Steve Levon Ounanian
Steve Levon Ounanian (Los Angeles, USA)
PEAK ANXIETY
The unknowable and the uncertain seem to be taking up more and more space in everyday cognitive reality. Politics, science, technology, and religion propagate beliefs and promises which are at odds with the realities of everyday living. Namely, that we can remake the world and generally become happy and healthy indefinitely.
It’s a source of anxiety.
Peak anxiety satellite, is an amateur experiment which tries to bridge the gap between our desire for a better future and our everyday anxiety about the present compromise. In this experiment, Ounanian, reproduces the design of a soviet era anxiety receiving satellite; sending human anxieties over a short distance to be received by a 12 foot arial balloon set to orbit the earth.
Keep in touch with Steve’s investigations, and if you know of any amateur radio enthusiasts in Riga, London or Newcastle, get in touch with Steve on www.stevenlevon.com/amateurs/
Steve Levon Ounanian describes himself as ‘a self-initiated researcher into emerging technologies’, and uses collaborative experiments and public interventions to prototype future scenarios. These collaborative experiments question family, authenticity, and religion in the context of a technology driven age. As a designer and performance artist, Ounanian generates videos, performances, objects, and situations that seek to unravel what it means for people to be human, together. Technology (from crude phones to synthetic biology) has challenged what it means to be human on a fundamental level. Somehow there is an element of ventriloquism or puppetry that occurs as we associate with this technology. Ounanian enjoys exaggerating this phenomenon, giving external techno-social identities agency and voice, watching what happens when they get out of control.
