Inhaltliche Beschreibung
== Artistic Statement : Digital Pluralism ?
- The Third Medium:
What can a digital medium bring, that a non-technological medium cannot?
Though "digital pluralism" could be seen as an antonymic notion, if the plural identities of humanity are to be joined together today under technological dominion, it is necessary to choose a medium that has such dual potential: the World-Wide Web, this relatively primitive hypertext system which hosts "the most useful and most widely used service today, as well as the less glamorous workhorse of the network : email".
The hallmark characteristics of this New Medium are: That individualized messages can be simultaneously delivered to a theoretically infinite number of people and that every person involved shares reciprocal control over that content. In other words, the New Medium has the advantages of both the Interpersonal and the Mass media, but without their complementary disadvantages. This New Medium makes it possible to simultaneously deliver an infinite number of individualized messages while providing equal control over the content, which might lead one to refer to the New Medium as the "many-to-many" medium [distinguishing it from the "one-to-one" (Interpersonal) or "one-to-many" (Mass) media] and therefore it constitutes the ultimate way to achieve digital pluralism.
Still, acknowledging the world's actual situation and the great need for meaningful exchange, the primacy of message over medium is, we believe, essential.
As diversity remains a prime constituent of human identity, the Golem would consist of a digital entity that introspectively represents cultural pluralism by gathering singular cultural elements to its self-multiplicity, for in one human can be found all.
== Attempted Concept : Project Description
- Concept: The Digital Renaissance
More than anything else, we would like to propose for the 5th World Forum for Media Art and Culture a cross-cultural gathering that only digital technology may host, as we stand at the threshold of a new era provoked by what analysts call the Informational Revolution.
We do not forget that nowadays the notion of art itself is equivocal and puzzling, and that "digital art" could definitely be looked at as a specialized, hence categorical, field. Consequently the artwork itself lies at the very edge of the communication and exchange process and doesn't need to be antecedently acknowledged by all participants (this therefore enhances the possible scope of dialogue and exchange). The chat corpus will anyhow be turned in real-time into a semantico-digital art installation in Ogaki, creating a memory that transcends the physical situation of the beholding.
The project's aim to reach another step in net-art and mobile communication in public space following other recent projects that have used such device or email on a smaller scale such as : Blinkenlights of the Chaos Computer Club(2001-2002), hello Mr.president of Johannes Gees(World Economic Forum - 2001), Caterina Davinio's global project GATES(July/September 2003), Kaleidophone of Christian Möller(ZKM - 1999) or Markus Schnell Wunschbrunnen(Basel 2003).
The "Golem" is an allegory, based on the humanist reciprocal idea that all of humanity exists in each human.
- Project Description:
This gathering is aimed at forming a multi-language/multi-topic world-wide chat involving e-mail coming from Japanese cell phones directly within the exhibit space in Ogaki, as well as from any web-accessed computer or digital device on the planet. There is few technical or material requirements for participation in : basically, any device that can send e-mail.
Extended dialogue will be sentence-based : every submission will be limited to a definite number of characters (between 60 and 70).
A digital metaphor of human identity, it will be born, thrive and pass away just as we do, endeavoring only to relate. Content will be deleted almost immediately following its communication, nothing will be recorded. The sum of our existence amounts to having touched and been touched by others. Perhaps that is our greatest legacy, more than any monument or statue or anything else that can be left behind (and subsequently protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site....).
It will be accessible in real-time on the internet and easily browsed and reviewed using a succession of appropriate filters : language/topic/person (if relevant). This implies that the chatter can choose the level of participation he engages in by himself. Whether he will want to be overcome by the discussion, swamped in it or decide to triumph over it will be his own choice:
Example = [Swahili/Children's rights] or [Virtual Reality Modelling] or [French/Philippe Dujardin], etc... possible chat experience range from monologue to simultaneously overwhelming cross-language debate.
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Here the four different installations are explained as well as the methods of participation according to one's global position :
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At the Ogaki venue : several media installations permit visitors to witness this "Internet-ational" discussion involving unknown, yet acknowledged, counterparts from around the macrocosm. Visitors to the World Forum can participate in the chat by sending email from their cell phone to the displayed email address of the project.
1)
A digital installation taking the shape of a semantic luminous walkway using numerous projectors, Tsunawatari will guide walkers through the stream of this unsorted plural conversation, offering them the opportunity to interfere from their own handsets. (Tsunawatari means "tightrope walking" in Japanese) Technical description of this installation
2)
A formless chamber with internet access built with screens in a dome, the Tetragrammaton, will permit visitors to venture into the chat, the entity's "semantic organ", using a wireless mouse to manipulate its content and observe its flood. Technical description of this installation
3)
Projected on a surface, Son front will display in real-time a particular word or script which appears most during the interaction. Words in different languages could appear, or numerals, or even shortcuts or emoticon. (it might be considered the real name of the project) Technical description of this installation
4)
Called Snapshot Gates, an invisible digital happening will gather and erratically dispatch instant snapshots people from all over Japan have shot from the digital camera of their cell phones. People that decide to participate have only to send an initial picture (as an email-attachment): their e-address is added to the "Snapshot Gates" database, and erased as soon as another participant's picture has been dispatched. There is no limit to the number of pictures one can send. This is similar to the Moblogging technology. Technical description of this installation
Around the world : a special web-page will be designed that permits chatters to post a single sentence each time. They will be asked to enter a name, select a language and a country, according to which they can browse a menu where all the discussion groups appear sorted by language / topic / chatters. Technical description of the chat-room page
The word that appears on Son front will show up in real-time at the top of the chatter's screen (the chat web-page).
In addition, anyone can send images (120x160pixels) through a special upload function : these are then automatically sent to the "Snapshot Gates" installation.
- Poetic Divaguation :
From Multiple Selves to a Plural One:
The email stream is the blood, the sap that gives life to the global entity, while every single cell phone's digital camera becomes one of its many eyes, and wires become nerves spread all over its constitution. Vehiculated within the Golem, message content could well symbolize these overwhelming thoughts that shake the soul of every human being; in all possible languages they would evoque love, melancholy, thrill, vehemence, rage, remorse, sadness, hope, warmth or anger : emotions.
Some of these feelings would be their own answer, some would call upon new ones, some would remain unsolved, but all would reach closer to the imbroglio of the human heart.
The more correspondents who chat or argue, the stronger and healthier the allegorical anthropoid becomes: its mental and emotional state reaching a climax visible around Ogaki's installations, as on the face of a man he confesses the true condition of his affection.
As the worries and passions of the group are to be found within each individual human spirit, the metaphorical anatomy of the Golem would unite in its semantic flesh world cultural diversity and, by means of ego, attempt to bring humanity consciousness of its own plural identity.
This virtual, formless entity -- an embodiment of man's striving towards others -- would then die. Speech is impossible, should be attempted.
Complete text :
http://www.transcri.be/digital/proposal.html
Eric Van Hove
www.transcri.be