“The Telegarden is an art installation that allows web users to view and interact with a remote garden filled with living plants. Members can plant, water, and monitor the progress of seedlings via the tender movements of an industrial robot arm.”
From http://www.ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/garden/Ars/
The Telegarden (with regards to its description above) may sound like a typical school project by today standard. But I should draw your attention to the fact that this “typical” artwork was first introduced in 1995 — a period where domestic internet applications were still scarce and remote.
The contemporary online culture is something many of us have been taking for granted. But turning back the pendulum to the time where people are still paging one another, the internet relay system is barely practical. Sustaining 24-hour surveillance on a plant where viewers can remotely control a mechanical plant-nanny was breakthrough for the online relay system then. What is even more surprising is that such project has been sustaining till 2004 where it was then shut down. If it hasn’t, will it possibly last for decades? Very possible, considering the technology we have today.
In retrospect, such project may have potentially be one of the catalysts that pioneered the online relay streaming such as webcams, Skype or Facebook.
Meanwhile, back to current time, Goldberg’s idea of allowing multiple people to remotely contribute to what is streaming online has not gone obsolete and remains titillating.
Twitch Plays Pokemon is a project where anyone (literally anyone, no limitation on who or how many whatsoever) can input command for a video game Pokemon Red — streamed 24-7 via the online streaming service Twitch.
Like tossing a piece of meat into a piranha pond, chaos (and hilarity) ensues. For the first few hours, the community fights for control over the player character (often resulting in said character spinning in the same spot over and over). And like all mature adults, offensive words were tossed like salad in the online mosh pit. But the most astounding outcomes of this project were that the community actually comes to a consensus on how to progress the game. They have a vote on whether they go for the anarchic approach or the democratic approach. And in the end, the game was actually beaten in a few weeks. Considering the game complexity, length and the arbitrary nature of the online community, such results are nonetheless astounding.
Another great example will be Wafaa Bilal’s performance art project Domestic Tension in 2007. For 30 days, he will be streamed live via the internet for 24 hours. The catch is, he was confined to a room and viewers online can shoot him with a paintball machine he set up. Granted the message behind the project was noble – the true terror behind wars are the people who can fire the missiles in their comfort zone and something along that line. The result of such artwork was expectedly not pleasant. Let just say he left the room with a developed fear for paint.
The internet is an amazing (sometimes scary) tool for revealing a human condition — the willingness to participate if we are from a comfort zone not implicated by any collateral. If a common purpose is presented to us via a third party space such as the internet, there will always be someone contributing to what was asked of them. Anonymity and remote control, two ideas that drives people into participating– how far of the boundaries can we pushed?