Whistleblower Edward Snowden critically hits the credibility of global news coverage again by confirming the fears of many who believe in a secret, gradual installation of an international surveillance system: Snowden, as a CIA employee, publishes secret agency documents and thus provides evidence for the existence of the large-scale surveillance program Stellarwind, implemented and developed by the United States, but also by Great Britain. The disintegration of public communication reaches next levels and shifts the previous savior, the digital network, into general suspicion and discomfort. After eight years of beeing projected all over the world, Garden of Error and Decay actually becomes part of the architectural features of a building – it becomes it’s part in the atrium and on the facade of the Art Center Nabi in Seoul, which is interspersed with interconnected, meter-long LCD screens. The combination of Garden of Error and Decay with the towering facade not only makes the data dress that surrounds and lures us apparent, but also shows very clearly how decorative the illustration of shocking messages and their interpretations, the figurative stream of infinite social Media comments, can be perceived. In Seoul, the background is again an integral part of Garden of Error and Decay and thus supports the homogeneous and ornamental perception of the image stream, which was originally designed for irritation. Only a critical and more in-depth look at the prompts exposes their critical content.

Computer, projector, software, LCD strips, projection screen: Vector graphics of pictograms are animated using the object-oriented scripting language ActionScript and played in the Flashplayer in an endless loop in the form of a custom made Flash projector, an executable file. Adobe will stop supporting and distributing Flash in 2020.

Paul Kenig