<nettime> Insects and time: the 56h alarm goes off!

[zina kaye <zina@world.net>]

Insects and time: the 56h alarm goes off! 

Zina Kaye on Xchange@OpenX.ArsElectronica


In the midst of it, I cannot say what it is all for. Tick tick hum
machines

concatinated by buzzy wiring. Mixing desk, other desk, other places. 

Turntable, cd, network folder, server ip. The network tunnels in and out, 

re-routing itself whilst holding all the people together. 


Bruknerhaus-hive-sound-studio. Lone microphone-on-a-stand sucks up the
carnival 

atmosphere of what is ostensibly a trade show for electronic artists,
with a

symposium mixed in for pleasure. Infowar players swarm.


Visitors look through cameras at the Xchange group in situ:

- Xchange playing on their sequencers  

- Xchange planning the next ten minutes of publicity or programming. 

What they don't get: endless tapping, soldering-smells, disjointed 

chats...'oh YOU are so and so.... wow you look so different from how I
imagined'....

'have you got a longer cable?'. Circular movements about the top floor
are broken

by visits to allocators down the stairs.


chat chat chat chat chat chat chat chat chat chat chat chat chat chat
chat chat


A tour group stands by for some international action. A conductor points
and says 

that Xchange has won a prize at the Prix. 


Who collected this straw poll of aurally fixated

dissidents from the ends of the earth??


At various points about 30 people are here to represent the Xchange
collective. 

Does anyone know how many of us there really are? 


Tour voice: [The 30 in turn are comprised of a dozen or so groups that
over the last few months have used the real audio codec to explore the
nature of internet broadcast communication in many different ways.] 


Head: [And we are joined at the hip with experiments, and now we are
collaborating in 

face-to-face. Double click.]


Yes yes.


Actually it seems easy to descend like a swarm of insects and take over
the machines and 

bandwidth provided by the Ars Electronica Center. Little legs and mouths
that are compelled to take the raw materials and chew on them - pull them
into place to make a structure. Does that imply we are dispensible, just
one iteration of a pattern? 


Politics 1: We are supposed to be thinking Infowar, but it is just NOT on
the main agenda. How to timetable takes up most of the discussion.
Somehow knotted: new into old arguments, past history and authorship.
Realisations: ha! that to some extent the timetable depends on who turns
up; and that in the end we are participating in the activity of play. 

'Do how you feeeeel, Grasshopper'.


Of course there are concrete contingencies and in the end we have just
enough or a little bit too much to choose from. Ooh, Xchange are even
turning people away! Word has travelled across Linz and across the world.
How to hold this momentum together.


Politics 2: We set up our own little symposium in the ClosedX room and
play show and tell

for eachother. The rolling stone gathers moss, someone starts videoing,
there is an audience and it's good to photograph _that_ in case of
emergency...


This door to the future. This exit ramp. Our local-specific experiences
are the points of

a corridor. Projects are like waves of wind that blow different members
around in oppostite directions. We have grown extra heads! Make it so.


Xchange roving reporters hold court from 6pm, and watching them is like
watching 

the eye of a storm. It's so calm on their couch that you could almost
fall asleep if

only you wouldn't have to participate in the little arguments and
discussions spinning

off the core. From above: a dislocated soundtrack on delay. Celebrities
file past. 


By 9pm most of the carnivaleers are gone to eat or to watch or to fuck. 

Xchange are chugging out their content _still-->it's a rollercoaster
machine! 

You know, some of these people won't stand up for hours yet.


The space is quieter, but it is still not still. Work work work bodies
rattling the system.


Late at night the hackers come in from their tent. It's funny that we all
seem to get on, although I wonder whether they are coming to check up on
our bandwidth. Their tent is not as good as ours but they seem to have an
endless supply of intoxicants. They don't have a timetable. We have a
better sound system. 


If all electronic artists are of the insect world then hackers are
magical moths, flapping about with papery wings, looking for something
that reminds them of the moon... !


In the very early morning, a lighthearted broadcast...delirious
butterflies causing multi-coloured trouble with internet-phones. "sigh
... i am so happy" on dry-voice-endless loop. 


Exhausted.


9am trashed out teams swap crinkled places. Trundle off in directions.
Time for take-off


How did we get to this place? 


<paraindent><param>out</param>Over and over. Bringing it to you LIVE from
inside and out.... Don't forget the chaos of those final minutes shouting
down the microphone : bye bye thanks for coming bye bye. The voices meet
again over philosophy biscuits.

</paraindent> 

                         Real or unreal. We say so much.

house of laudanum

po box 950, darlinghurst nsw 1300, australia

http://laudanum.net/

http://world.net/~zina


the anti-destination society can also be found at this address.
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