+ What was the inspiration for the piece?
Also, what is the message or statement you’re trying to convey?
Our work questions nowadays aesthetics, embracing both formal and semantic issues; as artists, we try to extract the character of our time to give contemporality a form and a meaning. Information is a key issue not only on a theoretical, scientific or technological level but also on an aesthetic one. We therefore explore display information technologies, such as Nixie tubes, split-flaps and VFDs, as much as older communication technologies such as signal lamps, semaphores and shutter panels. The 18th-century shutter panels, for example, influenced the development of our kinetic light art installation framework f5x5x5. Here, it's black-white, open-closed frames, and their shutters constitute its kinetic and luminous structure, as they form an information device based on a hexadecimal, binary logic. The beauty of these analogue and code-based rather than symbol-based communication devices is that they combine a specific technology with a proper linguistic system. Symbol-based communication devices, as split-flaps, on the contrary, combine a specific technology with a proper display system. Both technologies embody their time. Look at split-flaps, with their splitting symbols and flapping sound; no other devices have shaped our imagination more about globalisation and mobility.
+ What is it about split-flaps that people find so arresting?
The TV series "Lost" featured these to great effect, the movie "A Beautiful Mind" featured a similar kind of setup using a slightly different technology, the travel site Kayak features split flaps prominently in their ads, and even Apple made great use of them in their icon sets until they purged skeuomorphism. Any thought on why they remain so popular?
On the one hand, split-flaps are often remembered for their function: displaying arrivals, departures and delays at airports and train stations, equal for many to the idea of travelling, hence adventures and encounters. On the other hand, split-flaps are mainly known for their behaviour: splitting characters and turning flaps, representing a splurge of incomprehensible information gradually being rendered understandable. The notion of cracking the code is an inspiring intelligencia intrigue. The split-flaps are understandable devices from an era when technology was understandable. Media archaeology meets vintage fetishism from the Gutenberg galaxy. Their comforting logics are warmly welcomed in an era where only technology has become un-understandable.
What is unique in the split-flap technology is that it is as much visual as sonic. Most people still recall the excitement when the gate number or the arrival hour finally appeared, this optical momentum and sonic call of the spinning letters. It isn't surprising that the most replies on blog posts about our installation are the once concerned with naming the soundscape produced by the 512 split-flaps. We could also put the fascination these devices provoke in other words: the refreshment of the board takes time; as a ‘slow' technology, it attracts our curiosity and imagination. We have the feeling that we are assisting in something, that we are taking part in the information. It's a kind of ‘cold' media, even if McLuhan wouldn't completely join this kind of definition.
The split-flap fetishism takes part in a growing techno-nostalgia, typical for a time of so-called everyday innovation where thousands of people line up for the next Apple feature, this ultra-neoliberal idea of completely mastered and engineered progress... In the case of split-flaps, we face a nostalgia towards mid-century positivism of seemingly mastered global economy and Pan Am world exploration. Those devices are coming from a time when things were built to last. This naïve nostalgia strikes you when holding a device in your hands, one kilo of plain aluminium casing and messing gears; a nostalgia towards the time it represents. Following this reasoning, you might better understand what we mean when talking about aesthetics and icons of their time as being an artistic concern. This has nothing to do with technology as such but with art.
+ How is the system set up? The teaser video shows "Hello World" being spelled out in red letters, but are all intentional words spelled out in red? Does the installation tell a story? Does the "story" change based on the location I'm standing? Is there an aspect of performance in this piece? E.g. I'll only see the whole thing if I spend 10+ minutes inside you. Or is it all random?
'Hello World' not only stand for simple verification syntax within computer programming but has also joined the iconography of computer culture. As such, when announcing the artwork, this phrase was a proper fit besides a geeky joke.
The actual process of Signal To Noise is based on the combination of two principles: - The first principle rules the spinning speed of the characters to create both sonic and spatial patterns within the circular immersive setup. - The second principle involves combinations of each character. Here, the correlation between data and denotata, message and meaning, finds a literal transcription within an auto-poetic construct.
Within an orchestrated fashion of order and disorder, the devices are spinning until sense is detected among the non-sense. Those devices are displayed in red and remain static for a few iterations, while the other devices are displayed in white and remain dynamic.
+ The system seems primed for emergent behaviour. I'm curious if in the testing or installation, you saw any interesting words appear that weren't programmed, just like the monkey's typing Shakespeare? If so, what were the words?
Indeed, 'Signal To Noise' references the Infinite Monkey Theorem and Borges' Library of Babel while questioning of combinatory logics within the construct of meaning. As the title suggests, the artwork questions the ratio between signal and noise, one of the most fundamental notions in information theory. Despite meaning's relativity, imperatively, Signal To Noise can have as much of a dissociative as an associative read. Unsurprisingly, most detected meanings are within three- and four-letter Oxford English words. (No c*nt nor f*ck involved, however.)
+ Is it difficult to find those split-flap modules? Are there still distributors that sell them in large quantities?
Signal the Noise's split-flaps originate from Bruges' train station, kindly offered to us in return for an artwork. The devices had been stocked for years in very poor conditions and had been heavily corroded. Hours of cleaning followed, at a speed of approximately 12 minutes per piece. It is truly amazing to see with which precision these devices still operate at the age of 50 years old. Most of them have been produced in the 'China of the sixties', Italy. The original producing company sent us a recent model with a price tag of 120 Euros, when ordering a minimum amount of 1000. Unfortunately, the current model is a digital lightweight, contrasting with the analogue heavyweight with its electromagnet, coil and gears, constituting its true beauty.
+ Are there some design details that you're especially proud of in this piece? Things that might not be apparent to the casual observer? E.g. one story about the project noted that the system sounded like rain when running at full speed. Are there more instances like that embodied in the design?
The entire installation is custom-tailored using nowadays production methods, among which are laser cutting and CNC milling. The entire production process is mastered at the studio, from pick 'n place population of the boards to building the travel boxes.