Hi!
Here is a brief description of the network project I am working on since
2001. This resume focus on one of many aspects of this collaborative
artwork. A more complete description will be add to the site
http://www.ontogenetic.org/ shortly
Cheers,
mc

Monument du Vide (Monument of Emptiness)
____"The digital document, when taken out of its original context, becomes
subject to the influence of the beholder. This functions much like oral
story-telling, in which each new narrator brings to the story a new element,
a new twist, based on his or her own sensibilities or priorities. As the
story completes a full circle, a new collective narrative is created, on
that interrupts our modern empirical notions of truth and memory, as well as
the privileged position of the individual author or artist. In such modes
of narrative construction, be it historical or fictional, visual, aural or
textual, how does one monumentalize this kind of memory?" (Tania Sures)
The "Monument du Vide" seeks to elaborate on this question, in the staging
of it collaborative on-line performance, a work-in-progress describe as a
durational project involving artists working collectively from cities on the
North-South Pan-American axe (Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Mexico,
Buenos Aires, Brasilia , toutes des villes du Nouveau Monde). MdV
hybridizes metaphores of the body, organisms, architecture, and networks to
create a kind of cyborg monument announcing the presence of a community in
the electronic space. Each construction of MdV elaborates an aspect of a
human being: previous presentations have focused on voice, the heart, the
circulatory system, the memory and the skin.
Usually, monuments are erected in public places to commemorate events or
persons of importance, as physical affirmations of often imposed collective
memory, endorsed by the social order. Although the MdV takes on this
responsibility of aide-mémoire, it utilizes the narrative structure afforded
by digital technology, built in the intangible architecture of information
and networks, which is as permeable as memory and community. The "Vide"
refers not to a negative emptiness or void, but an absence of obstruction of
much like the organization of cyberspace with its unfixed boundaries. An
audience may access the performance through various channels, be it
physically (and virtually) in the exhibition space, online through the MdV
website"s Upload window or infiltrating the public space of the online chat
that the artists use to communicate with each other during the event.
The "Monument du vide" is a virtual laboratory that allows all
interventionnists to experiment and share their knowledge by testing out
approaches that might yield results or techniques to be used for future
productions. This project is more than a work of art; it is the field site
of intensive research. It test the endurance of the participants who must
construct in full view of the public, whether in cyberspace or in other
public spaces of the event.
http://www.ontogenetic.org/
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http://freecooperation.org