Datagården is a teletext cemetary with obituaries of people’s online lives. Some of the information is actually taken from the internet but some of it is fictional. As speculations about how auto-generated and unauthorized obituaries can look like in the future. (only without the ads!)

It was built (mostly) during Art Hack Day Stockholm at Bonniers Konsthall by me, Raquel Meyers and Possan. We used tools developed beforehand by Peter Kwan. Possan managed to stream video in real-time to teletext the so called DIYobituary. I did music, text and ideas.

We also added video feedback by filming the screen and sending the signal back to the TV, while showing teletext in transparent mode.

This connected to the theme Larger Than Life in several ways. Most obviously by the semi-fake use of the collective consciousness of the internet. But also by using an ambiguous medium like teletext. While often described as dead, it is in fact the largest single mass medium in Sweden with 2 million daily users (20% of the population).

And on a more philosophical note, teletext exists somewhere inbetween digital and analogue, text and graphics, video and data, screen and stream. You can’t record teletext because it’s inbetween everything. Just like death. Uh, or life?

More:
> Article in Computer Sweden (in Swedish)
> Photos/pictures by Raquel Meyers
> Photos by Possan

The 66-minute long ambient textmode piece 2SLEEP1 by me and Raquel Meyers is now showing at DECENTER in New York until 7 April. It’s a group exhibition with new forms of cubism, including people like Rafael Rozendaal, Cory Archangel, Alexander Peverett, Douglas Coupland, Marius Watz, Jeremy Bailey, Andrew Benson, Anthony Antonellis, Nicolas Sassoon, James Bridle, Ulrike Mohr and many more.

> Check the online version
> Full version of 2SLEEP1

“Mind the Volcano is a text-based TV-performance with a typewriter logic. All the visuals consist of text characters, based on words and images from books. The music is composed live in a text-based software, shown as a part of the visual story. Words, images and music work closely together.”

This is likely the first ever performance with remote controlled teletext visuals. Right? Not to mention all of the fantastic typewriter-style PETSCII animations. Raquel Meyers, yup yup! And then me doing lots of live music – sometimes even completely from scratch. Oh boy!

> More info

We were invited by Transmediale to make a new version of our fax performance (also check the book). This time we will do it an office setting, working more with e.g stamps & typewriters. -> MEMOBLAST!

And you can be part of it! Please fax us on the 29 Januari, 17.00-22.00 (Berlin time). Your faxes will arrive straight into our performance, and get the memo treatment. If you don’t have a fax, you can also do it online (see below).

Fax your way to the top! +49 30 39787 288
Click the image to get more info/links.