Playing With Fire*




Inkjet on washi, folds, PVA adhesive, titanium-zinc white oil paint stick, mylar tape, washi tape, glitter, handwritten notes in graphite.

Playing With Fire* (Peer-Centered Network Map), double-sided inkjet and foldable. Dimensions 22H x 68W inches, unfolded. Edition of 5.

Upside-down At Any Angle (Peer-Centered Network Map), single-sided inkjet triptych of 31 x 22 inch panels. Dimensions 66H x 31W inches.

2019, 2020


Internet maps composed of three components: sixteen months of the locations of people that share gun files on the internet (black circles), the infrastructure of high speed optical fiber from submarine cables (yellow lines), and network bridges / exit nodes on the Tor network that link the internet to the dark web (red rays). The sampled data, the infrastructure data, and the dark web data are rendered onto the globe with a Cahill-Keyes projection.
On September 1, 2018, the United States Department of State banned Defense Distributed, a company in Texas, from the distributing files for the first 3D printed gun, the Liberator. These files immediately re-appeared on the dark web, on private download sites, attached as messages sent on phones, on peer-to-peer networks, and other networks all over the world. Since then, schematics for additional weapons have circulated, including AR-15, AK-47, Glock 17, and accessories such as large capacity magazines and bump fire gadgets. On the day of the ban, computers using custom software started sampling the internet to collect any data on users sharing these files, sampling peer-to-peer traffic to construct a sixteen-month history of network locations. The sampling effort, and the attempts to visualize this flow of virtual weaponry, continue into the present.

Broken Obelisk / Visual ChangeLog

visual-cl-broken-obelisk-2016-5


Two inkjet prints (each 18″ x 84″), momigami wrinkles, cast concrete, EMT conduit, LED lights, arduino, sensors, custom software, google drive archive. Dimensions H x L x W (8′ x 6′ x 3′).

2016


New media sculpture and advertisement for a virtual archive hosted on Google Drive. The archive includes all the reading, projects, visual reference material, and audio recordings made over a three-month period at the end of 2015. Entries to the archive were indexed by a written log, aka ChangeLog, a text file that records participation details: in this case, it includes hours consumed by participants, size of media contributed, storage location in the archive, and date.

Light Stele / Visual ChangeLog

stele_01_left_all_3k

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VZKiXnZb0I&autoplay=0&loop=1&rel=0&w=480&h=270&showinfo=0]


Installation with double-sided inkjet prints, bends, magnets, LED light strips, arduino, sensor, controlling software, acrylic mirrors. With Barney Haynes and Michael Shiloh.

2014


Installation exploring individual versus group credit, and the position of the individual in art versus science communities. In the science world, there is an idea of a ChangeLog file, a text file hosted on the internet with minimal formatting containing a log of activity for all individual participants on a larger work, sorted by date. This is a useful reference for answering the questions: who, what, and when in the context of a collaborative work, and is mirrored in primary researcher/principal investigator and researcher credits when publishing. Applying this process idea from the sciences to art production, all production and conception work is logged for the creation of this light sculpture.

Mao Listening to the Past

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik


Inkjet on Awagami paper. Dimensions H x L (42 x 30 cm).

2011


One print. A Mao Zedong statue positioned to listen to a vintage telephone is partially obscured by a vector art overlay consisting of generated circle moire patterns and irregular fades.

The Anniversary Project

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik

A Future Technique

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik

Cali Contrails


Inkjet on Kochi gampi and pulp paper, wood, magnetic metal rods, cuts, magnets.
Dimensions of Future Technique, H x L x W (51″ x 39″ x 4″) (129 x 97 cm).
Dimensions of Cali Contrails, H x L x W (51″ x 39″ x 4″) (129 x 97 cm).

2013


Two installation pieces to honor events that are 2, 10, 50 and 100 years old. Two horizontal pieces, each with accompanying vertical ensigns. Each piece contains at least one unique mark indicating an anniversary year. There are one, two, ten, fifty, or hundred year anniversary year marks to choose from. Some of the pieces contain multiple marks: a joint hundred-and-fifty year anniversary. A combined ten-, fifty-, and hundred-year anniversary. A massed cloud of ten-year anniversaries. A broken grid of two year marks.

The hundred-year anniversary of John Cage’s birth. The fifty-year anniversary of the favorite dojo opening. A ten-year wedding anniversary. Two-year anniversary of Tohoku tsunami, the two-year anniversary of the Syrian uprising. A child’s first birthday.


Being In the (Art) World

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik


Portfolio of three prints. Inkjet, internet, wine, folds. Dimensions H x L (13″ x 19″)

2013


Variable-size works on paper and internet probing artist identity and personality. Self-description using hyper-linked terms from the on-line Art and Architecture Thesaurus from the Getty Research Institute, links to artist web sites, and lists from Wikipedia.

Pirate Maps and Papers

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik


Inkjet with over-printing, magnifying glass, metal hook. Dimensions H x L (30″ x 48″).

2011, 2013


Installation of two long scrolls, framed and mounted on a wall abutting each other. In the left third of the top frame, an archaic hand-held magnifying glass is mounted on a small metal hook, inviting viewers to look closely at the microscopic text within the frame.

Gone Awry

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik

artwork by Benjamin De Kosnik


Portfolio of 33 compositions from The Marfa Project. Inkjet on Kochi paper. Swipe-able epub/mobi e-book on commodity tablet. Text by Abigail De Kosnik. Binding by Carrie Tuccio.

2011, 2013


One art book, two ways. A bound artist book with a blue silk cover that closes with a shell clasp with folded pages that unfurl to create a continuous roll of images. Paired with a hand-held device that supports hand-flicking gestures to speed-scroll through pages.

The Marfa Project


Portfolio of 84 inkjet prints using photography, typography, and vector illustration. Text by Abigail De Kosnik. Variable size.

2006-2012


Two dimensional graphic composition consisting of one or more of the individual graphic elements displayed above. Site-specific compositions are tiled dyptic or triptych prints and displayed hung on a wall, or as a tiled horizontal grid on a flat, low surface such as a table. One is displayed as a transparent layer over glass windows.