Race the Net

Nicole A Pruckermayr - IOhannes m zmölnig

ESC im Labor im steirischen herbst | September/Oktober 2006 Intermediate Spaces Nicole Pruckermayr I have no preferred medium for my work, it depends on the issue. My favourite topics of works are: construction of gendered sex, dealing with space (virtual, actual). I like to work frequently together with IOhannes m zmoelnig. IOhannes m zmoelnig is engaged with media/net/code-art Developer and active member of the OpenSource/FreeSoftware community likes to live and work together with Nicole Pruckermayr and in Graz http://umlaeute.mur.at/ Nicole A Pruckermayr - IOhannes m zmölnig: Race the Net interactive installation, opening 23.09.2006 (until 15.10.2006) "Race the Net" is based on the work "Surf the Net/Row the Net". Both are dealing with the topics of interface: the contactless interaction between humans and machines - and the borderless navigation. Contrary to the former work, the physical constitution of the user is not any longer in the focus. While "Row the Net" has already created a fast and speedy world, where it has not been an easy task to pause for a momement and watch, in contrast to our everyday "real-live" movements, this has become nearly impossible in "Race the Net". "Row the Net" pretends to move in real-world speed from one webpage to another by the physical effort of oaring. "Race the Net" is Hyperspeed within this world: gathering information has become barely possible because of acceleration. at least it requires a special interaction with the medium in order to get the wanted information. Like everything else, this needs to be learned and trained. The acceleration in our reality has modified our practice of seeing. Now it is possible to look out of the window of the moving train and recognize the environment as such instead of some abstract colours. We have mutated to be able to collect necessary information despite the clouding of cognition by speed. This sharpened view is now to be used in the "virtual" world. How do I find myself in this accelerated new world? Which parameters can be used for orientation? How easy is it to adapt human habits? This route is visualized in a (euclidean) 3D graphic, where worlds (webpages) are connected into one space. These connections represent the hyperlinks. The outcome of this is a universe popuplated by planets, isles of information. The tiresome waiting for web pages becomes the real excitement of "surfing" the net. The ordinary two dimensional view of the internet in form of a series of webpages is now getting to at least a 3D-world. This is more equivalent to the actual networked structure of many parallal spaces and worlds. It matches the idea of relational space of the internet. "Race the Net" has a distinct memory of places, so it is possible to see the development of these parallel worlds. Experiencing this real data space and its physical extend, makes the virtual space tangible and haptic. Additionally, experimenting with the interface might lead us to "new" ways of navigation.