New Criticals

"The art work explores warped perceptions of place and physical distance in the digital age. The footage, filmed on an infrared camera as a reference to the infrared laser light that’s transmitted through fibreoptic cables, is hosted on a website with a server in Sydney. In order for the footage to reach your computer screen, it’s converted into infrared light, which coincidentally travels through cables at the same location depicted in the videos. Additionally, each clip’s URL doubles as GPS coordinates of the filming location, which the viewer can virtually tour by pasting it into Google Maps. The fact that the work is presented online only, of course, also affects the way the viewer experiences the work — it’ll likely be open on your browser amid countless other tabs; maybe you’ll only watch five seconds of a slow, boring clip before being distracted by a cat video or a Facebook comment; this, too, is intentional."

Carey Dunne in A Pioneering Net Artist Mourns the Unfulfilled Promise of the Internet