[Nettime-bold] kick baby kick- baby play

"Baby Play" premiers at NTT/InterCommunication Center [ICC], Tokyo
A new Net installation by Shu Lea Cheang

June 22-July 29, 2001

For more information about "Baby Play," please visit: http://www.ntticc.or.jp

To participate in "Baby Play," please visit: http://babyplay.ntticc.or.jp

"Baby Play" interlinks a large-scale foosball field ("Baby Play" is derived
from the French name for foosball, "baby foot") with the Net as a ME-motion
(memory-emotion) playing field. "Baby Play" is installation 1.0 of
Cheang's "Locker Baby" project (2001-2002), which features three Net
installations based on a fictional scenario set in the year 2030. Produced
by the Dolly Polly Transgency (DPT) with genes extracted from deep sea
pearls, the clone generation of Locker Babies are born out of Tokyo coin
lockers and entrusted to retrieve our collective deposits of ME-motion data
on the Net.

"Baby Play" is comprised of an immense foosball playing field (15m x 7.5m),
22 inflatable designer locker babies (140cm in height), 8 playing rods (5m
in length), a large-scale projection and a "Baby Play" website. As local
gallery participants engage in a game of foosball, the image of the ball
bouncing in the actual playing field is sent to the ME-motion virtual field
on the Net. The movement of the ball in the actual playing field is
tracked by 36 touch sensors and sent to the "Baby Play" website where the
virtual moving ball retrieves sound and text files as ME-motion data. The
public is invited to utilize the 36 virtual lockers for data deposit and to
play ball on the Net.

Cheang, whose work netlinks physical and online spaces, has exhibited
at Walker Art Center (Bowling Alley 1995), ICC Biennal (Buy One Get One, 1997)
and created the Guggenheim Museum's first web based art project, entitled
"Brandon." (1998-1999). Baby Play marks her return to large scale net installation
after the release of her cyberporn feature film, "I.K.U." (2000).

A set of 36 essential sound data based on Ryu Murakami's
1980's novel "Coin Locker Babies" is contributed by Atau Tanaka.

Baby Play is curated by Hisanori Gogota at NTT[ICC].
For further information contact:
Hisanori Gogota <gogota@ntticc.or.jp>
or Julia Friedman <Info@juliafriedman.com>