Conversation au fil de l’eau

This installation comprises a system for transmitting short text messages through a local network that uses a water circuit to transport data and enables a chat for two participants simultaneously.

These messages are encoded as Morse air and water “packets” flowing in a tube. These are sucked up by a pump and sent to the receiving station to be decoded.

It goes without saying that this handcrafted and deliberately retrograde method will give rise to some errors in transmission and that these bugs are sources of twists and inspiration for participants and an integral part of the project.

With this communication device, we re-appropriate McLuhan iconic phrase : “the medium is the message”. We propose a “new” parodic and backward medium and observe its effect on the nature of the messages it conveys. This dual entity, medium (transmission process) and message (text production) is the heart of the artistic project.