(‘or-&-k&l) 2003 + 2007

(‘or-&-k&l) is an electronic oracle. Visitors seeking the oracle's ageless wisdom have to perform a ceremony before it answers their life questions. The washing of the hands in a kettle triggers an answer which emerges from the water and is spoken by a female voice-synthesizer. The ritualistic actions and audio-visual spectacle cloud the fortunetelling system, that simply exists as one line of code in the software which produces a random number. This illustrates how easy it is to make a myth believable through the power of media-technology (such as the temptation of tv and massmedia). The visitor takes his deeply personal question as his starting point before he asks the oracle for advice. The ritualistic actions on 'the stage' of the installation make the visitor a kind of performer that automatically has integrity through the personal nature of the question and the security the person has because the question can stay secret. Because the oracle speaks in riddles priest-like people are present to help the visitor make sense of the oracle's advice. (‘or-&-k&l) has been presented in the Nieuwe Kerk during De Cultuurnacht in 2003 and in 2007 in Maakhaven Ateliers during Ground2 Festival.