LAWKI

f1. Photo courtesy of Peter Tijhuis

LAWKI is a nomadic audiovisual instrument by ARK. The screen-based installation collects online videos and combines them with a sound composition that responds to visitor movements, directed by an Artificial Intelligence- and Machine Learning-led algorithm. The first iteration was the short film for NFF, the second the installation in the Akerk at Noorderlicht, using an artificial- and a real choir. Finally, the third iteration took place at MU Hybrid Art House in Eindhoven with dancers.

f2. Photo courtesy of Sven Sleur
f3. Photo courtesy of Hanneke Wetzer
f4. Photo courtesy of Peter Tijhuis
f5. Photo courtesy of Peter Tijhuis

LAWKI reflects our Zeitgeist: poignant, generative, and immersive at the intersection of tech, design, and visual arts. LAWKI is connected directly to the main artery of our age: the endless stream where we lose ourselves entirely as a natural part of daily life that seamlessly integrates into the rhythm of eating, working, sleeping, and leisure. The social platforms have life itself disappearing from view and omit our ability to experience and embrace our reality. According to philosopher Federico Campagna, who joined ARK with LAWKI, Technic is best opposed by Magic. The installation is the proxy perspective of life as we know it, and projects its delusions in extreme mastery onto a compositional backdrop with LED tiles.

f6. Photo courtesy of Hanneke Wetzer
f7. Photo courtesy of Hanneke Wetzer

The spectator is a consumer of the spectacle and participates in the making process by moving between the screens. During a 'walk of wonder,' their presence generates new compositions, triggered directly by their movements, a techno-haptic entanglement. LAWKI is a sensitive, globally branched-out site-specific instrument. It slows down or accelerates on the rhythm of our attention - a live stream formed by association. And if you feel at a loss for words, you're experiencing the magic. Technic is the new magic..

f8. Photo courtesy of Hsiang-Yun and Shaowen Liang
f9. Photo courtesy of Iris Duvekot

ARK For the project LAWKI, ARK Amsterdam extended internationally and interdisciplinary. The group consists of designers and researchers: Louis Braddock Clarke, Roosje Klap, Senka Milutinović, and Zuzanna Zgierska; philosopher Federico Campagna; composer Teoniki Rożynek; computer scientists: Arran Lyon and Valentin Vogelmann. ARK's hybrid method of exchanging knowledge and developing work reflects its artistic ambition to make modern technologies open-ended, inclusive, and fair spaces of participation. Through the process of commoning between humans and algorithms, new knowledges emerge.