Time & Technology/ 2

In the first half of 2012 Art Laboratory Berlin will present the exhibition Series Time & Technology, a reflection of how the radical technological changes of the last 20 years have influenced our perception of time and how we plan and structure our lives.

Navigating the Everyday presents works by plan b, the British artist duo Daniel Belasco Rogers and Sophia New, and is their first solo exhibition in Germany. Since 2003 and 2007 respectively, Daniel and Sophia have been recording every journey they make every day using GPS devices. Additionally all areas of their digital communication (e.g. mobile phone text messages) are evaluated and processed artistically. Their work represents an artistic research by means of a digital archiving of their movements.

Over the years this practice has become part of everyday life, a form of private and personal ‘sousveillance’, in which the artists generate their own data, thereby reflecting the approach of those private and public agencies who collect all available data.

plan b: Narrating Our Lines, Two-channel video installation. 1 hr synchronised loop. DV, Sound, Openframeworks animation, 2010

plan b: All GPS Traces outside Our Front Door in 2011, Two panels, archival ink pen plot on Accademia paper, mounted on aluminium 42 x 60 cm, 2012

plan b: Navigating the Everyday, installation view, 2012

plan b: ll The Text Messages We Sent Each Other in 2011 Dot Matrix printer paper, text messages, 2012

plan b: ll The Text Messages We Sent Each Other in 2011 Dot Matrix printer paper, text messages, 2012

plan b: Mood reports, 2012

plan b: All Our Traces in Berlin 2011, Two panels of acrylic 42 x 60 cm each with laser engraving from reverse, 2012

plan b: All Our Traces in Berlin 2011, Two panels of acrylic 42 x 60 cm each with laser engraving from reverse, 2012

plan b: GPS Satellite Sonification, GPS, netbook, pure data and python software, 2010

plan b: GPS Satellite Sonification, GPS, netbook, pure data and python software, 2010

plan b: Navigating the Everyday, installation view, 2012

Since January 2011, the artists have also recorded their moods in writing three times a day. This mood diary enables them to compare their emotional life with the GPS traces of their movements and collected text messages. Presentation of the act of remembrance, in human and machine form, provides material for the two-channel video installation Narrating Our Lines, shown here in full for the first time. The video installation shows the artists viewing an animation of the GPS traces of their movements from 2007. With a temporal distance of three years, they then recall past events of their lives through these traces. On one screen, the viewer can see the artists, while on the other we see what the artists see – the GPS traces of their movement. A striking tension is achieved, while they (re)construct the common narrative of their lives.

In addition to this installation, additional objects are presented, which have resulted from their practice of collecting: All The Text Messages We Sent Each Other in 2011, an archive of their mobile text messages, lists of personal vocabulary based on the frequency of use, as well as Mood Reports, a journal of their fluctuating moods arranged by season, time of day and location of each of the artists. Accompanying the works in the front room is a sound piece GPS Satellite Sonification, in which a GPS device scans the sky, responding to the satellites in view from the gallery window with auditory and visual events producing sound patterns that shift with the movement of the orbiting satellites.