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In TANGLE, Joel Hynsjö and Øystein Fjeldbo explores the thinning veil between our physical world and the digital domain. As humanity reaches ever higher levels of quantifiability, the work becomes a kind of meditation temple for the HUMAN—on one hand, lost in an intangible web of technologies that drill into us like mineral wells and move us like chess pieces; on the other, evolving in relentless fusion with the technological tools that have surrounded us since we first tamed fire. The HUMAN, in this view, exists in a continuum between the ape and Laplace’s demon.

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At the center of the installation, three piano strings are vertically suspended between two steel plates, the lower one levitating above an electromagnet. Based on the movement in the installation as a whole, an algorithmic system tightens and loosens the strings within the magnetic field, setting the structure into resonance. Pickups capture these vibrations as audio signals, while the structure itself at the same time acts as an antenna for ambient electromagnetic noise. A sound recording from this structure becomes a snapshot of a unique moment in time—shaped not only by temperature, humidity, and airflow which affects the overall tuning and exitation of the strings, but also by invisible human information flows like WiFi and mobile signals.

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Surrounding the core are pendulums, treated as analog data-processing units controlled digitally. Each is tracked through a computer’s “eyes” and manipulated by a simple electromagnet with adjustable polarity and intensity. Using machine learning, the computer attempts to synchronize the pendulums using only this subtle magnetic influence. It works against the same spatial parameters—airflow, temperature, humidity—attempting to control physical objects in open space. Any minor environmental fluctuation disrupts the balance, changing the “rules” of the game between machine and world. The pendulums’ movements are visualized in real time to reveal this dynamic.

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The captured recording is decomposed into “single particles,” forming a kind of sonic puzzle. Each pendulum acts like a complex violin bow, exciting one of these sound fragments. The closer they move toward synchronization, the more clearly the original sound emerges—as if time itself is being reconstructed.

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The work speculates on a familiar science fiction theme: the final merging of the organic and the synthetic into a symbiotic computational unit. It draws inspiration from Alex Garland’s Ex Machina and Devs—the former embedding synthetic consciousness into the human world, the latter envisioning a machine capable of fully simulating the universe. TANGLE merges these ideas, imagining computation that reaches beyond the lab or the zero-Kelvin quantum machine. It proposes a system where the algorithm is submerged in the chaos of the real world—an embodied, environmental form of computing.

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TANGLE is supported by the Norwegian Arts Council and Trondheim Municipality. It was co-produced by Trondheim Electronic Arts Centre, where it was exhibited in winter 2024/2025.

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