Realtime Stories – Mapping the Free Flow of Information Around the World in Realtime

Generative Net-Based Installation

Realtime Stories – Mapping the Free Flow of Information Around the World in Realtime is a net-based art installation consisting of four large wall-sized projections and eight audio channels.
Visitors can see and hear what’s happening in real-time around the world. Stories about people’s current day-to-day issues are visualized as an endless flow. Visitors realize how different lives are lived simultaneously. They observe and survey audio-visually stories and at the same time they can actively participate.

How it works
User Generated Content form several different social networks like Flicker, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube are retrieved in realtime, immediately after the user has clicked “send”. These posts are transferred and orchestrated into the exhibition space, multilingual and multicultural to an impressive audiovisual experience. Which issue in which language and from what continent or from which culture posts come from, are not relevant. The only criterion that matters is “novelty” and “live-ness”.

Background
In traditional photography- and video art, it’s an artist’s group or single artist who decides, what will be shown. Using user generated content, people all over the world receive a voice and share their thoughts and stories. In that way we are able to reflect our life, hopes, wishes and especially the culture of the younger generation much better. I believe this can have a wider and substantial meaning then traditional art.
The profound digital information and communication revolutions we are exposed to are unique in the history of mankind. How can we capture their scope? Where do we start? To understand the present situation, we give social network users a voice. They see things in the immediate vicinity. Their posts are personal points of views and a window to a changing world. As a gigantic sum they provide a comprehensive picture of the world. A mirror of our society. They create awareness and move the global perspective in the foreground.
Thereby social networks will neither be acclaimed nor despised. They will be treated with curiosity and acceptance. The visitors should be irritated, surprised and amazed, in order to start discussions among themselves and at the same time they can active participate by sending posts.