Andreas Albrectsen. Failed Attempt #1 (democary)
The Danish-Brazilian artist Andreas Albrectsen’s performance Failed Attempt #1 (democary) in Kumu’s atrium. The performance and the resulting work are a part of the exhibition Triumph of Galatea: Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence in the 5th floor Contemporary Art Gallery of Kumu.
Drawing on a fully automated CAPTCHA security puzzle designed to distinguish humans from robots in the digital world, Failed Attempt #1 (democary) reflects on language, privacy, data and the productive role of error. After numerous failed attempts to log into his Wikipedia account, Albrectsen gave up trying to recall his password and began deciphering the distorted letters automatically generated by the CAPTCHA service as an alternative login option. One of the text fragments that Wikipedia’s artificial intelligence model asked him to decipher in order to gain access was “democary”: a misspelling of the English term “democracy”, which comes from Greek: demos means people and kratia means power or rule.
The durational, process-based performance unfolds as a slow, meditative sequence in which a distorted letter combination gradually emerges from black natural desert sand within a temporarily restricted area. Acts of demarcation and controlled access function as performative gestures, pointing to questions of inclusion, exclusion and participation in both physical and digital spaces. As an integral part of the work, throughout the exhibition period the work remains vulnerable to change, whether as a result of minor accidents or deliberate touches by passers-by.
Duration: approximately 2.5 hours
Andreas Albrectsen (b. 1986) is a Danish / Brazilian artist based in Copenhagen. He graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, in 2011 & the Malmö Art Academy in 2013. His work has been shown in the Malmö Konsthall, Skissernas Museum, ARoS Art Museum, Château de Montosorrot – Museum of Contemporary Art, SMK – the National Gallery of Denmark, Haus N Athens and the Fotografisk Centre (DK). Albrectsen’s work is represented in the museum collections of the MNBA – the National Museum of Fine Arts of Brazil, SMK Museum – the National Gallery of Denmark, Malmö Art Museum, Sweden, the New Carlsberg Foundation and the Danish Arts Foundation, as well as private and public collections across Europe and Brazil.
The event is a part of the public programme of the exhibition Triumph of Galatea: Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Kumu’s 20th anniversary programme.
Participation is free of charge with an annual pass to the Art Museum of Estonia.
