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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Life: A User's Manual
MIchelle Teran
Original: BERLINWALK.TIF | 2138 * 1143px | 7.0 MB
Original: LIFE_ARGOS.TIF | 2139 * 1122px | 6.9 MB
Moving through the city streets with a video scanner reveals a hidden layer of personal fragments and stories which are broadcasted by the private owners of surveillance cameras. The accumulation of these autonomous yet synchronous acts contributes to an invisible ad-hoc network of media permeating the socially codified spaces of our urban environments: the café, the apartment building, the store, the parking lot, and the street.
Life: A User’s Manual is a shared experience in visualizing the invisible and it is an act of subverting existing surveillance tactics. During publicstreet performances, the audience is guided by an urban, nomadic persona who acts as a physical interface to the unseen. The female character embodies the qualities of a wireless signal by being herself nomadic, transient and placeless. A scanner and home-made 2.4 GHz antenna is used to look for and capture unencrypted wireless video transmissions within the city, which are visualized in real time on a battery-powered television monitor. The audience, led on this nomadic journey, is drawn into a borderline action of entering into an alternate view of public and private space, not usually seen.
Life: A User’s Manual is a shared experience in visualizing the invisible and it is an act of subverting existing surveillance tactics. During publicstreet performances, the audience is guided by an urban, nomadic persona who acts as a physical interface to the unseen. The female character embodies the qualities of a wireless signal by being herself nomadic, transient and placeless. A scanner and home-made 2.4 GHz antenna is used to look for and capture unencrypted wireless video transmissions within the city, which are visualized in real time on a battery-powered television monitor. The audience, led on this nomadic journey, is drawn into a borderline action of entering into an alternate view of public and private space, not usually seen.
Michelle Teran (CA) explores the performative potential of objects and space as an artist and researcher, working within a networked live art practice. She examines the intertwining of social networks and everyday social spaces with their technological counterparts and creates connected performance, temporary lab surveillance, psychogeography, presence, intimacy, social ritual, play, collaboration and public participation. Her works have been presented worldwide at organizations and events and on the Internet. She was recently nominated for the Transmediale05 award.