XORXOR

Trying to Make Sense of the Universe, One Buggy Interactive Project at a Time.

Is it possible to find meaning in interactive art while simultaneously debugging the latest, most frustrating, technology? XORXOR tried to answer that question, and, well, we made some stuff. And we did it on time, despite all the neurotic rambling and system crashes.

XORXOR was a collaboration of scientists, engineers, and artists, all of whom, I suspect, were secretly trying to figure out why they couldn't just have a normal job. We operated on a project-by-project basis, constantly worried we were going to be late, or worse, irrelevant. And amidst the existential dread, there was always someone muttering, 'Look, the work must proceed', as if we were building the pyramids or something, while simultaneously wrestling with the latest, inevitably buggy, 'cutting-edge' technology we were inexplicably obsessed with.

Our research-based approach involved a lot of frantic brainstorming, all in the pursuit of finding new ways to communicate, which, let's face it, is a problem humanity has been grappling with since the dawn of time.

We mostly worked with cultural institutions, like museums, who, I'm convinced, were just trying to fill their empty spaces with something, anything. And theaters, and dance groups, and filmmakers, all of whom seemed to have a pathological need for our interactive, anxiety-inducing installations. And every time we’d try to get a little too arty about it, someone would inevitably say, ‘Please, let’s not inflate our egos here’, just before we’d hit another snag with our bleeding-edge, but consistently crashing, software.

Our philosophy? 'Why do it the easy way when you can overthink it?' We avoided off-the-shelf technology because, well, what's the point of creating something if you don't suffer for it? We built our own interactive objects, using real-time visuals and a level of technological expertise that frankly scared even us, especially when it decided to have an existential crisis mid-performance. And of course, there was the UX and graphic design, all grounded in research about user behavior, which turned out to be as predictable as the stock market.

The result? A mountain of projects, ranging from exhibitions to performances, films to interactive objects, and web-based applications – a veritable pile of work to stuff our portfolio with. We were hoping, of course, that someone would notice, and perhaps, maybe, throw some actual money our way. Or at least, enough to cover the cost of therapy. But hey, it was something to do on a Tuesday. (And most other days, too.)