I connect, I communicate, I dominate, therefore I am.
Suck my code, baby!
They are already drawing much less attention than before, but the MUDs en MOOs of the nineties were then the clearest exponents of the new electronic space. Text-based virtual environments where users (and the connotation with junkies is not entirely out of place here) could unleash their creativity and personality. In 'Lovehotel…' Linda Wallace uses the experiences of Francesca da Rimini – which she describes in her book 'Fleshmeat' – as the starting point for an exploration of the origin of new locations for interaction. Increasingly, public space is suffused with media: entry and exit points in the shape of terminals and ATMs grant access to dataspace, cellular phones are merging electronic with physical space. The structures of the electronic media are beginning to show even in the way our lives and living spaces are designed and planned. In a mixture of old and new technology and video material disguised as computer data Wallace presents a layered image of public space as it is transforming. She shows us images of media in an everyday context but literally overwrites them with meandering thoughts by an entity from the virtual domain. Fragments of text scroll across the screen, emphasizing an embarrassing lack of control. Images flicker past as if we watch them on a badly calibrated monitor. In 'Lovehotel…' the dawn of the new is greeted with some reluctance. Wallace quotes exciting passages from Da Rimini's erotic encounters in LambdaMOO – Puppet mistress shows her slaves her virtual boudoir. At the same time she communicates the feeling that the new has secretly invaded our lives and is changing familiar codes and conventions beyond repair. The relationships we enter into in this new domain are from a new, as yet hardly recognizable order. Enter: Dollyoko…
– Geert-Jan Strengholt |
Sound: Jason Gee
Text, voice: Francesca da Rimini 'Fleshmeat'
With thanks to: Australian Film Commission
Linda Wallace, 1960, Sidney (Australia)
Lives and works in Sydney and Canberra (Australia)
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