Kata Kovács and Tom O’Doherty · Woven All of Dream and Error

Woven All of Dream and Error is an exhibition presenting a collection of films, images, and sounds that consider the overlap of two areas of the history of technology: the sites of abandoned railway lines, and the emergence of machine learning — or what has popularly come to be referred to as artificial intelligence.

The exhibition, which takes its title from a poem written in 1918 by the Portuguese modernist Fernando Pessoa, investigates the artistic and practical implications of the overlap of these two technologies.

The exhibition presents a series of walks, undertaken by the artists, along the paths of now-disused railway routes. In these walks, the artists carry portable speakers, playing the sound of machine-learning-generated audio of invented trains: sound that has been hallucinated by contemporary computational technology, and which is juxtaposed with the remains of disappearing layers of the built environment.

These walks are materially presented as a series of interlocking short films, with accompanying image grids and maps. The exhibition will be accompanied by an artist book and a series of unique lathe-cut records — further details are given below.

Woven All of Dream and Error will be presented at Hošek Contemporary, the unique Berlin art space housed on a repurposed barge in the river Spree, in September 2024.

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Woven All of Dream and Error began through a process of walking. Over the course of four years, Kata Kovács and Tom O’Doherty undertook a series of walks along the paths of now-disused railway routes in Berlin and Brandenburg, which they filmed as they walked. In these walks, they also carried portable speakers, playing the sound of machine-learning-generated audio of invented trains: sound that has been hallucinated by contemporary computational technology. [...] These films are explorations of traces left behind, cinematic studies of incisions in the land.

— Harley Aussoleil · Excerpted from Woven All of Dream and Error: Hallucinations and Remnants (Estovers Editions, 2024)

Kata Kovács and Tom O’Doherty have worked as a collaborative duo since 2011; they live and work in Berlin.

Their work combines elements of durational and time-based art, minimalist movement, and electroacoustic music and sound. They are interested in processes, sounds, and movements that come close to imperceptibility, and the ways in which this material can be transformed through repetition, patterning, layering, and archiving.

Their work has previously been exhibited and presented at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Serralves Museum, Porto; National Museum of Contemporary Art (Chiado), Lisbon; Ars Electronica, Linz; Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin; and Digital in Berlin’s Kiezsalon series, Berlin, among others.

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• Kata Kovács and Tom O’Doherty · website
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• Kata Kovács and Tom O’Doherty · Mastodon
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Established in 2016, Hošek Contemporary is a gallery, performance space and art residency located on a historical boat in Mitte, Berlin. The focus is primarily on performing arts, site-specific installations and experimental sound works. The gallery hosts weekly improvised music sets, providing musicians an opportunity to showcase their sound skills to a Berlin audience.

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More:

• Hošek Contemporary · website
• Hošek Contemporary · Instagram