Victoria Vesna: cellular trans_actions: 091101

Cellular trans_actions consists of a series of works that look at our relationship to time, the constant interruptions, and how the rupture of private and public spaces changes us.

Cell phones are central to the interactions created in public spaces, amplifying issues related to our shifting perception of self. Another aspect of this work is to raise awareness of patterns that occur in technology and nature, in particular the hexagonal shapes that are also at the core of cellular communication technology. During the performances, attention shifts quickly from the artist as the central persona to the audience that is distributed with many simultaneous voices. People are given numbers of others and through the mediation of the cell phone, talk to strangers that they would normally not have more than superficial conversations with.
The installations are site and time specific, recording the flavor of a particular geographic and social location. People who are the main organizers of the event become central personas to the piece. At the Edith Russ Media Haus, the main collaborators are: Dörthe Bührmann; Jan-Peter Sonntag; Jens Thiele; Nadine Brandorff; Sabine Grote; Rosanne Altstatt; Helene von Oldenburg; Paula von Sydow, Frank Möcklinghoff and Andreas Piehl.

I arrived to Oldenburg on September 11th, the day of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the US. The combination of lack of sleep and jet-lag made this tragedy seem like a bad nightmare that I wanted to wake up from. Unfortunately, this event was very real and impact on the rest of the world is very real too. Like everyone else, I was following the news every waking hour, in disbelief, shock and horror. It was really impossible for me to think of much else, and I found it particularly difficult to focus on the idea of virtual avatars.

Watching in horror the documentation, I found that the most disturbing images were of people falling from the buildings. They made me feel that we are so small, so powerless. On the other hand, the people who conducted this horrible act are few. What makes them powerful is that they work as a distributed network, with no center. Technology has made this possible and I wonder if the same can happen will all the people who are opposed to the calls of war that are coming from the US?

I started asking myself many questions: Could this event trigger World War 3? I believe that ever event has its opposite, every action a reaction, so why is it so difficult to imagine something positive of equal magnitude happening in the world? And, in relation to the theme of this show, I thought about the false identities that the people assumed who committed this act of violence. I wondered what kind of personas we would assume now if we wanted to imagine changing this situation - one of a warrior or a peacemaker? And, what was the cause of this event?

During my residence here, in a very short time I developed an entirely new version of the cellular trans_actions: 091101. I was driven by sadness and fear, and wanted to create a space for others to respond and to share their feelings and opinions. I took the images from television and degraded them completely, so much so that they could be from any part of the world that has suffered the same kind of violence. These could be images from Hiroshima, the Gulf War, Panama, Guatemala, Kosovo, Chechnya… A person stands in front of this backdrop and is mirrored by the camera streaming their reflection on the Internet. The delay of the mirror image varies, depending on the net traffic. On the third projection are the questions that I was asking myself and the audience during the opening night cell phone performance.

The opening night of this show was on September 14th, the day of mourning that was observed in the US and by many in the Western world, I asked the audience to consider this and talk to each other about it via their cell phones, in German. These conversations were streamed live and recorded for later access on the web site that accompanies this piece. I hope the dialogue continues during the entire duration of the show and beyond. A telephone number for this purpose was established by the Edith Russ Site for Media Art. The number can be called on cell phones in the installation, in which case they would stream live, or from a private location, anonymously. These recordings will also be archived on the web site.

Victoria Vesna