People's Project (Berlin, Germany)

[art4net]

1 - light plays

the most beautiful light installation in the city of berlin can at present
be viewed on the facade of the house of the teacher. the chaos computer club
(ccc) celebrates its twentieth birthday (xxccc) with the installation
'blinkenlights' - and probably also the departure from the building, in
which over the last ten years many artists and art related people worked,
partied and lived, and which is now going to be redeveloped.

'blinkenlights' transforms the 8 times 18 windows of the building's upper 8
floors into a monochrome display of 8 times 18 pixels. behind each of the
144 windows a light bulb is switched on or off by a central computer and
forms one of the matrix' pixels.

an ever increasing number of animations is going to be shown on this display
until february. in the evening and night hours, beating hearts and other
patterns of light will be moving over the large screen, and simple comics
will tell their stories. the programs for these animations are written on
the one hand by the people who initiated the project, and on the other can
be submitted over the internet. - a competition for the most beautiful
animation is also planned. participation is even possible for non-nerds, as
the example of a beating heart on the ccc web-site makes the simple
functioning obvious.

'blinkenlights' is transforming the city. the enormous display is
astonishing the people on alexanderplatz and occasionally makes car drivers
miss the green light. the old-fashioned low resolution of the display is
more charming than distracting. closing the eyes a bit makes the images
loose their irregularities and an uncontrolled blinking of lights becomes a
turning fire wheel. the high-resolution colour monitor on the neighbouring
side of the alexanderplatzes appears in comparison with the 144 light pixels
of this installation boring and insignificant. there are some perfect and
colourful images, here on the house of the teacher something can be seen!

further information can be found under:
www.ccc.de/xxccc/blinkenlights.html
presse: www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzkultur/0,1518,163059,00.html
www.berlinonline.de/suche/.bin/mark.cgi/aktuelles/berliner_kurier/sze
ne/.html/artik1b.html
www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/9748/1.html (english)
www.berlinonline.de/aktuelles/berliner_zeitung/berlin/.html/80576.htm
l
www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ta/cconlineartikel?artid=134713
webcams: berlin.ccc.de/~hans/cam2.jpg
www.berlinonline.de/spass/live_kamera/.html/alex.html

ps: there is an additional fun element for mobile phone users on
alexanderplatz. via the phone number 0(049).190.987654 (dm 2.42 per minute)
they can directly interact with 'blinkenlights', playing the early computer
game 'pong' (numbers 5 and 8 are the controls for the racquet).


2 - media-games

it is the month of interactivity with mobile phones. not far from the
installation 'blinkenlights', in the underground station of the line u2 on
alexanderplatz, we'll find another interactive art installation:
'urban_diary' by rude_architecture. until 22 February 2002 everyone can send
a text-message from their mobile phone to the number 0(049).162.8951596,
which will then be displayed 24 hours later (anonymised and sanitised) on
three video screens in the underground station. for the people waiting for
their connection, these displays form a diary of the city, containing very
personal messages but also serious considerations, jokes and flashes of
inspiration.



the people's project
postfach 040124
d-10061 berlin

tel: [phone]
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www.thepeoplesproject.com