File card by Rudolf Hostettler for his translation project, "The Printer's terms", 1949 - 1981.
Prototype for the application X-Y-Z by Urs Hofer
Prototype for the application X-Y-Z by Urs Hofer, installation view.
Jürg Lehni, Otto, 2014. Drawing series: Jürg Lehni & Jenny Hirons, A Taxonomy of Communication, 2014.
Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli, A poem that seems to demand translation into architecture, 2022.
Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli, A poem that seems to demand translation into architecture, 2022.OK Computer—Languages of Order
When looking things up in card indexes and entering terms in search fields, language is always a hurdle. Are we looking for ceramic, porcelain, or slip casting? Is the artist a sculptor, painter, or visual artist? Does “stone” stand for the material—or for the Oliver with the same last name? What’s the name of the technique in which colored plaster is mixed in and sanded? Sometimes we have a hard time finding what we are looking for simply because we don’t know the terminology.
Entering keywords in a catalogue and how they are assigned and used is a highly standardized matter that, strictly speaking, already determines the results of our search, perhaps even before we know exactly what we are looking for. With the exhibition, we set off on a search for other modes of cataloguing, archiving, and organizing, and interrogate the role that vocabulary or language plays in this process. Can software and artificial intelligence perhaps support us in this?
The exhibition OK Computer—Languages of Order brings together positions that deal with the topic of naming and organizing by means of language in various ways: from very personally developed strategies of order to technical utopias and attempts to have the computer write the vocabulary for the catalogue.
With contributions by Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli, Urs Hofer, Rudolf Hostettler, and Jürg Lehni.
Sitterwerk Foundation
Opening, Sunday, October 30, 2–5 p.m.
Sunday, February 5, 11 a.m–5 p.m.: Closing of the exhibition with the final event, “The Annotated Library”, with contributions by Urs Hofer, Jürg Lehni, Mindy Seu, and the TETI Group (Anne-Laure Franchette, Gabriel Gee, Jan van Oorth).
The exhibition is supported by Kanton St.Gallen Kulturförderung / Swisslos, Ria & Arthur Dietschweiler Stiftung, Walter und Verena Spühl Stiftung, Methrom Stiftung, Dr. Fred Styger Stiftung, and Billwiller Stiftung.