Künstlerhaus Mousonturm | FFM | Plateaux-Festival | 23.-26.10.2003

PING was an interactive installation spreading over four days, continously updating the system.

PING concenctrated recollections of a connection or state of desire / tried to establish the connection beyond framing time or space / searched for he/she we want to meet / piled fragments of four avatars without memory and makes their spaces alive up to overgrowth / was a chat-installation about and with four specialists, working through the visitor on-site and a community in the internet / worked like a synthesizer: made to reproduce the alreday known it however constantly produced surprises

"In PING you getthe possibilty to participate in the creation of four virtual figures (avatars) that should become specialists in the subjects of knowledge (feeding), therapy (fleeing), force (fighting) and sex (fucking). Process these themes in the forum up to oktober 17th and be a part of the performance, beginning at oktober 23rd, where you can talk to the figures in the chatroom or feed their collection of materials in the plots at the Mousonturm in Frankfurt. Maybe you dare to jump from the desktop into the streets and visit the plots in the station to control one of the figures in the chat?"

Technical order of events at the performance
The station at the Mousonturm inhabited four plots with chatdesks interlinkend to a chat-character. Material about the avatars was exposed in the plots, sent in by members of the redirected-community. A film introduced the four fields as a summary of the postings of the forum (see below). A reference desk served as the whereabouts for the administrators. A server stood there and was collecting the incoming material, that is in real-time alloted to the avatars' plots.
The spectator could sit down at the desk in a plot and use the chatinterface to communicate with other visitors/chatters/figures. Only at the venue could the visitor put on the virtual chat-identity of an avatar, melt in his own personality and write in his own desire.
The virtual chatroom was also open to the outside - the redirected-community. Members of the community als hadthe possibility to discuss the themes in a forum and contribute to the avatar`s materialization / organization of the plots by injecting material via net, e-mail, fax or mail through the interface of the redirected-hompage. While the actual state of the digital collection could be followed up continously, the material in the plots could only be watched via webcam. The cams could be moved by the visitors when an internet-user has asked for.