exonemo – Kensuke Sembo + Yae Akaiwa (JP), Fireplace
   

video installation, 5:50
2014

exonemo – Kensuke Sembo + Yae Akaiwa (JP), Fireplace
   

video installation, 5:50
2014

Info

Fireplace is a video piece presenting scenes of burning optical mice and keyboards like tinder in a fireplace. In the old days of “hearth and home”, the fireplace was the centre of the living room that was then replaced by the TV set. In some countries there are even channels one can tune to broadcast fireplaces. They’re popular. Since we are now entering a period when each person carries their “smart” technology with them, we no longer need the PC. So what about delivering new fireplaces to burn away yet another legacy, as we shift to our new world of personal decentralised displays?

The work is a hommage to the famous piece TV as a Fireplace (1968-69) by Jan Dibbets that was commissioned by Gerry Schum for his famous television gallery. The German broadcaster WDR3 aired the work in regular program without any special announcement during the last eight evenings of 1969.

exonemo, the artist group formed in 1996 by Yae Akaiwa and Kensuke Sembo. Their experimental projects serve as humorous and innovative explorations of the paradoxes of both digital and analog computer networked and actual environments in our lives. Their Road Movie was awarded the Golden Nica for Net Vision category at Prix Ars Electronica 2006.