Anti-pharmakon

Anti-pharmakon (2006) Interactive installation, prepared keyboard, custom Lingo, 60 soundtracks.
A chromed computer keyboard serves both as an instrument and an art object. Each key triggers an action of the corresponding “virtual” key and a short sound track, mostly one-word fragments from various political speeches of the second half of the 20th century; including Che Guevara, Margaret Thatcher and George Bush. Users interacting with the piece inevitably generate the feeling of total verbal chaos.

The Greek word pharmakon carries a double meaning: it is both “medicine” and “poison”. The electronic media armed with softwares and interfaces, suffer from the same duality. On one hand they simplify the important functions of our existence (communication, production, organization), on the other they inevitably pre-structure the nature of these functions and channel our capacities into algorithmic models. The quality of experience becomes dependant on the shared tools of communication.