migros-Kulturprozent

About 70% of the global gold supply is refined in Switzerland every year. After the ore is melted, the memory of the gold’s origin is violently erased and neutralized into a swiss commodity. During the refining process the transformation of the molecular composition of gold enacts a chain reaction of social, economic and political transformatios that constitute new spatial and temporal realities. The gold that is torn from underneath the earth in the Andes is carefully sorted into underground vaults in the Alps.

Our perceptions of the city are individual and unique. However, the problematic and exploitative associations that often underlie our impressions are complex and often remain hidden. We frequently unconsciously undermine our understanding of our built environment, as the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming. How can we counteract the illegibility of architecture? What representational strategies are needed to understand the complex interdependence of spaces locally and globally? What kinds of injustices are produced in these processes and relationships?

The installation is powered by a self-built computer unit we call “anti-neutralizing machine” which measures one’s body movement in space and translates it in a virtual visual and auditory space. On a technical level, the installation employs ultrasonic sensors to map one’s position in space. This data is then transmitted to a computer, which subsequently projects a variety of images and sounds representing distinct facets of Zurich’s landscape, including audit firms, luxury gold shops, gold mines in Peru, and Swiss gold refineries. Locations not physically connected with one another, bound instead through the trade connections of gold, are shown in their relationships. In a way, space is compressed and with each stop one traverses not only the installation space, but also geographic, ideologically entrenched boundaries.

Inspired by Walter Mignolo’s concept of “epistemic disobedience,” the installation uses the body, movement, and other senses to convey knowledge, moving beyond “objective” and “scientific” modes. By refraining from claiming absolute truth, the installation emphasizes the partiality of knowledge and encourages visitors to relate to knowledge through embodied experience. This approach allows visitors to engage with and reinterpret knowledge through their personal perspectives and sensory engagement.

Our work formally and aesthetically engages with cybernetic theories, proposing a postcolonial cybernetic perspective as a countermodel to the 1960s and 70s approaches where architects and designers used cybernetics as a design method and viewed social relations and behaviors as systems which can be manipulated based on objective parameters and absolute design. Instead, we utilize cybernetics as a method to identify power structures and points of effective intervention and strategic resistance.

Through drawing a cybernetic cartography of Swiss gold, different places that we don’t read as connected are brought into a relationship with one another. This starts with challenging the notion of an independent and neutral Switzerland, revealing the interconnectedness of our city with other places. The map emphasizes two key points: first, specifying the names of individuals and companies involved in networks of violence and exploitation to ensure our research transcends mere aestheticization; second, linking seemingly mundane and insignificant places in Zurich to encourage a redefinition, reinterpretation, and reappropriation of our built environment.

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