ALEXANDER HAHN

electronic media artist

IT THAT ONCE BEAT THE MASTERS

(1983, gelatin cast of cow's brain, Plexiglass, fans, fresnel lenses, light bulbs, 

surplus electronics, motors, sponge, foam core board, keypad, hair gel, LEDs, particle board)




Participative talking machine, presented at the »Science & Prophecy« exhibition at White Columns, New York (1983) - an angular console, crowned by glass domes and a slanted screen that simulated a hologram of the Kasparov–Portisch board in Niksic/YU, Aug 28, 1983. The hovering image was drawn from a New York Times chess diagram, pixel-perfectly encoded in TI Extended Basic on a TI-99/4A home computer, captured as a screenshot and reproduced in full-color Xerox. A synthetic voice prompted the viewer to «please enter your next move» on the keyboard, invariably followed by «that's incorrect, please try again!» Historically, black resigned on move 35, the official result of the game 1-0 in Kasparov’s favour.