Tunnels around the World telematically connect Mediacity Seoul 2012 with ZER01 Biennial at San Jose, The School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong, and numerous other sites around the world. While The Tunnel under the Atlantic and Paris New Delhi Tunnel, the original projects presented more than 10 years ago, used tens of highly powerful and expensive pieces of vintage electronics at each end of the Tunnel, and shared video, virtual reality through a single ISDN pipe, it is now possible to make it simple and accessible to anybody connected to the Net.
The participants literally dig into cultural matter, which are made of images from the French Reun ion des Musees Nationaux (RMN) database and also the participating institutions archives. Through this spectacular way of digging, physical space becomes a semantic space, and the physical distance between cities and players turns into a symbolic, cultural distance. People delve into the images of our cultural past, Just like delving inside one’s memory. However, the keenness shown by diggers expresses something more than the pleasure of creating space, which is in fact the will to meet the other on the opposite side. Theorists call this the phatic function of communication, which is dedicated to being in touch and maintaining the link with others. It is an ultimate human expression which goes beyond conveying message and meaning.
The spatial organisation is made by eGonomy (egonomy.net), a tool for discovery engines and applications based on serendipity thinking adapted to iconological data mining. Millions of pictures draw our time based psychological environment just by reacting to our feeling, hesitations, decisions and actions. Obstacles become break throughs, walls open cultural doors, and frontiers vanish, realizing a virtual and quite physical contact Interactive generative music composed by Jean-Baptiste Barrière intensifies this physical experience. Tunnels around the World are co-commissioned by Mediacity Seoul 2012 and ZER01 Biennial.
