Press release for "Infrasense"

              BEN MALTZ GALLERY
MEDIA RELEASE
Media contact: Kathy MacPherson, galleryinfo@otis.edu, 310.665.6909. Images available.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January, 2006
Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design is pleased to present the installation
Infrasense by artists KIT and Robert Saucier
Exhibition Dates: May 5 – July 1, 2006
Opening Reception: Friday, May 5, 6-9 pm
with an introduction by the artists at 7:30pm
Infrasense—an installation created by KIT (a fluxing collaborative team of international artists, writers, architects and programmers who have been active since 1995) and Canadian artist Robert Saucier—is on view at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design May 5-July 1, 2006. The artists are working with terminology adopted by Internet technology like worms, back doors, Trojan horses, and bugs that are metaphors for viral activities happening to our desktops and laptops in our work and home environments. The Infrasense project takes the Trojan horse and the bug—two digitally bound elements that live and replicate on the Internet—and makes them physical entities inside the gallery controlled partially by the Internet and visitor.
Nine silver Trojan horses on nine parallel tracks (like in the old carnival horse racing games), move forward and backward at a very slow, almost imperceptible pace. Like the original Trojan horse, each horse represents a type of virus that is deceptive in its intent. On the back of each horse is a plastic backpack (refashioned computers) that emits sound. As the audience enters the gallery, each backpack whispers in a different voice.
Roving amidst the pre-programmed horses are three robotic bugs. The bugs are refashioned computer parts, and are controlled remotely in three different ways: one is controlled by a hand-held device provided to gallery visitors; one is controlled by someone on the Internet; and one is pre-programmed by the artists.
(cont.)