# Dark Matter Berlin vs. Multi-Device Web Artwork

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/dark-matter-berlin-vs-multi-device-web-artwork
Type: essay / research note
Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Date: 2025-02-07

## Summary

After visiting Dark Matter in Berlin, seven installations by Christopher Bauder, Jeanyoon Choi found the large-scale kinetic spectacle accomplished but thoroughly explored. This 2025 note sets out three interconnected concerns that motivate his multi-device web artworks (MDWA) instead: approachable interaction that carries specific semantic context, modular web-based forms that can travel and adapt like film rather than costly kinetic builds, and meaning that relates to social life without relying on an overworked narrative.

## 요약 (Korean)

최정윤은 베를린 다크 매터에서 크리스토퍼 바우더의 키네틱 설치를 본 뒤, 상호작용·모듈형 접근성·의미라는 세 관심사를 통해 멀티 디바이스 웹 아트워크(MDWA)의 방향을 정리한다.

## Questions this answers

### How is multi-device web artwork different from large kinetic light installations?

In 'Dark Matter Berlin vs. Multi-Device Web Artwork', Jeanyoon Choi contrasts costly, hard-to-move kinetic spectacle with modular web-based works that adapt to different places, combined with accessible interaction and a meaningful relation between participant actions and the work's world.

### What are the three concerns behind Jeanyoon Choi's multi-device web artworks?

Interaction, modular accessibility and semantics: an approachable action with specific context, a flexible physical form that can circulate easily, and meaning that is not reduced to elaborate storytelling.

Topics: multi-device web artwork, kinetic installation, modular media art, interaction design, semantics in media art

References: Christopher Bauder, Dark Matter (Berlin), Tone Ladder, [Berlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin)

## Full text

Dark Matter in Berlin brings together seven installations by Christopher Bauder. I found the staging and finish exceptionally accomplished. It also made me feel that this particular language of large-scale kinetic spectacle has already been explored very thoroughly. My direction should expand into different territory.

Three concerns distinguish what I want to pursue: interaction, modular accessibility and semantics. They are interconnected reasons for working with multi-device web artworks.

Interaction is difficult, which is also why it is worth pursuing. Tone Ladder offered a natural and successful interaction, but I want to investigate how an equally approachable action can also carry a more specific semantic context.

Large kinetic installations can be costly to build, move and reproduce. A modular web-based work offers another relationship to distribution. If media art is to circulate with something of the ease of film, it needs forms that can adapt to different places without being rebuilt from nothing.

Finally, abstract audiovisual pleasure does not always sustain a longer encounter or establish a relation to social life. I want to explore meaning without replacing the experience with an overworked narrative that only an elaborate explanation can unlock. Semantics is not identical to storytelling.

MDWA offers a container in which these three concerns can meet: an accessible interaction, a flexible physical form and a meaningful relationship between what a participant does and the world the work constructs.

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Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.