Above
      Human


a real-time data visualization of covid-19. 





2021✖︎◦⚡︎


#Datascapes

#Real-Time Data

#Global✖︎Local

#MotionTracking

#InteractiveSculpture






The pandemic generates a diffuse feeling of affiliation. China-Japan-USA-South Korea-Thailand-Vietnam-Nepal-Singapore-Taiwan-Australia-Iran-Turkey-Italy-Germany-Austria-Norwa-Spain-Iceland-Brazil-Peru … The virus spreads, takes territories, and leaves traces. It pulsates, vibrates, interacts in and with the various spheres: the private-sphere, the public-sphere, the economic-sphere, the techno-capital sphere, the info-sphere, the psycho-sphere. It is already post-digital if we consider it ‘Being global, Being big and small, Being prime, Being equal, Being unterritorial’1.

Above Human is an interactive spherical projection mapping installation that displays the real-time data of COVID-19 inside an epidemic-sphere. It makes the invisible visible, the immaterial material. It is not just an audio-visual experience, but rather an active and communicative act: the global outside flows into the local inside and merges into a space of coexistence. In line with Peter Sloterdijk, the ‘sphere’ becomes a symbol for ‘spaces of coexistence’ as spaces that deal with crucial information to develop a better understanding of humanity. When visiting the Above Human installation, the encapsulated spherical entity of the virus occupies the human body via tracking cameras to display its existence.

1 Nicholas Negroponte, Wired Magazine 1998 talking about the term Beyond-Digital or Post-Digital.

The project was exhibited and performed at p.m.k - plattform mobile kulturinitiativen in Innsbruck, Austria as part of the Transgressions 2.0 Autonomie Praxis Demokratie series in 2021, at Ars Electronica Festival 2021, as part of the Barcelona Solar Orchard Garden, at ADAF, Athens Digital Art Festival 2021, at RoBOt Festival 2021 in Bologna, Italy and at the Daejon Art and Science Biennale 2022 at Daejeon Museum of Art, South Korea.

CREDITS
 a project by Me AndOther Me / Cenk Güzelis & Anna Pompermaier
Production: Espronceda Center for Art and Culture, Barcelona ︎
Creative Technologist: Burkart Schwaighofer ︎
Text: Marco Russo
Narrator: Will Stafford
Music: Yaman ︎
Sound Design: Kristaps Austers