May 1 - May 31, 2021

a turn on, a turn off
an online web project by Rita Hajj
taking part of the online series, Net Encounters,
curated by Boris Magrini @ HeK-Basel

For Net Encounters, the artist Rita Hajj shares a live stream from her coffee machine for a month. She invites the audience to upload pictures of their coffee or teapot as she develops a reflection on the history of the world wide web and the evolution of live streaming and online interactions.

In 1991, the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory set up a camera to provide its employees with live images of their coffee pot. Years later, the camera was connected to the internet and became one of the earliest live streams. Rita Hajj a turn on, a turn off recreated this historic event in their studio by giving the audience access to their own coffee pot through a website. It also invites users to share a picture of their coffee pot. To do this, users should visit the relevant website, agree to participate and upload their picture. Then they receive an algorithmically generated image based on data training from coffee pots. Without their knowledge, the viewers contribute to the machine learning algorithms that generate the image. In addition, the entirety of the system is never fully revealed and the audience may only have partial information about the system in which they have been invited to participate. With this in mind, through her work, Hajj develops a subtle critique of the social and commercial dynamics that have evolved online. From a space of mutual exchange, the internet has turned into a terrain where users are unwittingly exploited to gather information for profit.