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deepBlue

2016

LAb[au], Manuel Abendroth, Jérôme Decock, Els Vermang
size: 43 A4 framed
techniques: digital print, Canson A4 250g

hanging of 43 frames as a double line: 484x60 cm

hanging as a block 6x8 grid: 132x240 cm

2016 ___ - Langage Codé, La Patinoire, Brussels
2019 ___ - IF THEN ELSE, Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg City
2020 ___ - Transcoding, Socièté, Brussels
2020 - 21 - YES: NO, PERHAPS, Mario Mauroner Contemporary, Vienna

The binary code of the commonly known 256 color value system of computer screens is decoded into letters and numbers to search for what the blue color may tell us.

Over the 43 pages the artwork progresses from white to black passing through the 255 shades of blue. Each of them is visualised by its binary encoding in the form of an 8x8 grid. The columns and rows of the grid are than read as numbers and letters.
Employing the combinatory logic of the binary system, which is also the basis of the chess game, the artwork creates a non-metaphorical relation between colour and text and puts it in a historical perspective – hence the reference in the title deepBlue.

_Deep Blue was a chess-playing expert system run on a unique purpose-built IBM supercomputer. It was the first computer to win a game, and the first to win a match, against a reigning world champion, Garry Kasparov. This event is a milestone in the relation between man and machine, which in the project is extrapolated to the question of language.

TransCoding: translating colour to letters and numbers

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