Amidst cultural ecology, we identify the ecology of technology
as an inquiry into the arts and sciences. Technology blends logos,
with the ancient Greek, techne, art or craft. The Greeks
systematized art and craft; only during the industrial revolution
was technology wrought to mean the practical application of science
in the process of production. In our work we apply the same principles
to creative and technical processes. We unify the processes which
are otherwise bifurcated into art and engineering.
Guerilla Links and Random Walks
Authoring for the World Wide Web has opened a new realm
of possibilities for creative and subversive expression. Site
designers have access to almost all the source material that's
published on the Web. In the spirit of "Ready-Mades"
we can link to sound files,
images or even movies that exist outside our site and bring them
into our context.
In Coded Messages: CHAINS we use guerilla links to force
the context of multinationals to meet ours. Brought into unfamiliar
surroundings, their coded messages gain a clarity that is intended
to remain invisible. We juxtapose contexts to bring out new meanings.
One link
downloads a soundfile of the performers chanting "You will
and the company, AT&;T will bring it to you" while another right next to it
jumps to the actual AT&;T ad that they are quoting. As we
scan the ad copy, we know that the "You" most certainly
is not our friends in Ghana. The command "You will"
echos the commands shouted out to the performers during the Nante
section.
Elsewhere, on the Coded Messages page,
find an imagemap collage, and the instructions, "Click around
to find the different codes." In the foreground of the collage
are pictures of CHAINS images. Clicking on the background will
invoke our randomWalks CGI script. This script chooses randomly
from a set of corporate links we have assembled. The guerilla
links jump to sites such as Lockheed, and Dupont, each promoting
their vision of a perfect world. In our collage, the presence
of the center is invisible. Our resistance is highlighted.
Graffiti Wall
Participation is a hallmark of cultural events in Ghana.
When a drumming society performs in a village, everyone is invited,
and everyone is encouraged to join in singing and dancing. The
CHAINS Grafitti Wall
brings this sensibility to the site. A script generates a self-modifying
HTML page, to which the participant-user can add text, image links,
and hyper links, through a form.
Copyright 1996 by Creative Media Cauldron. All rights reserved.