ClickScape98 - net-project by Stadtwerkstatt/Linz-Austria

[stadtwerkstatt <gabriele.kepplinger@servus.at>]

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen!

I would like to inform you about the current Stadtwerkstatt project.

ClickScape98 - Views of Linz - Clickable Public Space

A large-scale communication sculpture controlled via the Internet
in the Danube area by the Nibelungen Bridge/Linz/Austria

http://www.servus.at/clickscape98
28 August - 13 September 1998, daily from 9:00 p.m. to midnight (CET)

The Stadtwerkstatt (http://www.servus.at/stwst) transforms the Danube area
by the Nibelungen Bridge into a Clickable Public Space. Interventions can
be made in this public space via the world wide data networks.

Electronic visitors coming to Linz via the Internet have an opportunity to
transmit their visual, audible and text messages online as an intervention
in the urban landscape of Linz. Every mouse click has an effect in real
space. You will find the elements you need for operation at
http://www.servus.at/clickscape98 

Guests in the Danube area in the center of Linz experience live how the
lights of the EA Generali building go on and off, how acoustic greetings
cross the Nibelungen Bridge and messages from cyberspace scroll across the
electronic display on the Stadtwerkstatt house.

Please come and visit! You just need your computer and Netscape 3.0. (or
higher version)

greetings from Linz/Austria

Gabriele Kepplinger
Stadtwerkstatt


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more information - ClickScape98


CLICKSCAPE98
VIEWS OF LINZ - CLICKABLE PUBLIC SPACE 

Visit Linz and change the city with a mouse click.

The Stadtwerkstatt transforms the Danube area around the Nibelungen Bridge
into a Clickable Public Space. A new node is created here at the crossroads
of the city, where the routes leading from north to south and from east to
west intersect. Interventions are made in this public space via the world
wide data networks.
A space for encounters between the real world and the virtual world opens
up here. Linz becomes the meeting place between cyberspace and reality.

With ClickScape98 - Views of Linz - electronic visitors online can click
into this space and communicate with Linz. Lights in the EA Generali office
building may be turned on and off with mouse clicks. Light signals appear
on the facade. Sounds may be deployed on the bridge - an audio experience.
The illuminated sign scrolling across the front of the Stadtwerkstatt
serves as a display for texts sent into this space.



Creating Views of Linz

Clickable Public Space - Clickscape 98 - Electronic visitors to the city of
Linz are given a new urban experience. Using mouse clicks and the keyboard,
they can create their own views of Linz. As tourists they are not merely
passive admirers of the local sights, but may become actively involved in
creating them. The visitor's creative activity may then be viewed via live
images from Webcams transmitting the results of the interventions back to
the data network. This enables the Internet tourist to create his or her
own personalized "postcard."

For the inhabitants of Linz, on the other hand, the electronic visitor is
not just another hit in the Web statistics, but actually becomes visibly,
audibly, legibly perceptible. Observers on site can experience live how
visitors come to Linz via the Internet.

A large public space becomes an interface. Images, sounds, texts that are
fed into the Internet do not just vanish in cyberspace. Nor do they appear
merely on the surface of the computer interface. They are actually
perceptible as interventions in real physical space. One space expands into
the other. The little surface of the monitor expands into the
three-dimensional space of the city. Physically real spaces and virtual
spaces and with their inhabitants become interwoven.



CLICKABLE PUBLIC SPACE 
						
- you can use: images, sounds, texts:

Image
Pixel graphics on the facade of the EA Generali office building

Every window at the front of the EA Generali office building is equipped
with a light source the can be switched on and off. A Webcam is focused on
the building. It transmits a live image to the Internet. When a visitor
clicks on one of the windows in the building with the mouse, this triggers
a switch that turns the light either on or off. In this way, the front of
the building can be decorated like pixel graphics. 8 floors with 13 windows
each, a perpendicular rectangle with 104 lights that can be turned on and
off forms the drawing board. The electronic visitor to Linz creates his or
her own picture, leaving a personal code behind on the building. Patterns,
ornaments, signs appear. Even animations are possible. Several people at a
time can playfully participate in developing each ongoing image composition
by separately clicking on the windows. However a Web interface matrix also
makes it possible to design an image for the facade and send it to the
building as a whole.

Building art in the era of the information society with its digital and
electronic network world.


Sound  
A sound runs across the bridge 

A pressure chamber loudspeaker is mounted on each lamp post on the east
side of the Nibelungen Bridge. Each of these loudspeakers can be
individually controlled via the Internet. A selection of sounds are
available at the Web site, which may be assigned to the loudspeakers in any
way that the electronic visitor desires. This enables electronic visitors
in Linz to send acoustic messages to passers-by on the bridge. There is
also a sequencer on the Web page. Net users can use it to write their own
compositions with the available sounds and hear them during a virtual walk
across the bridge before sending them off for a performance. The reactions
of the passers-by may be observed by means of several Webcams on the same
side of the bridge.

Net visitors can take a sonorous walk across the bridge with passers-by.


Text  
"Wild Ivy" - the electronic moving illuminated sign on the Stadtwerkstatt
- growing profusely. 

Using an input interface in the Web browser, electronic visitors to Linz
can post a text to the moving sign. A message from the Internet to the
people of Linz on site. Texts entered by electronic visitors are lined up
in the input field of the Web site, where all Net users can see them, and
wander one after another across the sign. It is similar to a chat. Another
Webcam is focused on the Stadtwerkstatt building, tracking both the "Wild
Ivy" and the people in the square in front of the building.

The invisible person from cyberspace speaks up in the urban landscape of Linz.






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Stadtwerkstatt, Kirchengasse 4, A-4040 Linz
tel. ++43-(0)732-731209
fax. ++43-(0)732-711846
mail: stwst@servus.at
web: http://www.servus.at/stwst
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