Sketches for an earth computer presents a series of living"laboratory" studies enacted as sketches for an earth computer,alongside photographic documentation of various attempts to implementa literal, artistic investigation of the links between the earth, codeand the human psyche of the viewer.
The earth computer proposes the bootstrapping of a long-term, visiblecomputational device self-constructed solely from the earth, andembedded within the earth as a critical monument to human technology.
The total environment (geophysical, biological, electro-chemical)itself encodes and manipulates active, new computational-crystallinestructures which compute, impact on and re-code this environmentwithin a complex feedback system.
The living "lab" studies consist of a series of three containers whichexplore within a restricted environment the various coded andenergetic transformations which the earth computer enacts. Thesecontainers are open to, and influenced by local environmental andelectromagnetic changes; these changes would visibly re-code the
Accompanying images document the construction and prototyping of theearth computer within the landscape (enacted early 2014), makingexplicit how the lab studies relate to the wider notion of an earthcomputer.
The interdisciplinary work of Martin Howse is pre-occupied with abroad questioning of the exact location of execution and of codewithin the world (psychogeophysics). Through the construction ofexperimental situations (within process-driven performance,laboratories, walks, and workshops), material art works and texts,
Martin Howse explores the rich links between substance or materialsand execution or protocol, excavating issues of visibility and ofhiding within the world. Since 1998, Martin Howse has published,workshopped, performed and exhibited worldwide.