<nettime> CARRY ON press release

[shu lea cheang <shulea@earthlink.net>]

PRESS RELEASE

CARRY ON
http://www.cat-connect.de/CARRYON

Media artist Shu Lea Cheang presents her participatory internet
installation "CARRY ON"  conceived and designed specifically for
International Women's University (IFU) that takes place for the first time
in Germany from July, 15th until October 15th, 2000. 
(http://www.vifu.de). The system design and development for CARRY ON was
made possible through the support of IMK:MARS/GMD as part of their CAT
(Communication, Art & Technology network) initiative. 
(http://imk.gmd.de/mars) 

Under the theme of "Technology and Culture", 9oo postgraduate students
coming from 115 countries do interdisciplinary work in six Project areas:
Body, City, Information, Migration, Water and Work.  CARRY ON requests
participating students to each pack a self-sustained suitcase (actually or
virtually) for uploading onto the Net through airport Hi-Scan machine and
invites Net Public as Inspectors to "hand check" the X-rayed suitcases
item by item for its information URL links. By virtualizing the custom
practice of passport patrol and suitcase inspection at border crossing,
CARRY ON investigates the national and electronic border patrol, the
european politics of immigration, the increased surveillance through
digital media and the infodata overload on the Net.  Playing with the
pleasure to inspect the private sphere CARRY ON also acts on /subverts the
seemingly obvious reference between a visual impression and its
contained/transfered information. 

The initial plan for CARRY ON was to 'stage' suitcase packaging and
inspection as public performance with students and migrant communities at
EXPO 2000's high security environment or at the airports in Hannover and
Hamburg. The request to work with Heimann Systems' Hi-Scan machines
(http://www.heimannsystems.com) had to be forwarded to BUNDESMINISTERIUM
DES INNERN (Federal Ministry of Internal Affaires of Germany). After
months of negotiation, the request was denied on the ground of "these
images could possibly give information about how to circumvent measures
taken for the protection of attacks on the security of air traffic". 

The CARRY ON project is currently in residency with IFU's project area
Migration in Hannover and project area Information in Hamburg University. 

Shu Lea Cheang is a digital migrant worker. Her internet installation
works are commissioned and permanently collected by Walker Art Center
(Bowling Alley, 1995), NTT/ICC, Tokyo (Buy One Get One, 1997) and
Guggenheim Museum (Brandon, 1998-1999). 
http://brandon.guggenheim.org/shuleaWORKS

CARRY ON is organized by Barbara Loreck, ART CONCEPT, IFU Press contact:
loreck@ifu-hannover.de, kreutzner@ifu.niedersachsen.de

***note: the inspection applet of CARRY ON is only applicable
with Netscape 4.5 up on PC and with Explorer 4.5 up on MAC
  (with MRJ 2.2.2 installed)



#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net