atlas of the liminal

by Manu Luksch

Atlas of the Liminal traces transitional spaces, contested places, zones of exception; territories haunted by past innovation, frontiers lacerated by conflicting visions. Generated through algorithmic processes, this machinic seeing unwraps three-dimensional image data onto the plane, capturing perspectives that the human eye overlooks, integrating the dimension of time where views overlap.

From matter to data graphically draws attention to threats to human and environmental health posed by the manufacturing arm of Big Tech – threats eclipsed by the spectacular success of the industry’s products, and complicated by obscure chains of corporate ownership and responsibility.

The semiconductor boom of the early 1970s left a mixed legacy in Northern California. Silicon Valley has famously become home to the world’s largest and most influental high-technology corporations. Less well known is the large-scale contamination of former chip plants by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that continues to pose a health threat today. VOCs such as TCE, a known carcinogen and immunotoxin that also damages the kidney, liver, nervous and reproductive systems, spread with groundwater and rise as vapour plumes beneath neighbouring commercial and residential zones. For this series, polluted sites in Silicon Valley were mapped by drone and the aerial image sets exposed to different algorithmic interpretations.

For this series, contaminated locations in Silicon Valley were mapped by drone, sites where the intellectual superstructure of our supposedly dematerialised culture is designed. Each pair of prints brings together two different algorithmic interpretations of the aereal image data sets: an atlas of interstices, the city of shattered quartz, reassembled. By size? Shape? Motif? - By machine logic, a model kit not yet built.

Presentation at the Vienna Art Week , Nov 2022