4.48 dB(A)
Buffering Love in a Hopeless Place
A sonic datastructure.
Programmed, synthesized, and processed by Igor Štromajer and his computers
The title – 74.48 dB(A) – represents the measured average sound pressure level in decibel in the central processing hub of a data center, where the A-weighting curve simulates the human ear’s response to the raw acoustic power of the hardware.
The sonic datastructure 74.48 dB(A) is an acoustic dissection of a heretical technological sacredness. At the core of the composition lies the processor noise of a server hall, establishing a decaying, mathematical, techno-sacred experience through a monotonous sequence of hums and mechanical sounds. This non-human sonic landscape deciphers the materiality of the internet, which manifests through constant vibration, heat, and forced mechanical cooling.The server room transforms from technical infrastructure into a consecrated space of mathematics, a hopeless place where the biological body can no longer survive due to noise and sterility. Here, the data stream reaches its harmonic peak within a post-human environment where machines communicate with one another in total autonomy, devoid of any human interaction or intervention.
This sonic architecture offers the illusion of salvation through the non-stop flow of information. Every single fan in this system acts as a prayer wheel, maintaining the stability of a fractured digital self in an infinite loop.The core state of this meditative sonic experience is buffering. In the server environment, love, affect, and identity cease to be fixed points; they become ongoing processes, constantly loading but never fully materializing. Simultaneously, the sonic datastructure deconstructs the myth of the ethereal data-cloud, confronting the audience with the brutal physical force required to sustain modern metaphysics. This non-human mantra, where noise and grief are the only remaining relics, offers failed tactics for transcending political anxiety and establishes meaningless strategies of groundless resistance.
IGOR ŠTROMAJER
Igor Štromajer – also known as intima.org – is a non-amateur level electric non-artist, “le Pavarotti du HTML”. He explores tactical artistic techno-performative research intimate guerrilla, and low-tech communication strategies.
He has shown his work at more than two hundred exhibitions in more than sixty countries (transmediale, ISEA, EMAF, SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica Futurelab, V2_, IMPAKT, CYNETART, Manifesta, FILE, Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Hamburg Kunsthalle, ARCO, Banff Centre, Les Rencontres Internationales, The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale and in numerous other galleries and museums worldwide) and received a number of awards (in Frankfurt, Moscow, Hamburg, Dresden, Belfort, Madrid, Maribor).
His projects form part of the permanent collections of the prestigious art institutions, among them Le Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Computerfinearts Net and Media Art Collection in New York, and the Maribor Art Gallery in Slovenia.
As a guest artist he lectures at universities and contemporary art institutes. Štromajer lives and works between Frankfurt am Main and Maribor / Ljubljana.
credits:
great many thanks to Igor Štromajer and his computers for 74.48 dB(A) – Buffering Love in a Hopeless Place!
additional info:
includes radia jingles (in/out), station and program info/intro (english)