Catalogue > At random

The Mirrored Message documents two scientists as they prototype a new device that transfers data between wireless computer networks and living plants. Observing their work from within a sealed electronics facility near Stockholm, we follow procedural steps in the device's programming and fabrication. The initially alien laboratory space slowly reveals itself as a kind of photographic darkroom, and we watch the light-sensitive production of the device's specialized circuitry. From the artificial air of this controlled lab we move to a coastal forest near the Baltic Sea, where the transmitter is installed for testing. Weather impedes the work. As the humans slowly fade from the scene, a living specimen comes online, finally addressable by a local network.

Benjamin Tiven is a filmmaker and the co-director of Library Stack. His films have screened at FID Marseille, Viennale, Rotterdam, Oberhausen, Courtisane, MUMOK, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Delfina Foundation, London, Fotografisk, Copenhagen, the Museum of the Moving Image, NYC, and Arsenale Kino, Berlin.