[spectre] Turbulence Commission: "Machine Fragments" by Onomé Ekeh

[Turbulence]

July 31, 2006
Turbulence Commission: "Machine Fragments" by Onomé Ekeh
http://turbulence.org/Works/machinefragments/machine.html
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Perhaps the question, "Can Machines Think"? should be re-articulated as "Is
the Machine different from you or I"? Why is there a perceptive gap between
our tools and ourselves? Do they also not constitute consciousness and by
extension the body?

The cultural schisms that generate this differentiation between "man" and
"machine" are also responsible for spawning voids and displacements – and
the ghosts that inhabit them. It is these ghosts who constitute "Machine
Fragments." Machine Fragments are essentially sound fictions spun from the
perspective of sentient machines, testing humans for machine intelligence.
Not so much to expose the machinic dimension in humans (we suspected as
much), but to arouse the sense that "Machine" is also a kind of gender.

"Machine Fragments" is a 2005 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts,
Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with
funding from The Greenwall Foundation.

BIOGRAPHY

Born and raised on most sides of the Atlantic, Onomé Ekeh started out as a
painter, gravitated towards design and fell in love with cinema. The
collusion effect is a lifelong fascination with hybrid forms of media and
their perpetuation in contemporary culture. Ekeh has written for film, and
literary and technological journals both in Europe and the United States;
produced works for theater; and created "radio fictions." She is a frequent
collaborator in a number of cross-disciplinary projects. She lives in New
York City and has been the recipient of several fellowships and grant awards
including the Jerome Foundation/Media Alliance (2000); Harvestworks Digital
Media Center Artist-In-Residence (2002). Ekeh is currently a Fellow at the
Kunstlerhaus Buchsenhausen in Austria.

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