Historical website
of the Centre
pour l'Image
Contemporaine

Version bêta
31 October - 14 December 2008

Thomas Feuerstein

 

The Austrian artist and philosopher Thomas Feuerstein is involved with practices as far ranging as installation, the creation of objects, drawing, painting, sculpture, video, photography and on-line art. His work grapples with the interactions between linguistic
and visual elements, links between fact and fiction, and the interdependency of art and science.

The principle behind Botcafé is first of all to get the public to visit the site www.myzel.net. Each connection to the site activates an order for coffee from a machine featured in the exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Images. That action is then transformed
into sound and thus produces "coffee music" via a MIDI program. The idea in this case is to make people aware of the process of automation, which is announced here by the term "bot," which is of course at the root of the word "robot," as an element or "demon" affecting our existence without our being really aware of it.

Thomas Feuerstein, Botcafé, 2007, network and space display, Software: Peter Chiochetti, Galerie Magazin 4, Bregenz, Germany, Courtesy Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Photo: © Thomas Feuerstein 2007

Historical website
of the Centre
pour l'Image
Contemporaine