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many participatory Net processes and platforms (such as «International City Federation,» «Association Blaster» or «Opus») were at most initiated by artists but are not explicitly seen as art projects.
In regard to new forms of interaction, two models seem to be interesting and futureoriented from a general viewpoint (and not just from the Net perspective). One model is proving to be the logical continuation of Eco's concept of the «open work,» namely evolutionary systems genuinely capable of learning and therefore of progress each time they are used.[75] Peter Dittmer presented such a system in his installation «The Nurse» (1992 onward). His «Nurse» is made up of a computer complete with monitor and keyboard over which one can communicate with a seemingly self-ironic computer program. The installation further includes a table with a glass of milk on it; if the computer program happens to lose its temper during the highly entertaining dialogue with human counterparts, a mechanical contraption enables it to knock over the glass of milk.
The second interaction model consists in the intertwining of virtual, distributed (Net) space with real urban space. «Vectorial Elevation» (2000) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and «Blinkenlights» (2001-2002) and «Arcade» (2002) by the Chaos Computer Club are hybrid projects that connect virtual space back to real urban locations by means of custom-made interfaces. All three projects enabled users on the Internet to interfere with or, as applicable, control and contribute to, an installation in a fixed physical location. «Vectorial Elevation» was made up of a dozen strong searchlights that, pointing into the heavens, were installed on the main square of Mexico City. Internet users could make them create specific patterns. «Blinkenlights» consisted of one vast facade of a building on Alexanderplatz in Berlin, which was converted into a «screen» with the simplest of means. Each one of the one-hundred forty-four windows (the building possessed eight rows of eighteen windows) looking onto the square had been allocated the status of a pixel, and each «pixel» was separately controllable