As part of the Springfestivals 2016 and the current exhibition, Sighs Trapped by Liars – Language in Art at the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien the visual sound poet Jörg Piringer will present his installation "unicode forever,” which will be screened outdoors in the evenings for the duration of the Springfestival (May 25 – 29); the piece will be installed by the Graz-based collective MO:YA.
"unicode forever” is yet another iteration of the artist’s work with Unicode, the continuously growing international standard code whose goal is to assign a digital code to every written character from every known system of signs, thus making it possible for anyone to read or write it. After his video "unicode,” and his installation/iPhone app "unicode infinite,” "unicode forever” will now be screened for the public. The project sets into motion the enormous store of the Unicode standard characters, projecting them onto the upper row of windows in the lobby of the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, presenting the fascinating diversity of humankind’s written and symbolic cultures as a endless loop of multi-voiced text/video installation. Text animations bring to light parallels and cross-connections between signs from different cultures and epochs, thus demonstrating the universality of this collection of written systems: Arabic script transforms into Latin alphabet characters, Chinese glyphs are side-by-side with Cyrillic letters, mathematical symbols supplement the hexagrams from the I Ching.
Countering societal trends that lean toward notions of unification, Unicode Forever places emphasis on the diversity of human cultures and opposes those who want simplification and reduction: complexity instead of “common sense,” and open-mindedness instead of ignorance.
Jörg Piringer was born in 1974 in Vienna, where he continues to live and work. He is a member of the Institute for Transacoustic Research and the Gemüseorchester (“vegetable orchestra”); Piringer works in the areas where language-based art, music, performance, and poetic software intersect.
During the Springfestival, admission is free to the current exhibitions, "Sighs Trapped by Liars – Language in Art" and "Nana Mandl – shuffle repeat", at the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien with a festival pass, Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (Thursday, May 26, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.). Festival passes must be shown at the reception desk. The artist will be present at the installation on Wednesday, May 25, at 9 p.m.
