Considering today’s landscape as a cartographic human-made structure - where technology is the ink, or maybe even the paper - How the mind comes to be furnished addresses the physical, intangible and often hidden infrastructures of this landscape.
Drawing on materials such as the architecture of remote data centres and the pattern of radio wave oscillations as they translate data activity, the collage of works on show treats the horizontal landscape as an immaterial networked space.
Having been brought together by Space In Between and invited to experiment with, and elaborate on, areas of research and interest within their practices, James Irwin & Lilah Fowler have created a collaborative sound piece, which gives the title to the show. How the mind comes to be furnished makes tangible the invisible chatter of data that surrounds us, as custom-built software uses bits of data from Wi-Fi traffic to manipulate the sound of a recording of wind turbine blades. The data stream of the gallery’s Wi-Fi is translated live into variations of the note and velocity of the original sampled audio; breaks in the sound relate to little - or no - network use.
This work creates an environment in which a collection of other works are shown including: a digested rock sample contained in a glass vial; a print made using the raw data of a file that has an image encrypted within it; and a suspended solar panel that rests on a grid powering, when it can, a small cooling fan. Each of these experiments and disparate instances of transformation together explore how seemingly distant forces might shape or furnish our consciousness.