Katherine Behar
Katherine Behar: Backups
September 3–25, 2019
Mazmanian Gallery presents Katherine Behar: Backups, a solo exhibition of sculpture, video, and interactive works. While digital culture constantly generates alternative copies or “backups” to minimize risk, Behar attempts to unlock the lost potential in these stocks of substitutes. At once humorous and critical, her artworks reinvent the data and devices we have abandoned to storage.
Some works in the exhibition show the ways countless copies clog consumer culture. Shelf Life finds remnants of an alternative reality amidst generations of discarded designs stashed on shelves. Correspondingly, in Modeling Big Data, a data profile—that is, a record of one’s online activities—turns into an overgrown entity with compulsive behaviors of its own. Other works consider how, from apps to AIs, technologies of automation increasingly stand in not only for people, but also for humanity. In Autoresponder.exe, an app that automates the simple task of replying to emails keeps business running as usual while all else seems lost. Likewise, giving so-called encrypted backups a twist, Knock Knock shows two Alexas—themselves proxies for human assistants—entertaining each other in a cryptographic guessing game that exceeds both human intelligence and human patience.
In Backups, Behar offers us a chance to “revert to backup,” that is, to air out our accounts, reevaluate our discarded drafts and duplicates, and consider what of ourselves our backups promise to replace or restore.
Works Included:
Shelf Life, 2019, Keyboard keys, resin, Styrofoam, adhesive, media carts, Variable dimensions
In Shelf Life, QWERTY keyboard keys stud the surfaces of oddly shaped objects. Resting on shelves like dollops from an alternate reality, they appear to have broken free from the boring rectangles of black-box design. Their voluptuous protrusions mimic biological mutations and no two are alike. Shelf Life recalls the limited lifespan of devices; yet, this collection of artifacts is poised at the ready, hinting that the options we have shelved may store vital potential.
Modeling Big Data, 2014 Six-channel HD video installation, color, sound, Endless loops
Modeling Big Data parodies how computer culture favors hoarding, overproduction, and excess. The artist performs as an obese data body so stuck in the cycle of generating data that, like so-called big data, it has become swollen by its own data glut. She repeats an endless series of movements that she calls data gestures, comically inadequate attempts to mimic common computer routines such as clicking, buffering, caching, and pinging.
Autoresponder.exe, 2012, Single-channel 4K video, color, silent, Running time: 16:10 minutes
Autoresponder.exe compares a scene of managerial power to software that is impersonal, ineffective, and tone-deaf. The slowly scanning video reveals an image of an executive desk standing on end in a disheveled office. Autoresponders are automated e-mail scripts that send generic reply messages to incoming mail in lieu of a personally composed response. They provide a shallow veneer of competence in corporate culture, masking inattention, lapsed productivity, and bureaucratic redundancy.
Knock Knock, 2019, Amazon Echo devices with custom Alexa Skills, Dimensions and duration variable, Programming by Stream Gao
In Knock Knock, two speech-enabled smart devices go head-to-head when one Alexa tries to guess a cryptographic key known only to the other. Their guessing game begins with the familiar children’s game promptI’m thinking of a number…However, this number relies on SHA-256, the same encryption used by blockchain technology. The only way to win is through “brute force,” that is, by trying random 64-digit combinations until luck prevails.
Photos: Flavia Arcuri and Ellie Krakow. Images courtesy of the artist.
This exhibition was supported by Arts & Ideas at Framingham State University. For more information about the artist visit Katherine Behar’s website.