Are you human? (wall)

2009-2013
object series
aluminum, 3 mm
75 × 50 cm -- 95 × 65 cm (variable)

CAPTCHA codes are small images we encounter on the internet almost every day. To prove to the server that we are human we have to decode the distorted random letter-number word. CAPTCHA is the acronym for a ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’ and was developed in 2000. While at the Turing test humans were to decide if they chat with a program or another human. Today the computer is asking us if we were human. At the same time often it is quite difficult to decode these bend letters and numbers but spammers write specialized software which still is capable to do so. Are you human?

It is also interesting that CAPTCHA codes are generated by a script in the very moment a website is requested. In fact each code is unique but forgotten in digital nirvana very quickly. Once used (or failed) it will never appear as alike again. While many other files on the Internet are being copied and multiplied CAPTCHA codes stay in an ephemeral blind spot. They seem light, sometimes like a micro poem but they ask us the very existential question in an era of digital life.

 

Exhibitions:

  • Ein gemachter Mensch – Künstlerische Fragen an Identitäten, Kallmann Museum, Ismaning, Germany, 2018

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