Christin Lahr
«[DPsNtN] = DISPLACED_PERSONS say NOTHING to NOBODY»

My environment is computer-controlled, interactive and hooked up to the Internet. Its core is made up by the interfaces and/or overlappings of physical and virtual spaces, focused on the area of communication between humans. (...) Departing from the customary path, interaction is solicited in this work not by action but by DOING_NOTHING, by NON_ACTION. An otherwise empty room contains eight loudspeakers and eight red plastic signs engraved as follows: 'north', 'south', 'east', 'west', 'up', 'down', 'in', 'out'. These are words we use to navigate through physical space and at the same time they are the primary commands for navigating through virtual spaces. As long as there are no visitors in the room, the loudspeakers emit a computer-generated, multivocal polylogue composed of different synthetic prototypes. Among the issues raised by these articulated texts are questions relating to presentce and absence, truth and flasity, gender, appearance, identity and navigation. The text material is based on a search through 'LambdaMOO', and the experience gathered there with communicational behaviour in virtual spaces. The instant someone comes into the room, the voices stop, and the abrupt silence makes it clear that this entry is seen as an intrusion. The sound installation only starts up again when everybody in the room is absolutely motionless.

Christin Lahr