The Ener-geyser installation has been accepted to ISEA2022 conference ‘Possibilities’, taking place in Barcelona next June. This research is part of the SIA RAAK-mkb project, Circulate, a collaboration between Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and Caradt | Avans.
The installation responds to the rise of distributed ledger technologies within local communities. Algorithmic governance presents affordances that could challenge existing value sets and raise questions about ethics, privacy, and the socio-political implications of new forms of distributed authority. The Ener-geyser is a site-specific installation and artistic research that aims to trigger further discourse amongst community members about some of the above-mentioned concerns. It uses one available natural resource, water, to display another – energy.
The Ener-geyser is a wellspring in public space, informed by blockchain data stemming in real-time from a resource community.
By introducing new possibilities for how the individual and the collective can perceive data, the geyser explores how the (shared) underlying values in energy resource communities can be reflected in systems managing the allocation of shared resources.
The fountain questions the format of traditional dashboards, by transforming the dashboard into a collective and public spectacle, for the users and their surroundings.
At the same time the geyser is portraying the data, it is also functioning as a research instrument which allows us to document conditional shifts in individual behavior for the greater good of the collective, if and when these happen.
The installation raises the issue of how we can view and experience sharing natural resources – together, and how new forms can influence our actions and relationships, to technology and to each other.
The Ener-geyser was developed by Tara Karpinski, who is a researcher-designer at Caradt for the group Situated Art & Design. Her work is realized in public space in cooperation with diverse communities. Tara’s installations visualize underlying (algorithmic) networks to reveal their potentials.
For more information on the Ener-geyser, check out the short clip below: