GUTEN TAG a.k.a. dead dead dead (in the head head head)

kinetic installation, 2019
HfG Karlsruhe
typewriter Olivetti Praxis 100, Hermes, motor, framed texts


While Hermes' head persistently hits the keypad, the typewriter Olivetti Praxis 100 writes a text on fanfold paper in which it presents its skills and merits. The pile of written-on fanfold paper grew continuously during the exhibition. The individual text pages, the “artistic output”, were framed as new works of art and hung on the wall. An ironic comment on supposed future promises of artificial intelligence.

Accompanying text:
The encounter of Praxis 100 „with folding handle, many automatic functions, various switching steps and numerous types of fonts, fully functional“ [1] and messenger of the gods Hermes „to whom it is less a matter of having ideas of his own, but to mediate between what should happen“[2] generates new realities. Using high technology from the 1980s, the mechanical algorithm projects ancient ideals onto the pre-virtual emptiness between idea and practice. The boundaries between artistic intelligence and artificial simplicity are re-explored.

[1] Praxis 100 user manual
[2] wiki.yoga-vidya.de/hermes



photo: Jana Hofmann

thanks to:
Richard Brunner, Valle Döring, Răzvan Rădulescu, Susanne Schmitt, Peter Schwab