Insertion loss
Words are meaningless and forgettable © Depeche Mode Insertion loss, a term in radio engineering or telecommunications, signifies the attenuation of a signal by an element within a circuit. This artwork is our imagination on how people could share their feelings, emotions and thoughts to each other without the use of words. "Insertion loss" combines the tools of sound design, video art, Lev Kuleshov's editing principles and AI to immerse the viewer in a state of brief meditation and co-tuning with the companion. The challenge of conveying one's own feelings and emotions has perpetually eluded humanity. For SHUM the text has never been an effective medium. This is especially underscored by the phenomenon of "untranslatable words," which cannot be accurately transferred from one language to another. Thus, it appears that all attempts at interpersonal communication are fated to incur some degree of "loss of the original signal," making it difficult to convey human emotions and sensations when even articulating them. As we delve into the ever-evolving landscape of technology, and novel forms of expression, humanity is compelled to devise fresh strategies for communicating its feelings and emotions. The prospect arises that in the foreseeable future, technology may facilitate the interpretation of an individual's emotional and physiological states, including hormonal factors, and transmit them via an audiovisual code directly to others.
About the artist
We're studio SHUM – a collective of multidisciplinary artists from Russia. Born out of a decade-long friendship, Andrey Gorlachev (media artist) and Alexander Zhiganov (creative producer) initiated our journey in January 2023, and together with 11 like-minded creators, they form the core of SHUM. Fuelled by our love for AI, generative graphics, and music, we specialize in crafting compelling audio-visual experiences that bridge the digital and physical worlds.