Welt als Draht

On excursions that Juliane Henrich took in Mansfeld, the slag heaps awakened her interest. The question arose: Is slag, as a remnant of copper smelting, comparable with the – at first glance – "useless" data that are left behind on servers when people surf the internet? Data and slag have their value; they are traded – if not now, then at an indeterminable future time. Reflecting on the accumulation of digital data and on copper as the raw material used in wiring leads to the private chamber of a fictitious user who is influenced by data, while producing new traces for valorisation. Under the title Welt als Draht (World as Wire), Juliane Henrich investigates what analogies could exist besides that of "mining and data mining". At the same time, she speculates on connections and correlations that are spread through the internet – from revolutionary ideas to inhuman conspiracy theories.

The accompanying sound is composed by Konstantin Schimanowski.