Christian Nold


Concept


Technology is not the neutral, rational instrument that it is portrayed as; instead it appears to be a heady and unstable mix of authoritarian control and anarchic mischief.

My approch is to slip into the gap between these two poles and use it as my medium by combining the freedom offered by the art world with the agency obtainable through design and technology. My aim is to build new tools that reek of possibility and also possible misuse.

The first part of my work is the in-depth research of technological tools in order to unravel their social and political layers. This has so far included the book Mobile Vulgus which scrutinized the mind state and weaponry of the riot policeman. In particular it focused on the futuristic crowd control technologies being developed for use in our streets.

The second part of my practice involves the building of socially constructive, bottom-up tools. These take the form of practical tools such as the Bio Mapping project or the Affect Browser.

I am interested in working with individuals, groups, companies and institutions that are trying to develop new hybrid forms of technology that are socially and economically sustainable.

Christian Nold

Download the diagram This diagram was designed for the Urban tactics: artists interventions in public space panel in San Fran June 2007 as well as the The 2007 Almanac of Contemporary Political Art in London

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Christian Nold christian@softhook.com

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All the work on the Softhook website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 2.5 License unless otherwise stated on the page or in the image ALT tag. The CSS is adapted from Intensive Station

Last Updated 3/3/2011
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It has been an enourmous long time since I last updated this! I have never been a blog person, and felt irritated by the way new media culture pushes us to be constantly visible to the world. Recently though I kept getting email from people wondering what I was up to. So today is my birthday and I have finally given in :) . So a quick update I am excited about what Rob van Kranenburg and I are calling the Internet of People - which will be a book coming out in the next few months. I am also exstatic about trying to build and map alternative currencies. Take a look at the Bijlmer Euro project. In the last year I have also been building a unique mapping software called Sensory Journeys and the Town Toolkits for which I will build a proper site. On Saturday I am off to Helsinki for the Pixeache festival where I am preseting some work but more importantly working on and island toolkit for the next year. More info soon...