In the last two years, the World Wide Web has been espoused as a liberating medium which has the power to bring all people together. Yet a map of Internet service providers in Africa shows that this continent participates marginally. In both contexts - traditional Ewe culture and cyberculture - the loss is paramount. In a twist of irony, "Coded Messages: CHAINS" reverses those losses. This installation brings the immensely rich culture of the Ewe people of Ghana to the World Wide Web for the first time; yet, the people who are being represented have never seen this installation, and, as long as the Internet remains a medium for the technologically privileged, may never do so. This Web installation is based on the 1994 intercultural performances of the same name that were held in Ghana.
In "Coded Messages: CHAINS" the visitor meets perfomances from another cultural world, with an interpretation of their code. In our "guerilla" links to multinational sites on the World Wide Web, we bring the viewer face to face with the "code" that this culture promotes. Participant/visitors of "Coded Messages: CHAINS" interactively cross the boundaries between the contexts we present.

Links: http://found.cs.nyu.edu/andruid/chains.html

Andruid Kerne (USA), studied with Anthony Braxton and Alvin Luder, two pioneers in contemporary music composition and performance. Research affiliation with the International Centre for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana, currently doing research investigating human-computer interface as a manifestation of culture at MYU's center for Digital Multimedia.