What God hath wrought
2017
Manuel Abendroth, Jérôme Decock, Els Vermang
wall mounted
16 custom tailored telegraphs, paper
2023 - The Seduction of the Bureaucrat, De Garage, Mechelen
2019 - Imaging Cities, Song Eun Art Space, Seoul
2019 - Signals, CTM Vorspiele, Belgium Embassy, Berlin
2018 - A Brave New World, MAAT, Lisbon
2017 - NODE 17, Studio Naxos, Frankfurt
2017 - Ososphere, La COOP, Strasbourg
2016 - Eutopia, Museum M, Leuven
16 telegraphs sent the first message transmitted in the US on May 24, 1844, continuously from one station to the other. Their sounds fill the space, and rolls of paper drift on the floor tracing their exchange. In time, collisions and errors appear, altering the original message of 'See what God has done'.
The title of the installation quotes a line from the Book of Numbers in early modern English. It was the first message ever transmitted by telegraph in 1844. Its invention marks the beginning of communication technology based on electric binary coding and the dematerialisation of information, its separation from its material inscription.
The 16 telegraphs that make up the installation are cross-linked in a network, while sending and receiving the quote from one to the other. The hammering sound of their keys and the beeping of their receivers translate the messages into sound and the rolls of paper drifting on the floor trace their exchange. In time, collusions and mistakes appear in the closed system and alter the signals - the original message.
The Morse orchestra deals with rationalism and its belief in progress and posits by contrast a self-regulating system in which error rules and becomes the parameter of its evolution.
