_Irrational Computing_ investigates the material, aesthetics and potential of digital processes. The basic raw materials of our surrounding information technology are semiconductor crystals such as silicon, quartz or silicon carbide, which, thanks to today’s advanced microtechnology and extremely sophisticated procedures, are processed into transistors or integrated circuits (IC), with the materiality of modern microprocessors having long since ceased to be graspable. The extreme miniaturization and the black-box set-up elude visual interpretation. The installation’s circuit runs counter to the developments in information technology, representing the system in a dimension that is enlarged many times over.

The installation consists of five interlinked modules that use the varied electrical and mechanical particularities and characteristics of crystals and minerals and, through their networking, form a kind of primitive macroscopic signal processor. The crystals used are either taken directly from nature, from industrial waste products or have been especially cultivated for the purpose. A silicon-carbide crystal, for example, is made to light up at numerous points with the help of electrodes (LED). A kind of display, which is targeted by the data flows generated by other modules, appears on the piece of crystal. At the same time, the crystal functions as a sound generator, since the electrical impulses change the surface of the crystal, causing it to vibrate. Loudspeakers make these microscopic reverberations audible for visitors.

The function of digital systems is conceived logically and rationally. The lowest physical or electro-technical level (crystals with semiconductor properties), however, is based on quantum-mechanics, i.e. statistical or unpredictable processes. Modern computer technology has thus, so to speak, tamed and domesticated the chaotic. In his work, Ralf Baecker comments on this paradox by examining the aesthetics of the materials from which a global digital network has developed. _Irrational Computing_ is not supposed to “function”—its aim is to search for the poetic elements on the border between “accuracy” and “chaos.”


Links: http://vimeo.com/37443273 http://www.rlfbckr.org/irrational_computing

A production by Dock e.V. in cooperation with the Ernst Schering Foundation Berlin

**Ralf Baecker** (DE); born 1977, studied computer science at the University of Cologne and media art at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne (diploma 2007). 2007/2008, artistic staff at the Bauhaus University, Weimar. 2010/2011, teaching position at the University of the Arts Bremen. In his work Bäcker examines the relation of material and mind in the context of digital media. His installations and machines are critical investigations of our expectations of technology.