Darsha Hewitt

Artist

Darsha Hewitt (DE)
A lot can be learned about the values of capitalist culture by critically investigating the materiality of the machines, processes and practices of technology that consumer society throws away. In its deconstructed form, domestic technology exposes the confounding ways that humans treat one another and how we engage with our built and natural environments. Darsha Hewitt’s art practice is situated across new media and sound studies and largely grows out of empirical material based experimentation with obsolete technology. She make electro-mechanical sound installation, performances with hand-made electronics, video, drawing and photography. Her artwork is presented internationally, with recent exhibitions at the Hong Kong City Hall (CH), Halle14 – Centre for Contemporary Art (DE), MU Artspace (NL), The Museum of Art and Design (NYC), Hartware MedienKunstverein (DE),Gaitée Lyrique (FR), Ottawa Art Gallery (CA), Modern Art Oxford (UK), The CTM Festival Berlin (DE) and WRO Media Art Biennale (PL). She has been awarded numerous commissions, grants and awards for her work. Within Germany, she was the recipient of an International Production Stipend from The Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art and held a fellowship at the Berlin Centre for Advanced Studies in Arts and Sciences at the University of the Arts in Berlin.
Artist Website
High Fidelity Wasteland
  • © Darsha Hewitt
  • © Darsha Hewitt
  • © Darsha Hewitt
  • High Fidelity Wasteland – Concept PDF p.1
  • High Fidelity Wasteland – Concept PDF p.2

work in progress!

Video (password locked): https://vimeo.com/448890684
Professionals: for password request contact info@emare.eu
 

100 Year Old Quicksilver Cloud is the first work in High Fidelity Wasteland – an audio-centric trilogy that experiments with the material waste left over from generations of decomposing sound reproduction technology. Wading into the toxic haze of early transmission infrastructure, this installation sonifies the decaying atmosphere inside a thyratron – a 100 year old vacuum tube radiating a cloud of blue ionized mercury. Vacuum tubes generated, amplified and controlled some of the earliest flows of electrons signalling the start of widespread communication networks – radio, tv, telephony, computing. Though produced prior to practices of planned obsolescence and outliving industrial lifecycles of technology today, the decommissioned liquified metals of the thyratron represent one of the multitude
of ruinous substrates of post industrial ecology.

Audio produced in collaboration with AGF (aka Antye Greie-Ripatti).
Technical support provided by Daniel Stigler.

Commissioned by transmediale – festival for art and digital culture Berlin as part of the culture program related to Canada’s Guest of Honour presentation at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2020. Produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Government of Canada. Further sponsorship provided by Martion – Audiosysteme.

More information: http://darsha.org/artwork/high-fidelity-wasteland-100-year-old-quicksilver-cloud/

 

Website
High Fidelty Wasteland 1 (only as example, not the EMAP production)

EMAP/EMARE grants of Darsha Hewitt

KONTEJNER (2021)