Christopher Baker: Hello World!

Posted on 12/05/2010 by W&V

Hello World! or: How I Learned to Stop Listening and Love the Noise is an immersive, large-scale audio visual installation comprised of thousands of unique video diaries gathered from the Internet. The project is a meditation on the contemporary plight of democratic, participative media and the fundamental human desire to be heard.

Christopher Baker engages with his work often the rich collection of social, technological and ideological networks present in the urban landscape. Read also more about him and his creations in an earlier article posted on the Warmenhoven & Venderbos blog here.

On one hand, new media technologies like YouTube have enabled new speakers at an alarming rate. On the other hand, no new technologies have emerged that allow us to listen to all of these new public speakers. Each video consists of a single lone individual speaking candidly to a (potentially massive) imagined audience from a private space such as a bedroom, kitchen, or dorm room. The multi-channel sound composition glides between individuals and the group, allowing viewers to listen in on unique speakers or become immersed in the cacophony. Viewers are encouraged to dwell in the space.

Recently the Hello World audio visual installation was also used as backdrop for an interesting special on Swiss Television (Schweizer Fernsehen) called: special Kulturplatz Extra report. This TV special focused on the theme: “Living with the computer: blessing or curse?” The reports range from the hippie roots of personal computing in silicon valley, to robot therapy for the elderly.

Photos,video and source: Christopher Baker | Vimeo | Kulturplatz Extra

Christopher Baker : Art, society and its technologies

Posted on 14/09/2009 by W&V

Christopher Baker was first trained as a scientist and moved to the creation of art later on. His work engages the rich collection of social, technological and ideological networks present in the urban landscape.He creates artifacts and situations that reveal and generate relationships within and between these networks. He explores the ways we imagine and represent ourselves before audiences and the ways we navigate and abide in public space.

One of his latest works is an installation in which he covers the online social networking sites. he uses the messages posted on for example micro blogs like Twitter and Facebook in this installation. These social websites are monitored and the thousands of messages which are posted every second on them are printed by twenty micro printers on virtual endless streams of paper.
The installation represents not only the fast flow of fleeing thoughts which are posted by people from all over the world on these social networksÂ but it also points to the fact that these thoughts are accumulated, digitally stored and indexed by various systems and companies from all over the world.