In “Outsized Effects,” artist Chris Combs uses his interactive, electronic artworks to consider the extreme amplification of power.
Consider the Arecibo message, a real-world radio transmission sent “to aliens” at the star cluster Messier 13 in 1974; it will not reach its destination until 25,000 years from now. A response would take at least another 25,000 years at the speed of light.
What is it like to make a decision that could change the lives of people fifty thousand years in the future?
Or to make a product decision about a platform like Facebook, used by a billion people on Earth: what is it like to have such a powerful lever to pull?
“Outsized Effects” dwells in these power imbalances: small actions with unfathomably large implications.
The show centers around “Allegheny Data Company,” a large, interactive installation that compares the harvesting of consumer data to the extraction of coal. Inspired by the shape of a Davis Coal & Coke Company tipple from Thomas, the “Allegheny Data Company” has myriad objects that can be controlled by viewers—and one big surprise.
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