project

Art and Play: The Digital Infinity Machine

Art & Play

Franziska Schneider

Computation is peculiar: it works best in the abstract world, where everything is nicely discrete and time is but an integer. In the physical world, computing machines are confronted with the ugliness of time being continuous. Hence they rely on a clock signal to provide them with a steady stream of time steps. This installation is reminiscent of the Unendlichkeitsmaschine: 15 microcontrollers in a row provide the clock for each subsequent one at a fraction of their speed, slowing them down exponentially. The last in line will execute one instruction per 142 years. While its sadly not a very useful machine, this installation highlights an often unregarded property of our binary best friends.

proj/8e9728f9-315c-4f8a-adf0-d1db17207532/banner/infinity_machine.png