“Technology must be looked at as a comprehensive human-led practice akin to domestic culture or democracy.”. Darsha Hewitt, a Canadian based in Berlin, is an artist that works with media and sounds, but her interest that most describes her duty is technology. She’s interested in the recollection of old electronics for posthumous rework and experimentation.
Before meeting her, I imagined her as an introvert that avoids contact with humans, always surrounded by wires and antique gear from the ’50s and ’60s. but, impressively, she appeared to be the opposite – she’s cheerful, funny, very active. This aspect changed my perspective towards this underground area of music and sound. now I look at hacking technology as something fun and satisfying.
Above all this, it is Darsha’s capacity in looking at raw materials like old technology and gives them a new life almost deranged from the previous they had. For example, her electrostatic bell choir is a genius piece of art and seems for me very unique. She empowered one little aspect of old tv’s, that most of us probably already noticed it and our grandparents house or somewhere else – the electrostatic phenomena that they possess when switched off. She added to that a pre-technological apparatus that was used in the 1700s to show the potential use of such type of electricity. Together, they produce a relaxing sound, but yet very electrical, provoking, and incredible atmosphere. Yet, visually, it looks cyberpunkish – cheerful punk is a good term to describe Darsha modus operandi.
Darsha Hewitt has this peculiarity of making something negative and concerning into a more positive and engaging belief – she turns garbage, which is environmentally bad, into art, which is theoretically and practically good in every way and has a very lasting meaning. This is present in another work of hers where she takes a deep understanding of a socialist-communist german generic lawnmower from the 70s. The looks are very robust. She dived into the history of that machine and came out with another astonishing piece of art. She exponentiated the capacities of a particular piece of it – the casket – and turned it into an exhibition and later in a compilation of speakers.
The only person I’ve seen doing similar things was another digital and technological obsessed (are an enthusiast? passionate? obsessed? – interesting question about the relationships that we have of things), the one and the only devon Hendryx, also known as Jpegmafia. Hope to get my hands in the wires soon as long as I can afford electrician gear.