I presented various manifestations of the project at the International Symposium on Electronic Arts (ISEA) which took place in Durban from the 23rd to the 30th of June 2018, thanks to support by the Bremen-Durban Partnership association and the Peoples Smart Sculpture Project.
Over the course of the symposium I was involved in several activities, such as a workshop on the potential of projections in public space together with the PS2 Project and Elektro Moon Vision, a panel discussion and a Pecha Kucha presentation, several collaborations with local artists and initiatives such as the AmaSosha Art Movement and the HopOn project and the final PS2 MashUp at the City Hall.
Also I developed two installations which were based on my previous research during the travel in 2017. The first one was exhibited at the KZNSA Gallery, where the route of the SEACOM submarine internet cable was projected onto a wall on the outside of the gallery. Passengers were confronted with the question “What is the Internet for You?” and invited to send their answers via email to a specialized email server in Bremen. The route of every received email was analysed and visualized as a mixture of technical details and subjective impressions of the travel of the data packages. Over time a collection of thoughts, answers and conversations is built up, that changes the behaviour of the whole system. The project aimed to trigger discussions and interactions about a global phenomenon based on a local example.
The second installation took place at the beach in front of the uShaka Marine world and inside the aquarium. Inspired by the visit at the cable station in Mtunzini and the way how the digital information cross underneath the sand and diffuse into the ocean, a large strip of moving light particles was projected onto the beach. This was extended through mobile projections into different underwater tanks inside the aquarium.
