über Refrakt

The Berlin-based artistic duo Refrakt, founded in 2015 by Alexander Govoni and Carla Streckwall, develops projects at the intersection of art, design, and technology. In mixed reality installations, the duo reveals the interaction between the analog and digital worlds. In their works, Refrakt observe and question the changing models of perception related to the ubiquity of mobile communication technologies.
Their works have been exhibited in New York, Beijing, Zurich, St. Petersburg, and several German cities, among others.

Website Refrakt

Sacred Grounds

Zeche Zollern, Dortmund

The social, economic, and environmental consequences of the production of media technologies are mostly invisible in our everyday lives, yet immense.
Located in the Zeche Zollern – a historical site of raw material extraction and energy production – Refrakt’s augmented reality installation brings the analog effects of our digital actions into focus and encourages a critical examination of our behavior.

Whereas at the beginning of industrialization raw material extraction and production took place on our own doorstep, today the resources for digital technology are mined at the other end of the world in mostly precarious conditions. Those devices that connect us to the digital world increasingly resemble a black box whose manufacture and operation are obscured in order to maintain a magical techno-positivist aura. But will your own smartphone still feel the same after a look behind the scenes of the outwardly clean digital world?

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